Visual content is a great way to grab attention in the fast paced world of social media. Whether you want to use an image in your status update to stand out in the newsfeed or want a professional looking cover banner, there are lots of sites online that can help. One such site is www.FotoJet.com.
I was recently approached by the company to review their site, and in today's post I'll take you through the fab features it has to offer.... oh and did I mention... it's FREE!
It's not just good for social media. You can also use it to make posters and photo cards. Great for book signings or even just sending out thank you notes to reviewers or blog hosts.
There are 320+ delicate templates for collages, posters and photo cards that you can modify depending on your needs, and you can upload photos either directly from your computer or from Facebook.
Let's start by looking at Facebook posts.
Using the menu on the left, scroll down to "Social Media" and then click on "Facebook Post". You'll now see a selection of different designs to choose from.
I decided to test it out by choosing the top left design showed here as it seemed like a good basic layout that could be used in several ways. I just clicked on the image to select it and them on the orange "choose" button on the bottom right.
This opened up the template. For this experiment I decided to use a few of the sketches from my Disney Illustration Study (I'm an illustrator as well as an author, in case you didn't already know ;)).
When you click on Add Photo you have two options 1) upload from computer or 2) upload from Facebook. As I already had these sketches uploaded to Facebook I choose that option.
They uploaded straightaway. I then clicked "Auto Fill" and they positioned themselves in the template grid. By clicking on a single image it opens up an "Edit Image" box.
Here you can do a few things including, zooming in on your image, repositioning it, changing the colour, exposure, etc...
Editing the text is super easy with the edit box. You get to pick from a variety of fonts and can personalise it either more by adding bold, italics, underlining, or putting a line through the text. To edit you just need to click on the text and the "Edit Text" box pops up.
Here I was editing the text. Again you can select from a wide variety of fonts. You also have the option of bold, italic, underlined, or with a line through. You can align to the left, centre, or right, and adjust the size and colour of the text.
You can save your creation to your computer using the save button at the top of the screen.
You can pick to save as either JPEG or PNG, and also select the quality of the image (Low, Medium, or High).
There is also a share button on the top right.
By clicking here you can easily share your new creation as a post on Facebook so it shows on your timeline.
FotoJet has a selection of designs for Facebook page covers too. Just click on Facebook cover from the menu on the left of your screen. As you can see just from this small screenshot, there's a lot of nice styles available.
I decided to try out the bookshelf one to see what it would look like with some of my covers. This is the end result:
It's not bad. In fact, I think it's a nice way to showcase several titles at once. One problem that did come up though was that on the images I uploaded of my covers it didn't show the whole of the cover. For example, on the cover of How to be Twittertastic: Writers and Authors Guide to Social Media Series BOOK 1
it does show my name. The same for Virtual Book Tours: Effective Online Book Promotion From the Comfort of Your Own Home
. This may be resolved by uploading a smaller image though as you can zoom in and reposition the image uploaded. It just wouldn't let me zoom out any more than what you see here.
it does show my name. The same for Virtual Book Tours: Effective Online Book Promotion From the Comfort of Your Own Home. This may be resolved by uploading a smaller image though as you can zoom in and reposition the image uploaded. It just wouldn't let me zoom out any more than what you see here.
You can also use it to make collages. These are a few of the designs under the Modern category. The text with the image showing through underneath could work well for various projects e.g. showcase a quote by the author, or details about a certain character.
This is a few from the Classic category. I love the nice clean feel of these. Some of these would work well as the front of a promotion flyer. You could use a collage of images related to your book and then, on the back, put information about the book or a selection of your best reviews, FAQs, or your author bio and links.
This is a few from the Art category:
This is a few from the Holiday category. These could work well for special sales, offers, or events during the different holidays. That gift shaped one in the centre for example could work nicely for a special promotion on a book series or for a group promotion.
This is a few from the 3D category:
This is a few of the designs in the "Creative" category. There's some really good ones here. I can see that top left one looking good as a book cover, you?
All of these features are currently free to use. Try them out for
yourself at www.FotoJet.com
A great resource, with so many uses!
