Would you believe it if I told you content creation is the most time-consuming aspect of being an influencer? Probably not, because we are often not conscious of this. So, this can be time-consuming but with the prevalence of content creators, we have seen an abundance of content creation tools become available.

Content creation tools are apps and equipment that make creating content a possibility. Between, approaching brands, determining your content pillars and then having a life, you want content creation to be the least stressful thing you do as an influencer. How you use the tools available to you will determine how efficient your content creation process is as an influencer. In this edition of becoming an influencer, we will delve into some content creation tools for both video and picture content.

Pre- Content creation

Before you start creating content, it is a good idea to have a plan/strategy. Think through what you would like to achieve within a period and create your content around this goal. For instance, as a fashion influencer, your goal may be to attract brands that advocate for sustainable fashion.

Therefore, still staying within your content pillars, you may create content that speaks to sustainable fashion. The main idea here, as discussed in the previous series is to make the distinction between your organic content and your sponsored content seamless.

To make sure you are consistent and not creating content in an ad-hoc manner, you will want to batch-create your content. That is idealising what your content should look like in the coming month and creating all of it within a few hours. Here are some tools you may need for this.

● Good quality mobile phone or camera
● A Tripod
● Good lighting/ ring light
● Change of clothes.
● Content ideas.

Post- Content Creation

Once you are done creating your content, you may or may not need to edit them based on your priorities. If for you, feed aesthetic is important, you may want to apply filters to the pictures taken to create uniformity or if you would like to highlight a sense of authenticity, you may want to leave the pictures as they are. The most important thing is that, your pictures are of good quality. Here are some mobile photo and video editing apps, that have proven useful to me.

Photo

● Snapseed
● Lightroom
● Picsart
● Photoshop express
● Lightroom presets
● Panorama
● Motionleap

Video

● Inshot
● Capcut

Adding subtitles

● Autocap

Once you are done editing your content, another way to be more efficient with your content creation process is to schedule your posts. By scheduling your posts, you know what gets posted on which day and you can prepare captions and hashtags in advance before they get posted. This saves a lot of time and negates the panic and frustration that often comes along with posting content at a specific time. Examples of some scheduling apps include;

● Planoly
● Plan
● Later
● Tweetdeck

Content creation is a vital process within your influencer marketing efforts. Your content, is the first thing brands see when they land on your page before considering anything else. Use these tools to help make life a little easier. So, what are you waiting for? get experimenting. The results may shock you.

A gentle reminder though, you may not be good at the apps in your first few attempts but stick with it. You will get better with time. In our next and final edition of the becoming an influencer series, we would discuss approaching brands and getting approached by brands. Until then keep up the positive influence.