What does it take to create incredible social media content?
Knowing you have to create new content for multiple social media channels every day can feel a little daunting, especially when you consider the range of disciplines you need to rock at in order to be successful.
Nowadays, every marketer has to be part designer, photographer, videographer, copywriter, editor and more.
Thankfully, there are now a bunch of tools out there to make these jobs easier for us all. What’s even better, with the right apps, you can create, publish and analyze the performance of all you content with just one device.
Your smartphone.
Small businesses are constantly on the lookout for faster, easier and more cost-efficient ways to create new content. And smartphones are now like all-in-one production studios, empowering us all to make world-class content using a range of fun and often simple-to-use apps.
In this post, we’ve teamed up with Product Hunt to guide you through the creative process and share 26 apps that’ll help you create incredible social media content using just your smartphone.
Ready to jump in?
To make it easier for you to find all these tools, we created a collection on Product Hunt. Feel free to read the rest of the article to find out how we use the tools or hop over to Product Hunt to check out the tools!
Create:
9 apps to help you shoot incredible photos and video
Mobile phone cameras are now incredibly powerful and we wanted to share with you some apps to help you capture and create social media content from scratch.
Here are 10 apps to get you started:
1. MuseCam
MuseCam is a great app to help you shoot and edit your photos on iOS. It features a bunch of professional feeling camera presets, manual camera controls, and advanced tools like HSL and Curves.
➡️ Download Musecam for iOS (free, offers in-app purchases)
2. Boomerang
Instagram’s Boomerang app takes a series of photos and creates a GIF-like image. However, there’s one subtle, but super important difference between Boomerang and a GIF. A GIF loops a video over and over again. Whereas a Boomerang, plays a video forward, and then backward, and then loops that continuously.
Here’s an example Boomerang posted to Instagram by USA Basketball:
➡️ Download Boomerang for iOS or Android
3. VSCO
VSCO (formerly VSCO Cam) enables you to capture, edit, share and discover photos. The app features a bunch of high-quality filters to help you get the look you want and also offers a host of free editing tools like fade, clarity, skin tone, tint, sharpen, saturation, temperature and more, each with manual adjustments.
➡️ Download VSCO for iOS or Android (free)
4. Halide
Halide is a unique camera app that focuses heavily on enhancing the experience of taking photos on mobile.
➡️ Download Halide for iOS (currently $2.99)
5. Manual 2.0
If you’re looking for the ability to customize your photo taking experience, Manual could be a great option. Manual enables you to adjust shutter speed, ISO and exposure values to create the effect you’re after with ease.
Manual also gives you the option to capture images in RAW format, JPEG format, or both. If you choose RAW capture, you’ll be able to save images without compression, resulting in a higher quality photo.
➡️ DownloadCamera+ for iOS (currently $2.99)
6. Hyperlapse
Hyperlapse (by Instagram) enables you to create tracking shots and fast, time-lapse videos that were previously impossible without bulky tripods and expensive equipment.
It’s an incredibly easy-to-use app. All you do is tap the screen to start recording, tap when you’re ready to stop and choose the speed you want the video to play at. You don’t even need to register to use the app. Simply point, shoot, speed up and share.
➡️ Download Hyperlapse for iOS (free)
7. Camera+
Whether you’re a seasoned photographer or someone who’s barely touched a camera, Camera+ can help you take beautiful photos.
Camera+ gives you the opportunity to set exposure separately from focus so that you can easily control how light or dark your shots come out. It also features a range of shooting modes, scenes and pre-set effects.
➡️ Download Camera+ for iOS (currently $2.99)
8. Camera FV-5
Camera FV-5 is one of the standout cameras available on Android. The app is based on a similar approach to DSLR cameras, putting photographic settings like ISO, white balance, exposure compensation, and metering at your fingertips.
➡️ Download Camera FV-5 for Android ($2.49)
9. Spark Camera
Spark Camera is a fun way to capture photos and video in full 1080p HD. It also features easy access to advanced camera controls for FPS and stabilization, over 20 filters and the ability to trim, reorder, and delete clips within a simple interface.
➡️ DownloadCamera+ for iOS (currently $0.99)
Bonus: Tips on recording content with your smartphone
Brian, our digital strategist here at Buffer, puts together most of the epic content you see across our social channels. And almost every video Brian produces is filmed from his iPhone 6.
Here are some of Brian’s expert tips for creating content using your smartphone:
Edit:
12 apps to bring your content to life
Smartphone apps can also help you to edit your footage and photos, turning them into great social media posts in just a few taps and swipes.
Here are 12 apps to help you edit your content:
1. Apple Clips
Clips is a new iOS app for making and sharing fun videos with text, effects, graphics and more, without much prior knowledge of video editing
The app enables users to combine videos, images and sound into a video ready to be shared on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or anywhere you choose (even iMessage).
➡️ Download Apple Clips for iOS (free)
2. Clippy
Clippy is the quickest and easiest way to create GIFs and clips from any web video on your iPhone. It’s equipped with many features and enables you to easily add text, emojis or stickers, on top of the GIFs. Clippy has also launched ClippyCam – A cool new way to share photos and videos.
