You’re absolutely in the perfect industry to make the most of free software like Canva.
Canva is image-led, much like salons, spas and wellbeing businesses, and gives businesses a fantastic opportunity to use their own images in a way that really boosts their social media and more. I love Canva; one of these days I’m going to design my own little magazine in it, although I might need a few more hours in a day to get to grips with just how creative you can be.
Canva is a really easy bit of software to use, and if you don’t actually have any salon images you want to use, there’s nothing to stop you using one of theirs or perhaps adding a stock image you’ve paid for. You can then customise it with text, layouts and more and use your design wherever you want to promote your business.
Images are massive on social media right now – Instagram easily rivals Facebook, especially with younger users, and a well-chosen image can do a lot to promote your salon.
How does Canva work?
In a nutshell; open a free account and you’ll find a page with a button on asking you to create a design. A page a bit like this one:
Once you’re in the create page you’ll get some options for what you want to design. As you can see there are loads to choose from, including social media, eBooks and magazines. I could spend HOURS playing with those.
Next, you add bits to your image. So, the layout – to the left there’s lots of pretty layouts designed by Canva which you can add your own images to.
Here’s one I designed using a set template for Facebook, for Wingz. I took images of the prizes we were offering for the Wingz Hamper competition and uploaded them, then added them to the template with the Wingz logo and some text. Simple but effective.
Once you’re done, there’s an option to share or download your image. All the images you create are saved on your page so that you can re-use them if you need to.
I recommend that you always add your logo to your Canva images so that you brand all the images you create and make them instantly recognisable to people online. It won’t matter if you’re sharing an image, offer or news on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, if you have your salon’s logo on all of your social media channels, leaflets and blogs it builds up recognition of your business and what you do. Using an app like Canva to create professional looking images gives you a head start – Nike and Pepsi will tell you that brand recognition is everything!
Announcing salon news on Facebook
If you’ve got a fabulous new offer on, a brand new product line or something you want people to know about, one nifty little trick you can use is the Facebook cover change. Canva has templates for all sorts of images so if you fancy shouting about what you’re up to at the top of your Facebook page, just design a new cover announcing the big news and watch people respond to it. Remember that whenever you change your Facebook cover, it also appears in your News Feed so this doubles the coverage.
What image sizes work best?
The advice from Canva is that on Facebook they love a square shaped image, and Instagram is also perfect for a square pic. If you’re posting specifically to Pinterest, experiment with vertical images, too…Google+ loves both (but I’m still waiting for Google+ to actually catch on…)
There’s a handy click through on the Canva page where you can learn to design, and also one for useful design inspiration. I just got creative with it and learned as I went along.
If you want to see how the experts do it – there’s a handy video right here