Dive into the magic of Canva and the opportunities you have with the premium access.
Canva is an easy to use online platform for creating a wide variety of content. Through Canva you can create and edit images, videos, presentations and documents quickly and without much prior knowledge or experience.
Canva is free to use with an option for a Pro account which gives you access to many advanced features. oikos International can provide your chapter with an account that is a part of the ‘oikos Community’ team on Canva which gives you access to all its premium features.
As previously mentioned, Canva is free to use and you may have already had the chance to work with it for your chapter’s needs. In that case you can use that same account for your chapter as part of ‘oikos Community’ team on Canva and use the premium features, while also having access to earlier designs you created on the same account. Otherwise you can select an email address that your chapter members have access to and create a shared Canva account for your chapter on the ‘oikos Community’ team, through which you’ll be able to also access the premium features.
After you’ve decided which email address/account you’d like to access the Canva Pro, reach out to our communications team at marketing@oikos-international.org, and they’ll set you up, providing further support if needed.
oikos Brand kit - the brand kit for oikos and it’s initiatives is available to you as part of the ‘oikos Community’ Canva Team. When editing your designs, you can always find it on the left side of your screen in the ‘Brand Kit’ tab.
oikos Templates - there’s a set of pre-made templates based on the oikos branding that you can use to create visuals you need or use it a inspiration for your own design. These templates are especially useful if you have little experience with working with visuals or simply need to create content in a short snippet of time.
Canva Pro Templates - Canva offers thousands of unique templates for all kinds of designs, which you can access for free with your chapter’s shared Canva Pro account.
Know you aspect ratios - for the best experience both online and offline, make sure that you’re using the right formats.
The most widely used format on the internet is 16:9 which fits the most social media and websites, and all-in-all you can almost never go wrong with it. The ideal dimensions for 16:9 aspect ratio in our experience is 1920x1080.
An important exception you’ll find are Instagram posts, which are recommended in 1:1 aspect ratio, in 1080x1080 dimensions.
If you’re creating stories, reels, TikToks or Shorts you’ll want to use 9:16 aspect ratio. Don’t forget that Canva Pro covers most if not all pre-made aspect ratios which you can easily find when creating your design.
Buffer is a free tool that allows you to manage all your social media accounts on the same platform. There are many tools similar to Buffer but at oikos we like Buffer best because it’s free! :)
It is really simple to use and has two main advantages:
It allows you to prepare your social media posts, schedule them in advance, all in one place and save you time instead of going separately on each platform.
You can share it within your chapter to collaborate on posts or get feedback.
You can link your Canva account with Buffer, which allows you to quickly create new or edit existing visually appealing posts through Canva, without leaving the page.
Explore further on the following link: https://buffer.com/
❓ : how can you get YOUR message through when people are overflowing with information?
“Considering your audience, what information do you want to share and the best way to share it to ensure that the message is understood and, most importantly, inspire action?” - Maxime
☁️ Take a minute to think about what personally touches you and moves you to take action? ☁️
Now next time you write a communication piece for your chapter, think about the following questions:
What do you want a person to feel when they read/see the post (e.g. excitement, reflection, urgency)?
What key information do I want them to remember (e.g. statement, number)?
What action do I want them to take (e.g. : register for an event or just share it in their story)?
Some rules for... getting views and retaining attention on your video content:
Shorter is better! Here again you want to make sure information is concise and your video gives either interesting information in the first seconds, or teases the user to stay a little longer to listen to the whole video.
Check your quality! You want to upload high quality content - check it beforehand to avoid any glitchy part of the video - low audio quality, bad lighting etc. Take advantage of the built-in app editor to cut some parts and enhance your video!
Put yourself out there! You might feel a little shy to go on camera but it is important to feel confident, speak in a clear voice and allow your facial expressions to also be part of the story.
Be authentic! You want to appear natural and speak with words that resonate to you, authenticity is more important than a perfect diction or pronunciation.
Use subtitles! Be inclusive to the deaf community but also to non-native English speakers that might understand better written English. TikTok has its own auto-captions for example, but you could also use free apps like CapCut.
Make a nice snippet! If a user visits your profile you want them to be able to easily identify what the video is about - add a bit of text and a pic in a nice frame.
oikos content inspiration:
Testimonies: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CuABFK3tdcJ/
Team presentation: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqTGMHcpEaS/
Climate change reporting: https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChudYXYLbqT/
Be bold. Play. You are welcome.😉
: people spend on average 2.5 hours a day on social media (a little crazy right?) !
: by using Impact Communication!
Keep it short!
The next challenge might be to keep your post short and sweet!
An impactful social media post shouldn’t be lengthy. Most people won’t take the time to read all of it. If there is a lot of information either break it into several posts or make sure to highlight the important information at the top and/or on the first tile if it is a multi-visual post.
Master the latest trends: videos
Platforms are getting overflowed with video-content. We entered a new era where videos are what is being pushed not only by video platforms like TikTok.
Creating videos can seem like a lot of work but there are a lot of different apps nowadays that could help you to easily edit your videos (CapCut or directly on TikTok or Instagram).
Keep the timing in mind
Not all social media posts are the same, nor the audience who sees them. There are various factors at play here, but the simplest one you can control is WHEN you post! We observed that late afternoons and early evenings during the working days are the most active times for engaging our audience. However, keep in mind that our experience is based on a truly global audience that oikos International reaches, which plays a great role. For your chapter the optimal time may differ, which is why we would invite you to experiment and see what works best for you.