A Simple Guide to Create Better Content

My favorite tools to keep your content game on par

Author

Samer C.
May 29th, 2024 • Reading Time: 7 minutes

I work with and talk to a ton of clients and no matter the size or scale, content creation is still the biggest opportunity for free growth right now. 

With increasingly challenging customer acquisition and rising costs, organic, short-form video is still a huge opportunity.

Today, I break content creation into 3 simple steps and share my favorite tools in each one.

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1. Planning & Research

Why it matters: Researching existing content helps you see what’s working (and what’s not). It’s great for inspiration, spotting trends, and staying relevant.

Tools to try

  1. Meta Ads Library: A public and free tool where you can search and view active and past ads from any brand

  2. TikTok Creative Center: A creative resource where you can discover the latest trends, ad examples, best practices, and tools to create quality and effective TikTok ads.

  3. Foreplay: A comprehensive tool to save content, share inspo boards, do market research, see top-performing ads, spy on competitors and more.

Tip: I go in-depth on how to use these tools in a previous edition.

2. Creation & Editing

Why it matters: Obviously this is were we spend most of our time! Quality content doesn’t mean paying an arm and a leg on app subscriptions.

Best for images:

  1. Canva: I think this is everyone’s favorite because of how easy (and free!) it is to use. They’re the OG app of mobile content creation and templates. I haven’t used their paid service (I’m an Adobe guy), but many of my friends and clients do and they’re all very happy.

  2. Adobe Express: This is my app of choice and I use it as part of my Adobe subscription (Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.). I think the app is still ‘not there’ and needs some time to be, it’s slower on my mobile than Canva, but I like the templates and access to Adobe’s fonts. It’s free and has a paid option.

  3. Mematic: There are a lot of meme-generating apps out there, but I found this to be the cleanest and easiest to use. They have a free trial, but it’s worth every buck if you spend a lot of time customizing meme templates. It has all the memes you need.

Best for video:

  1. CapCut: Probably the gold standard of mobile video editing without dishing out on expensive apps OR learning professional video editing. I love CapCut and use it extensively.

3. Optimization & Measurement

Why it matters: If you don’t measure your content’s performance, you won’t know how to improve it. Tracking metrics (for organic and paid content alike) helps you see what works and what doesn’t.

PS: I am a big believer in the tools that platforms provide natively and for free. I haven’t had good experiences with 3rd party tools since 2017 or so, so won’t recommend any to you.

PSS: This section must be more about what to measure, rather than how to measure. I wrote a piece a while ago on metrics to measure (read point #2)

Tools to try:

  1. Meta Business Suite: Buggy, yes. People hate it, yes, but it does provide a deeper look into anything you post on Meta (Instagram, Facebook)

  2. Instagram’s native analytics: Also lagging in terms of the metrics they use, but it’s a good starting point

  3. TikTok Ad Manager: For those who run paid ads on the platform.

  4. Comments: Good ‘ole comments for sentiment analysis and checking how your community reacts to content. No rocket science here.

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