As a business owner, creating content for your business is incredibly important. In particular, high-quality visuals and graphics can make your content more appealing to your viewers. Photo or video content is particularly effective for engaging your audience, especially on platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest. Visuals can also add value to your blog content – blogs with visuals get 94% more views than those without.
Finding time to create content among all the other tasks you have to perform can be challenging as a business owner. Therefore, you have two options for creating content: do it yourself or outsource to someone else. Agency 8 offers content creation services, so be sure to book a call with us if you want to learn more about how we can help.
However, hiring an individual or agency to create your content may be outside your budget. In that case, the strategy outlined in this blog article can help you easily create visual content for your business at little to no cost.
What is Canva?
Canva is an intuitive design platform that makes batch-creating content for these platforms easy. The platform provides hundreds of templates, so you can easily customize anything you need for your business—from banners and flyers to logos and infographics. Canva’s templates make it easy to quickly create visually stunning graphics and images for your social media or other uses.
Canva is available for free, with some limitations on features, images, and templates that you can use. At Agency 8, we use Canva all the time. We recently upgraded to a premium account to help with demand from our clients. However, we were able to operate using only the free version for a few years. Therefore, if you’re working on a low budget, you can still use this method and create beautiful designs with a free Canva account.
What does it mean to batch-create content?
Batch-creating content means creating several designs in one sitting. This can save you a lot of time if you have multiple pieces of content to make. With Canva, creating templates for your graphics or images and then duplicating them with slight modifications to adjust the text or image used is easy. You can also easily change colors and font sizes at the click of a button.
As a social media manager, batch-creating content enables me to schedule content in advance, so I don’t have to worry about consistency. As a business owner, batch-creating content allows you to dedicate some time to creating content all at once, so you don’t have to worry about a big lull in your social media presence. Business owners always come to me explaining that they were consistent for a while, and then it got challenging to keep up, and they dropped off. Batch content creation enables you to remain consistent.
When to batch-create content
The easiest content to batch-create in this content is that which you want to look consistent across your social media. I use this technique when creating quote cards for my clients. Suppose you’re working on something like an infographic. In that case, you might need to be more involved in the individual designs. Therefore, there may be better options than batch content creation.
Batch-creating content is great for:
- Testimonials
- Statistics
- Quote cards
- Words of wisdom
- Product facts or uses
How to use Canva to batch-create content
You can easily batch-create content on Canva in just a few steps. In this example, I use images, but this can also be done with videos in Canva.
Step One: Figure out the copy for your content
The first step to batch-creating content is to figure out what messages you will share. If I batch-create content, I operate simultaneously with 5-8 pieces. So, the first step is to figure out the copy for those 5-8 pieces.
Let’s say we want to create five quote cards for social media. One of our clients hosts a podcast, so we will batch-create content with quotes from past shows and guests. If you have a list of existing quotes or some of your personal quotes, you can skip the next part and go straight to step two.
If you need inspiration, I like to turn to Pinterest as a source. There are many quotes on the platform, and you can easily pull a few you like. I have a Pinterest board of motivational quotes you can check out to find motivational quotes to use.
Choose quotes that stand out to you, and you’re ready to go to step two!
Step Two: Put your content into a spreadsheet
The next step to batch-creating content in Canva is organizing your content into a spreadsheet. Any spreadsheet platform will do, but I personally use Google Sheets.
In the first column, add a header in the first row. Canva will not include the content in this first row, so leave the quote out. Additionally, having a title makes it easier to identify the content down the road in one of the future steps.
Remember to always give credit to whoever said the quote. In this case, the quotes I chose were all “anonymous,” so I did not include them. Also, be sure to refrain from taking credit for the quotes of others.
Step Three: export your spreadsheet as a . CSV file
Next, download your spreadsheet as a comma-separated values (. CSV) file.
Step Four: Open Canva and choose a template
This step can be more time-consuming if you’re new to Canva or are like me and need help deciding on the perfect template.
It’s important at this stage to keep your intended platform in mind. Suppose you’re creating content for Instagram, for example. In that case, the aspect ratio will differ if you’re creating content for Facebook. Canva allows you to search for templates based on the platform and will provide plenty of examples in the ideal format.
If you’re having trouble choosing a good template, one strategy is to choose one that makes you stop scrolling and catches your eye. If a template does this for you, it will likely do so for your viewers. Additionally, at this stage, it’s important to note that you might have to make changes to each graphic if you include visuals.
Once you’ve chosen a template, click on it. This will open a closer look at the template. From there, click “Customize this template.”
Step Five: Make preliminary changes to your template
This point is a good time to modify your template if you desire. Any elements, photos, or text that you add at this stage will be duplicated into your future designs.
Here are some things you can do at this stage to make it easier down the road:
- Add your logo
- Change the colors to match your branding
- Include your company name
- Change the font or font size
Step Six: Click on Bulk Create and upload your data
In Canva’s editing screen, you will see a toolbar on the left with several options. To find bulk-create, click the icon with nine small squares labeled “Apps.”
You can search for “bulk create” in the search bar or scroll down to “More from Canva.
Once you find bulk create, open it and click “Upload CSV.” Then, find the CSV file you created with your copy and upload it to Canva.
Next, right-click on the design segment where you want your content to populate. In this case, I’ll right-click on the text box and select “Connect Data,” and then choose the “Quotes” CSV I created.
Then press continue on the lefthand side of your screen. If done properly, this will pull up a numbered list of the quotes or other content you created in the CSV. Click “Generate” to trigger Canva to open a new window with your new design.
Step Seven: Make any modifications and changes you desire, and then export
Batch-creating content isn’t always perfect, so you might have to make slight changes depending on your chosen template. For example, if you chose a template with photos, you could use different images for different designs to make them slightly different.
Once you’re happy with your design, you can download your design. Please note that it will save it as a ZIP file. Double-click this file to see your individual designs.
Conclusion
Batch content creation is an excellent way to ensure you’re consistent online. Canva makes it easy to do so. Follow the seven steps outlined in this article, and you’ll have beautiful content ready to share with your audience!
With batch-creating content, you can save time without compromising on quality. Give it a try today!