➡️ Download Clippy for iOS (free)
3. Adobe Spark
Spark Video helps anyone create compelling animated videos in minutes. Easily add and trim video clips to make your videos stand out on social.
There are over 25,000 images and icons you can use to embellish your video. You can also select a soundtrack and Spark will automatically add striking cinematic motion to your video — no design experience needed.
If you’re editing photos, Spark Post could be ideal for you. Adobe Spark Post enables you to create stunning graphics directly from your phone using professionally designed, eye-catching templates you can easily tweak with just a few taps.
➡️ Download Adobe Spark for iOS or join the Android beta (free)
4. Vidlab
VidLab is an all-in-one photo editor that allows you to easily create professional videos. Add & animate text, artwork, music, and FX to your videos.
➡️ Download Vidlab for iOS (free)
5. Cameo by Vimeo
Cameo enables you to create full HD videos with powerful editing software. You can trim clips, adjust audio, and render HD files directly from your phone. You can also choose from a range of pre-set themes to give your videos a cinematic feel as well as adding titles and audio.
➡️ Download Cameo for iOS (free)
5. Over
Over is one of the most popular mobile apps for editing photos.
With Over, you can design a range of images, create a graphic, caption a photo, and more. There’s also a built-in store with add-ons like font and graphic packs, enabling even more customization.
➡️ Download Over for iOS (free)
6. Adobe Voice
With Adobe Voice you can make stunning animated explainer videos in minutes. You don’t even need any footage to create your video as Voice features more than 25,000 images and animations.
➡️ Download Voice for iOS (free)
7. Layout
Layout (by Instagram) lets you easily combine multiple photos into a single image. Upload your photos, choose from a range of custom layouts, drag and drop photos to rearrange them, pinch to zoom or pull the sides of each photo to adjust its size and get your layout just right.
➡️ Download Layout for iOS or Android (free)
8. Canva
Canva helped you create professional designs and graphics. Edit photos, add text, elements, stickers, borders, frames and more. There’s also more than hundreds of professional templates and tweak them to suit your need.
➡️ Download Layout for iOS (free)
9. Priime
A tasteful photo editor developed in collaboration with some of the world’s top photographers. One of Priime’s killer features is its smart style filter recommendations based on your photo’s color palette, exposure, and more.
➡️ Download Layout for iOS (free)
10. Create
With Create you can develop sophisticated designs and graphics; communicate ideas easily using images, typography, shapes and icons; or draw your own shapes and lines. Create is awesome for adding graphics, text and arrow to photos. You can create your own graphics, logos, stickers and even Snapchat geofilters from scratch using Create.
➡️ Download Layout for iOS (free)
11. Snapseed
Snapseed is a powerful photo editing app by Google. Users can edit pictures using swiping gestures to select different effects and enhancements. Alternatively, users can opt for an automatic adjustment of color and contrast.
➡️ Download Snapseed for iOS or Android (free)
12. Legend
Legend lets you craft text animations with just a few taps. Each template is created by professional motion designers and there are hundreds of combinations of typography, animations, backgrounds, and colors to play with.
➡️ Download Legend for iOS (free)
Publish:
5 apps to share your content across networks
Once you’ve crafted the perfect piece of content, the next step is to publish it across your social media channels.
Here are 5 awesome apps to help you with publishing your social media content:
1. Buffer for iOS and Android
Share and schedule posts to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and LinkedIn – all from one place with Buffer.
Any link, text, picture or video you want to share, just add it to your Buffer. Your updates will automatically be scheduled and spaced out throughout the day to post to your favorite social networks. Plus, you can custom schedule or “post now” right inside the app.
Our mobile apps can help you to:
- Share to multiple Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn and Pinterest accounts from one place.
- Get analytics for each update you share: Clicks, Retweets, Repins, Likes, Shares, Mentions and more.
- Schedule your posts automatically so you never have to worry about setting a time and date. Just hit “Buffer”.
- Schedule your posts using a Custom Time to schedule for specific events or campaigns.
- Share from all of your favourite apps using our iOS extension. Including scheduling native retweets from Safari, Tweetbot, Twitter & more!
- Never run out of amazing content with Instagram Reposting.
➡️ Download Buffer for iOS or Android (free)
2. Hootsuite
Use Hootsuite’s free mobile apps to schedule, publish, and monitor conversations from anywhere.
➡️ Download Hootsuite for iOS or Android (free)
3. Sprout Social
Manage all of your team’s social profiles from one mobile app—access your content calendar, mentions and more from anywhere at anytime.
➡️ Download Sprout Social for iOS or Android (free)
4. Facebook Pages Manager
Pages Manager helps you to manage activity on multiple Facebook Pages, all in one place.
➡️ Download Sprout Social for iOS or Android (free)
5. Sendinble
Maintain your presence on social media when from your mobile. Publish content, manage posts and review performance from anywhere.
➡️ Download Sendible for iOS or Android (free)
Over to you
Thanks for checking out this post. I hope you find some of these apps useful for creating content on the go.
I’d love to hear what your mobile marketing studio looks like. What are you favorite mobile apps for creating, editing and publishing content?
Let us know in the comments below.