There is a moment in every small business owner's life where they sit down to edit a quick reel, open an app, and two hours later emerge slightly tearful with a video that looks like it was made by a Year 7 for a history project. We have been there. We have held you, metaphorically, through it. Here is the list of tools that will mean it never happens again.
The Holy Trinity
If you download nothing else this year, download these three. Between them they will cover roughly 90% of what a small business needs to produce genuinely good-looking content.
- Canva: For static graphics, simple videos, carousels, and making your boss look like a designer.
- CapCut: For proper video editing on your phone, with templates, captions and effects that do not look like 2012.
- Lightroom Mobile: For photo editing that does not make every image look like it was taken through a jar of honey.
Canva, Our Beloved
Yes, we know, you already have Canva. But are you using it properly? The brand kit feature lets you lock in your fonts, colours and logos so every graphic looks like it came from the same company. The content planner schedules directly to your socials. The magic resize tool turns one Instagram post into a Facebook post, a LinkedIn post and a story without you having to faff about. Pay for Pro. It is less than a pint a week.
CapCut for the Brave
CapCut is owned by the same people who own TikTok, which makes it beautifully optimised for making TikToks. Auto-captions in the correct font. Trending transitions one tap away. Background noise removal that actually works. If you are making short-form video and you are not using CapCut, you are making life unnecessarily hard for yourself.
For more on why short-form video is not a fad, have a look at our piece on TikTok for business. Spoiler: it really is not just a phase.
Lightroom, Because Filters Are Dead
Instagram filters were fun in 2014. They now age a photo by about nine years on sight. Lightroom Mobile lets you create and save your own presets, so every photo on your feed looks cohesive without looking like it was developed in a brown paper bag. The free version is enough for most people.
The Supporting Cast
If you want to level up further, here are the tools that live on every Social+Media team member's phone:
- VSCO: For the film-look aesthetic, particularly if your brand is cafe, boutique or florist.
- InShot: A solid alternative to CapCut, particularly good for longer YouTube content.
- Unfold: For beautiful Instagram stories that do not look like everyone else's.
- Mojo: Animated templates for stories and reels, great when you are in a rush.
- PicsArt: For cutting out backgrounds and niche design jobs Canva cannot quite manage.
- Descript: For podcast and video editing via transcript, which feels like witchcraft.
A Word on AI
Every app and its dog now has an "AI" feature. Some are genuinely useful. Background removal, auto-captions, object erasing, upscaling old images. Some are a gimmick and will be gone by summer. Our rule is simple: if the AI saves you real time on a repeat task, use it. If it just adds sparkly nonsense to your thumbnails, ignore it.
What Not to Do
Do not edit on seventeen apps in a row. The more apps a piece of content passes through, the worse it looks. Every time you export, the file compresses slightly. Do it enough times and your crisp photo becomes a moody oil painting. Stick to one or two apps per piece.
Do not over-edit. A good rule is to make the edit, leave it for ten minutes, then come back and see if it still looks good. If it looks like a parody of itself, dial it back. We see this a lot when people get their hands on a new app for the first time. Restraint is a brand value.
Tie It All Together
All of this only works if your content has a plan behind it. Editing apps are the paintbrush. Strategy is the painting. Read our thoughts on making content people actually share before you worry too much about which preset to use.
Need a Content Hand?
We will audit your current content and show you where a better tool, or a better plan, would make all the difference.
Book a Content AuditThe tools are free or nearly free. The talent is in knowing when to stop. Go forth, edit sensibly, and for the love of all things holy, delete the Boomerang app. It is 2023.
