If you haven’t tried Canva yet, prepare to have your mind BLOWN and grease the tracks ‘cause the wheels in your head will start turning thinking about all the ways you can use Canva to up-level your marketing (without blowing the budget on a bunch of fancy programs or a designer!). In this quick video, I’ll walk you through the basics of Canva by showing you how to create your very first Instagram post.

Your Instagram account is only as good as the amount of engagement it gets. Take a moment and let that sink in! We all love a pretty feed, but unless you’re completely uninterested in getting leads from social media (and chances are, if you’re tech savvy enough to be reading this, that’s not you), you need to create posts that encourage engagement. Enter carousel posts.

The carousel post format works brilliantly for stats, tips, and other content that paints you as the expert in your field AND adds value for the viewer. This is the type of content your followers are most likely to save and share. Instagram favours carousel posts because it knows they result in more engagement – and you should too! This tutorial will show you just how easy it is to DIY your first carousel post for Instagram right in Canva.

You don’t need a design background or a ton of spare time to become a successful DIY marketer – in fact, it may just be the best thing you ever did for your biz! Here’s why DIY marketing might be the right choice for you…

It’s important to have a logo that you can use consistently across your marketing materials and social media, even if it’s just your name. You’ll immediately look more professional, and it’ll help your audience with brand recognition (kinda essential nowadays!).

Brand imagery is a really important part of conveying your brand style. Think about it: If your brand is all about luxury like, say, Chanel or Rolex, you definitely don’t want to select images that are boho (and vice versa!). But it can be really hard and time consuming to find the perfect image on the spot. The solution? Curating your brand imagery in advance and using Canva to store your library of on-brand photos! (I mean, obviously…)

Once you have your brand assets hammered out (*gasp* You don’t? What are you waiting for?! Take the Brand Style quiz to get started!), it’s time to put all those pretty visuals into a nice, neat brand board. This is a quick and easy, one-page document you can hand off to anyone who needs an at-a-glance peek into your brand, like photographers, marketers, graphic designs, and especially new team members who might not understand your unique brand aesthetic (yet!).