My Social Media Marketing Frenzy Has Demonstrated Canva's Versatility

 

The only thing I ever used Canva for was designing my book covers. And I paid for a subscription just for the honor of doing that once every six months (at the most, when I was penning novellas).

And you know me; I'm normally not a big social media consumer, but I've run out of marketing money, so unless I'm willing to just give up on my novel, social media is all I have left.

While I still haven't found a magic formula for getting clicks, it's been kind of fun exploring Canva's capabilities, and my projects have taken about ten minutes to create, tops. I've done short little videos, mockups, something with arrows (a suggestion from a YouTube video I watched), posts with scrolling review text, a stock photo accompanied by dialogue from the novel, essentially anything I can think of. Do I think all these things will lead to sales? No. All I seem to attract are people who want me to buy either paid reviews or social media promotion (which I'm doing myself for free). But I at least feel like I'm doing something.

What I dislike about both Instagram and TikTok (among other things) is the inability to post links. I guess I understand the reasoning behind that, but both X and Facebook allow links, so they can't be a dire threat. A link would lead potential buyers to my book, whereas someone would have to be really motivated to find it on their own. So I've been just posting the link address in the video description, which would at least allow a person to paste it into their browser. It looks stupid, but I don't care about looking stupid anymore.

Weirdly, my least favorite Canva projects are the videos. It could be the dearth of pre-made templates or the lack of customization they allow, but I find it easier and more enjoyable to advertise via still pictures and designs. I will say, though, that scrolling through the available options is fun and opens up one's imagination.

This past week is easily the most I've used my Canva subscription ever, and I plan to keep exploring until I will inevitably be forced to cancel.