Video is huge in digital marketing so let’s talk about some easy to use, affordable social media video tools. Easy is always good because most entrepreneurs and small business owners don’t have a ton of time to spend trying to figure out how to create different and versatile content for all their different platforms. Some of these you’ll have heard of but some you may not have heard of and hopefully one of them will work for you.

Biteable

This one is a desktop tool that has a 14-day free trial and after that, it’s $20 per month. It comes with hundreds of video clips and images that are easily integrated into professionally designed templates. This is great for those who don’t know exactly what they want because it allows you to look at some premade videos for inspiration and ideas. It’s super simple and step by step. You pick out your template or images you want to use, add your text, add your background music, and once it’s processed you get a notification letting you know that it’s ready to use. It’s a great way to get the same piece of information posted in a different way so that it looks different and people consume it differently. People like to consume information in different ways. That’s the reason there’s Audible for those who like to listen but also Kindle for those who like to read. 

Ripl

Ripl is a great app that is free or you can pay $14.99 per month to have the Ripl branding removed and replaced with your own logo. Ripl is a mobile app only and allows you to create short animated videos with professionally designed templates. What does that mean for you? You can take several different still images of your own and put them together in an animated short. It’s super simple. These videos you’re seeing online where a picture moves in or out of the frame or there are multiple pictures and they all move together, a lot of that is being made with Ripl. It really does make you look like a video genius. Again, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can, but you can also use a template designed by a professional. There are seasonal templates, blank canvas templates, and more.

Quik

The 3rd tool on our list is Quik and all versions of this app are free. This mobile app works with photos or videos that you’ve captured on your phone. The really cool thing about Quik is that it will auto-load a series of photos from a specific event so if you went to an awesome show last weekend and want to highlight that, Quik will pull those images in. You can cull through them and quickly decide which ones you want to keep and the ones you want to discard. Because it pulls the images for you, it saves you time and that’s always a plus. It’s so fast and easy. That’s why they call it Quik!

Lumen5

Lumen5 has a free version or you can pay $19.99 per month for the professional version. As always, try the free version before you decide to upgrade because it may have everything you need. Lumen5 is a desktop tool designed for bloggers and storytellers to convert long-form text into video. You can take an entire blog and convert it into video. The cool part is that it auto-populates, so it will pull the pictures for you and the text surrounding those pictures and all you have to do is go in and edit it. Just like the others, you don’t have to start from scratch. It’s an awesome tool for taking a blog you’ve posted and sharing it in a different way. It also allows you to highlight different images instead of just your cover image, which is awesome. 

Adobe Spark

Adobe Spark is another desktop tool. It’s available for free or you can pay $9.99 per month for the professional version. Adobe Spark makes it very easy to create animated videos. Many people have used this tool to create the cover art on their Facebook pages because it allows you to take different images and drop them in. It allows you to specify the size so that it fits on your video tool for the cover art. It’s also a quick way to put text on top of images. It’s great for how-tos because you can use split-screen and add your image on one side and instructions on the other side. It’s very versatile and one of the easiest tools to use. You don’t have to be a graphic designer or genius to use it. 

Canva

You’ve probably heard of Canva for images but did you know you can animate your Canva posts? Anything you make on Canva can be animated where the words slide in from the side or there’s a slow fade or it fades from black. There are all kinds of cool ways to use Canva and it’s very simple and free. You can add movement to your posts and that’s really what it’s all about these days- video. Video is where it’s at. 

Video, Baby

If you haven’t integrated video into your marketing plan, now is the time. Check out the tools and create some amazing videos.