How to Simplify Content Creation in Canva

Content creators love Canva. It could be because of its ease of use. It’s endless templates. It’s customizable brand kit. Whatever it is, Canva is the platform to be on when it comes to creating your visual marketing content!

Ready to take your Canva game to the next level? Then, keep scrolling – because I’m sharing my best tips for setting yourself up in Canva, so creating each month is as easy as 1-2-3!

But first: the importance of systems

As a business owner, I’m sure you’re familiar with the term, “work smarter, not harder.”

Welp, this really rings true for creating content! And once you have a repeatable processes you can follow each time you create content (or any business function, really) it saves you SO much time and energy –especially if you can add automation and repurposing into the equation. 😉

Finally, not only will these processes simplify content creation in programs like Canva, but it will free yourself up for other tasks in your business –or even have a process to hand off to someone else if you plan on expanding your team down the road!

Canva newbie? Not to worry, we all have to start somewhere! This tutorial is a great start for beginners. Once you’ve checked that out, hop back over to this post to see how to turn those new skills into a streamlined process that actually makes creating content FUN. Yep, I said it.

1) Create your brand kit

Create a brand kit with your logo, brand colors, preferred fonts, etc. This will allow you to have a quick reference to your brand assets when you need it. And while this requires a Canva Pro account, I highly recommend the $13/month investment! A brand kit saves you a lot of time, plus Pro comes with plenty of other goodies I know you’ll find useful while you’re creating!

Pro Tip: not only will you be able to pull these assets into your graphics in the matter of a click, but you can also create numerous combinations of a graphic by simply clicking on the “styles” bar and shuffling your color palette and fonts. This will shave off the time you’d spend creating a new graphic, changing the colors, fonts, etc. 😉

2) Creating folders for everything

This is superrr helpful when it comes creating your visual content with ease! Below I’ve outlined an example of how you can create folders to organize your social media in Canva to make your life SO much easier:

• Create a folder for the month
  • Then, a subfolder for channel
    • Another subfolder for media format or type
      • And another for category or content theme

See the diagram below for a better visual! You may also want folders for things like:

• Products
• Blog graphics
• Opt-ins
• PDFs
• Presentations
• Brand inspiration folder

As you can see, there’s several ways to do this – just create a system for whatever makes most sense for your business!

3) Create templates for everything

Canva has a large variety of templates available –and even more assets and features if you’re Pro member. You can choose from an existing template and tweak to fit your brand (using that fancy shuffle trick I spoke of) or you can just create your own! If you’re looking for neutral Pinterest graphics, I have some great ones below. 👇

Why do I need templates?

Okay, if you’re trying to streamline your visual content ritual, templates are ESSENTIAL. This allows you to have a properly-sized graphic, branded, and ready to go when it’s time to create –simply add in the title, important text, and photos –and you’ve got awesome graphics in the matter of minutes!

TIP: rather than creating a template and making endless copies of that file, I recommend making copies within that file so all your templates for that specific format (eg. Quote graphics) are on one page. This is much easier on the eye when you’re searching for templates – and not sifting through dozens of Quote template files!

What templates should I create?

It depends on your business! But generally speaking, it’s nice to have templates for things like:

• Instagram Reels covers
• Pinterest graphics
• Blog graphics
• Email opt-ins
• Infographics
• GIFs
• Quotes
• Stories
• Seasonal content
• IG carousels
• YouTube covers
• PDFs for your digital products
• Mockups of your products
• Social media ads
• Brochure of services/products
• And much more!

4) Create a content batching schedule

Now that you’ve got you’ve gotten yourself organized, it’s time to create a schedule when you’ll actually create your content. I recommend working it into a content batching schedule.

Once you have a set batching schedule, you’ll have an idea of what visual content is needed for the month and when you’ll need to create them.

The easiest way to kick things off is to record and edit any video first – that way you can pull those into any branded visuals you want to create in Canva later on.

I also recommend working through one set of graphics at a time on graphic day. For example:

• Batch create all your quote graphics
• Then, create all your IG Reel covers
• Then, create your promo graphics, etc.

Bouncing around will only slow down your “groove,” so be sure to keep the momentum going and focus on creating one format at a time, if you can!

Once you’ve created all your visuals for the upcoming month,  send them to the appropriate folders so you can grab them easily when you need them. I typically leave them in Canva, then export the files when it’s time for me to upload them or schedule them

5) Automate where you can!

The final step for simplifying content creation in Canva is to automate when you can! For example, you can take advantage of Canva’s in-house social media scheduler so you don’t even have to worry about exporting it later on. Even if you don’t use that, you can easily schedule out your content on other programs like Planoly for the’Gram, Tailwind for your pins, and automated email series for an upcoming marketing campaign. Some programs now even have a Canva extension, which makes creating a breeze!

Ready to be a visual content machine? Click here to get started on Canva Pro for free! If you liked this post, be sure to pin the graphic below for later!