The pandemic affecting the world today has forced rapid changes to everyone’s lifestyle. Mandatory quarantines have pushed many into isolation indoors, and those doing essential work need to abide by strict social distancing protocols.
Unfortunately, these extraordinary circumstances are more likely than not to have a negative impact on individuals’ mental health. According to professionals writing in Psychology Today, the coronavirus has caused a spike in anxiety and fear due to worries about the spread of the disease, financial repercussions, and misinformation. Isolation from lockdown measures can also potentially increase feelings of boredom, anger, and depression. According to them, healing will require education, self-compassion, and understanding.
For brands, that means you need to practice and communicate empathy rather than focusing completely on selling. But it’s inadvisable to shut off social media activity completely. Instead, use it for motivational posts—inspirational quotes motivate us through implicit coaching, letting us build self-efficacy and resilience to life’s obstacles. The marketing expertise of Benjamin David Group can help you focus on your customers’ needs. They can help your messaging to demonstrate how much you care. They understand how to be vulnerable and provide authentic messaging that demonstrates empathy in their content.
Here are the best apps you can use to do just that.
1. Instasize
For social media creatives who want to pair their motivational quotes with a polished, classy atmosphere, Instasize is a great fit. This is one of those mobile filter apps that provide users with quick and intuitive photo editing. Instasize can bring photos through the whole editing process, from cropping and resizing, adjusting tones and color through filters and sliders, all the way to adding final text and borders. You can choose to load and edit any photo saved on your phone, or take completely new ones right in the app.
It’s available to download for free on both the App Store and Google Play, with all features intact. Users who want more extensive content packs can also purchase a premium subscription.
2. Canva
The popular design website, also available on mobile, aims to give everyone, designer or not, the resources they need to create beautiful designs. Canva provides an array of pre-made templates, graphic assets, and text options in a simple drag-and-drop interface. Users can also upload their own assets to put together designs inside the tool.
It also comes with bundled font pairings, making text choices for your motivational quotes a no-brainer. Users who want the freedom to try out different styles and create their own social media layouts from scratch, but who don’t have much experience in programs like Photoshop, can definitely hit their stride in Canva.
3. PicCollage
While the app functions primarily as a means of creating personalized greeting cards for friends and family, with a little creativity savvy social media marketers can use PicCollage as a motivational quote maker as well. As the name suggests, its main features surround making fun collages to highlight sets of photos, including allowing you to cut out subjects and place them against a different backdrop for a more scrapbook-style feel.
For creators who want to get a bit more informal, but still uplifting, combining these options with stickers and font choices can really bring a motivational image post together.
4. Made
Instagram Stories are an effective way to build engagement and keep a community of social media followers interested. Brands with a devoted Stories following can turn to Made, an editor and collage maker that doubles as a storytelling kit. Since Stories are temporary, and users look forward to viewing a new one each day, an app like this helps save time and resources with content creation.
More than 30 minimalist templates and backgrounds combine with a story board to put a twist on motivational quotes—potentially turning them from one-off sayings into pieces of a larger whole. Download it for free on the App Store or on Google Play.
5. PicsArt
Another popular photo editor on the app marketplace is PicsArt. Want your motivational posts to have some kick? Spice up the accompanying images with this app to make them more eye-catching on feeds. Billed as an all-in-one editing tool, what makes PicsArt stand out from the crowd (and a popular choice online) is their set of additional options like brush stickers, one-tap effects, and layer mixing for double exposure. Try the app for a fun way to experiment with what you can do with plain images and get your messages across.
Coping can be difficult in the time of the pandemic. The news may not exactly be brimming with positive affirmations and developments. Combine that with the struggles everyone is facing right now, whether personal or financial, and you can understand the possibility that some may think scrolling through social media is a chore that does more harm than good.
However, with the right social media tools in your pocket (and on your phone), you can easily make someone’s day by giving them the brief reprieve they need in the middle of these anxieties.
