do you need to create social media
images for work school or for your
personal life we'll show you how to use
canva an online graphic design tool to
quickly create eye-catching images for
your social media posts let's begin by
going to canva.com first you'll need to
create a free account you have the
option to sign up with your Google or
Facebook account or set up an account
using your email address I'll go ahead
and sign up with my Google account a
window may appear asking you to sign up
for a paid canva account but you can
skip this and close the window by
clicking here canva gives you many
options for creating designs at my son's
school we have a bake sale coming up and
I like to promote it on Facebook so
let's choose Facebook post
a box may appear with instructions feel
free to read it or click the X to close
it you can scroll through the templates
or use the search bar to help narrow
down your choices since we'll be selling
cupcakes at the bake sale let's type in
cupcakes and see what we come up with
think about which template would make
your audience stop scrolling through
Facebook to look at your post I'm
searching for one that will appeal to
kids and families then just click the
template to begin now that we've found a
great template let's make a few changes
to customize it since canvas templates
are already attractive and easy to read
we won't change much I noticed that this
one has a canva watermark which means
it's a paid photo I bet we can find a
free one to replace it let's select this
photo and click the trash icon at the
top of the page to remove it at this
point you could choose to upload your
own photo this is great if you have a
business and want to showcase your
products or location or you can click
photos to select one of canvas free
stock images let's type cupcakes in the
search bar to look for a photo that will
work for us most of these options are
free but you'll notice that some of them
are paid
these pink cupcakes look like a good
option you can resize the photo by
dragging the corner or side handles
depending on how you size it it might
also crop the image to fit you can make
further adjustments by clicking crop on
the menu and move the image around in
the frame
then click done I notice that the photo
is now in front of the white rectangle
I'd like to move it behind we can fix
that by going up to position on the menu
bar
clicking backward will move the photo
behind the white rectangle
this is looking good now it's time to
change the text let's change the title
first we'll just highlight the text and
type some new text
hmm Elementary doesn't quite fit
now we could drag this handle to make
the textbox wider but that's going to
decrease the amount of margin around the
text and make the design less appealing
I would actually recommend that you keep
the text boxes where they are and adjust
the font size until the text fits in the
menu bar you can choose from the preset
options or feel free to type in any
value
let's try 45 that fits much better we'll
go ahead and change the text above and
below the title I want to let people
know who's hosting the sale and why
we're raising money we want to keep this
pretty short while still giving people
enough information
I also want to let people know when the
bake sale is we've got a bit of space
below this text so let's add it there
after this we won't add any more text
since many people will be reading this
on their phones and we want to make sure
it will be easy to read at this point
take a minute to look at it to make sure
that everything looks correct and that
it's easy to read if you can have
someone else check it too when you're
happy with your project you can either
publish it directly to the social media
platform or you can download it I'm
going to download it and then I can post
it to Facebook later next you can choose
your preferred file type a ping file
works for us so we'll click download
again
also be aware that canva may try again
to get you to sign up for a paid account
you can click continue editing to return
to your design later on if you'd like to
edit your design or use it as a template
to create a new one you can find it by
clicking all your designs
now that you know how to create a social
media image in canva you're ready to
start on your own project we encourage
you to check out the home page and
experiment with creating different types
of images
GCF global creating opportunities for a
better life