social media
content creation
YOUR COURSE GUIDE
T A U G H T
B Y
M A G G I E
S T A R A
Welcome
Hey there!
I'm so happy to have you in this course. As you'll get to learn throughout my
lessons, I LOVE Canva as a tool and can't wait to show you everything it has to offer.
In this course guide you will find the resources we
discuss within our lessons as well as a few more
that I thought you might find helpful.
I'm really excited for you to dive straight in and
if you have any questions about the materials
you learn within this course please don't
hesitate to let me know.
Thank you again so much for being here
and happy learning!
- Maggie Stara
Note: This guide contains affiliate links that
allow you to find the items mentioned in
this course and others you might find
useful. These help to support me at no
extra cost to you. Thank you for your
support.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
Throughout the course, we'll be exploring the keyboard shortcuts on this page to help
speed up your workflow. We will also manually go through where to find these things within
the Canva editor so if you're not a fan of shortcuts don't worry!
Keyboard Shortcuts on a MAC
Keyboard Shortcuts on a PC
General Shortcuts You May Already Know
Bold text: Command + B
Italicise text: Command + I
Underline: Command + U
Undo: Command + Z
Redo: Command + Y
Save: Command + S
Zoom in: Command + +
Zoom out: Command + Copy: Command + C
Paste: Command + V
Select all: Command + A
General Shortcuts You May Already Know
Bold text: Ctrl + B
Italicise text: Ctrl + I
Underline: Ctrl + U
Undo: Ctrl + Z
Redo: Ctrl + Y
Save: Ctrl + S
Zoom in: Ctrl + +
Zoom out: Ctrl + Copy: Ctrl + C
Paste: Ctrl + V
Select all: Ctrl + A
Shortcuts You'll Be Introduced To in Canva
Select specific elements on a page: Hold down
Shift while clicking on the elements you want to
select
Copy over elements: click on an element and
hold down Option while dragging the element
to duplicate it. (Or you can use copy & paste)
Group elements: Command + G
Ungroup elements: Command + Shift + G
Lock element: Option + Shift + L
Arrange elements forward: Command + ]
Arrange elements backward: Command + [
Tidy up elements: Option + Shift + T
Toggle rulers and guides: Shift + R
Find and replace: Command + F
Add text: T
Add rectangle: R
Add line: L
Add circle: C
Add link: Command + K
Add empty page: Command + Return
Duplicate page: Command + D
Canva Assistant shortcut: / or Command + E
Shortcuts You'll Be Introduced To in Canva
Select specific elements on a page: Hold down
Shift while clicking on the elements you want to
select
Copy over elements: click on an element and
hold down Alt while dragging the element to
duplicate it. (Or you can use copy & paste)
Group elements: Ctrl + G
Ungroup elements: Ctrl + Shift + G
Lock element: Alt + Shift + L
Arrange elements forward: Ctrl + ]
Arrange elements backward: Ctrl + [
Tidy up elements: Alt + Shift + T
Toggle rulers and guides: Shift + R
Find and replace: Ctrl + F
Add text: T
Add rectangle: R
Add line: L
Add circle: C
Add link: Ctrl + K
Add empty page: Ctrl + Return
Duplicate page: Ctrl + D
Canva Assistant shortcut: / or Ctrl + E
Video Shortcuts:
Play/pause video: Space
Mute/unmute video: M
Loop video: Option + Command + L
Video Shortcuts:
Play/pause video: Space
Mute/unmute video: M
Loop video: Alt + Ctrl + L
Social Media Templates:
To download all of these templates
to use in your creations click here
and select ‘download all'.
These are templates we talk about
throughout the course which will help
to make sure all of your designs look
great across devices.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
Psychology of Colours:
Canva's colour meanings resource
Hex Codes & Colour Palettes:
Eye Dropper - colour picker Google
Chrome Extension that will help you find
what colours are present on a webpage
Coolors.co - fun and fast palette
generator
Khroma - designer tool for powerful
colour pairings
Accessible colour palette builder
Canva’s colour palette generator
Canva's guide to colour pairings
Beginner Canva Hacks:
Lotties are animated stickers within Canva
which can be customised to your brand
colours. Below are two templates full of Lotties
I love to use and hope you love them too!
CLICK HERE TO GET IT
Finding Free Images & Videos:
Pexels - free images and videos
Pixabay - free images, videos, music and
more!
Unsplash - free artsy images
Kaboompics - free images with
collections sources from the same
photoshoot
DaFont - free fonts
CLICK HERE TO GET IT
Finding Your Fonts:
SNL skit about fonts - this one's just for fun,
and features Ryan Gosling! :-)
Get to know Canva font pairings here.
The ultimate guide to font pairings
Fontjoy - font combination generator
Font Pair - additional font pairing
resource
Mixfont - see how font combinations will
look on a live site
Google Fonts - for downloading fonts you
like
Creative Market - purchase more
creative and exclusive fonts
WhatFont - Chrome extension to show
you which fonts people are using on their
website
How to Find Inspiration:
Awesome Screenshot - Chrome extension for
capturing screenshots and recording your
screen.
Quicktime - native screen recorder if you're
on a Mac
Ad library - for spying on what ads people
are running on Facebook and Instagram
Inspirational Quote Graphics
Momentum - make your ‘new tabs’ look
gorgeous and inspirational
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
Post Your Instagram Stories
Click here - to get a more detailed tutorial on how to add a background photo to your Instagram
stories using screenshots.
Click here - for a tutorial on how to paste images into your Instagram stories if you're on an Android
instead of an iPhone
Transparent Backgrounds:
Pixlr: Use this free tool to cut out any backgrounds of your images if you're on the Free Canva Plan and
don't have access to this within your Canva editor.
Remove.bg - alternative image background remover tool
Captivating Carousels:
Pinetools - for splitting your carousel evenly into perfect carousel posts. Remember to always split
your image based on dimensions (split evenly based on each post being the width of 1080px) not
number of posts for best results.
PNG2PDF.com for converting your images into a PDF document if you want to post on LinkedIn.
Below, you can access the template we designed in this course with the 1080px by 1350px grid lines
already in place for a 6 image carousel:
CLICK HERE TO GET IT
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
GIFs & Memes:
Imgflip - free online meme generator
Plan Your Instagram Grid in Canva
Use the link below to access my template for
planning 18 pieces of content for Instagram
GET MY REEL DESIGN CHECKER GUIDE
Note: place any text or
other critical design
elements within the
transparent area. The
darker edges represent
the 1080px x 1350px
area which will be
visible if your Reel
appears in someone's
regular feed.
Make a GIF of Yourself:
Unscreen: to remove your video
background
EzGif - to add text to your GIFs, crop them
etc.⁠
GIPHY - to upload your GIFs and have
them be discoverable
GIPHY resource on how to apply for a
brand or creator account
CLICK HERE TO GET IT
Easy Instagram Reels:
For more in-depth tutorials on how to make
Easy Instagram Reels in Canva Without Being
on Camera, check out my dedicated course
on the topic below:
To learn about the ways you can use social
media for business, check out my Powerful
Social Media Marketing for Beginners course:
CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT
CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
Design & Animate Amazing eBooks
Lipsum.com - Lorem ipsum dummy text
generator
Creative Market - for more eBook design
inspiration
PDFescape.com - for making fillable fields
within your eBook
Small PDF - resize your PDFs
Tiny PNG - resize your images
Record your screen - Awesome
Screenshot or Quicktime
EzGif - to turn your screen recording into
a GIF
Access the template for the eBook we
create within the course below:
YouTube End Screens
I've included a free template in here for you
that includes a few of my own designs that
you can customise and make your own
and download for your own uses.
CLICK HERE TO GET IT
CLICK HERE TO CHECK IT OUT
Social Media Video Ads
Ad library - for spying on what ads
people are running on Facebook and
Instagram
Promo.com - for more inspiration on
video ads for social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
Impressive Business Cards
Moo.com - for printing beautiful business
cards
Animate Your Email Signature
Hubspot's Email Signature Generator for
creating free email signatures.
EzGif - to turn your static Canva images
into a transparent GIF. If you are happy
with a solid GIF you can just export
straight from Canva :-)
Powerful Presentations
Flourish - app for data visualisation.
Soundcloud - for getting music tracks to
use in your presentations
Additional tips:
For YouTube videos that automatically start
and end exactly where you want them to, just
add the following to the end of any video URL:
?start=182&end=192
Make sure to replace '182' with the number of
seconds of your desired start, and '192' should
be the number of seconds of your desired
automatic stop.
To activate a countdown timer within your
presentation - just hit any number (1-9) on
your keyboard while in presentation mode
and a timer will automatically pop up.
Design a Simple Website
Typeform - for creating interactive forms
that can be integrated with your Canva
website
Calendly - set up a booking system that
can integrate with your Canva website
Click here to find out how to use your own
domain with your Canva website.
Get access to my website template
below:
CLICK HERE TO GET IT
Make Stunning Mockups
Awesome Screenshot - Chrome
extension for capturing screenshots and
recording your screen.
Click here to learn how to make the most
of the Awesome Screenshot tool.
Bulk Create With AI
ChatGPT - AI bot which allows you to ask
questions and get customised answers. It's a
really handy tool for bulk-creating social
media content.
SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT CREATION COURSE TAUGHT BY MAGGIE STARA
Thank you
again for being here and wanting to learn from me.
I appreciate you and if you would like to continue to be
virtual friends, check out some ways to connect with me
below:
Maggie Stara
@maggie.stara