Top 10 Tools For Content Creators
Creativity, great mastery of one or several topics, and a great desire to entertain the public are common characteristics of the best content creators.
But your inventiveness and soft skills are not enough. You also need the right tools.
Viral videos need at least a film crew and a program to be edited, photos with hundreds of thousands of likes were surely taken with a professional camera, and a smooth Instagram profile requires image editing skills.
Below, we show you the tools that are recommended to have or manage to enter the world of content creation with photos, videos, and illustrations of the highest quality.
1. Image editing programs
truly unique visual content isn’t just about imagination. It’s about having the right tools.
Among the most popular software or apps for this purpose are Canva and three Adobe services:
- Spark.
- Illustrator.
- Photoshop.
Canva and Spark are the easiest to use. They have a ton of pre-designed templates in various formats that can be edited virtually for anything in terms of visual creations.
Illustrator and Photoshop are professional programs, so training and practice are required to achieve good results. With the former, you’ll be able to create graphic elements from scratch, while the latter exists to edit photos.
2. An excellent camera
Photos and videos look better on professional cameras because they have a light sensor with higher resolution and the ability to capture more colors.
It is true that many content creators use their smartphones. However, photo content creators and video creators (including some streamers ) often have professional cameras.
DSLR or SLR cameras are the most popular and are available at better prices due to their age on the market. On the other hand, there are mirrorless or mirrorless cameras, more modern, compact, with quality sensors, and almost all of them include the possibility of recording in 4K.
If you’re just starting out in content creation, the jump to a professional camera is one you’ll never regret making if you want to deliver the best quality to your audience.
3. Video editing programs
According to figures from Animoto, video is the format that consumers prefer to watch on social networks. This one has a staggering 87% popularity.
To present quality content, YouTubers and even Instagram and TikTok personalities (where “amateur” video has shown good results) rely on professional video editing tools.
The most popular are:
- Final Cut Pro.
- Adobe Premiere Pro.
- Adobe After Effects.
- Sony Vegas Pro.
- Animoto
- FlexClip
Simpler tools may be more useful to you if you just want to do cuts and edits.
4. Ring of light
When you are outside, and there is natural light, lighting is not a challenge, but the quality of lighting indoors is very different.
The most popular ones used by content creators to illuminate their photos and videos (and even live broadcasts) are LED ring lights.
It is a uniform light source that perfectly illuminates a spotlight at close range. In front of your face, it will give the desired effect, although you can also use it to show off your creations as artists, stylists and make-up artists do.
5. Microphone
Although professional cameras, smartphones, and computers have a built-in microphone, a special microphone is essential to improve sound quality.
The main models are bullet style (for mobile), USB (ready to connect and record), and professional that operate with sound consoles. The first two are the most recommended for beginners.
6. Audio editing program
If your formats are audio and video, then you’ll want to handle audio editing programs like Audacity or Adobe Audition.
Note that you will be able to edit audio more easily if you can separate it from the video format. For example, you will be able to record a video call and edit both audios only if both were recorded separately.
Experts say that bad audio can only be made less bad, so a lot depends on the quality of the microphone you have.
7. Content calendar
In addition to imagination to create unique pieces and editing skills to perfectly adjust the audio, video, or image format, content creators require planning.
Improvisation is not an ally. It will only make your content of lower quality.
Although Joe Rogan has a podcast with a free format and a flexible script, surely he knows what he will talk about in a few weeks.
The same goes for the famous YouTuber Andrés Navy, who publishes part of his content to coincide with important dates in the superhero niche, such as the launch of series and movies or comic book anniversaries.
You can use Excel or rely on calendars like Apple or Google. The important thing is that you can access them from various devices.
8. A laptop or work PC
If content creation is going to become your job (even in the medium or long term), a work computer is a must-have.
Laptops have the particularity that you can take them wherever you want. While PCs balance the limitation of mobility with the ability to be constantly repowered.
The tools to edit videos, images, and audio that we have talked about need certain minimum requirements to work optimally.
Considering the specifications of the mentioned software and services, 8 GB of RAM is the minimum capacity for them to work. However, 16 GB of RAM or more will give you more speed and allow you to use resources for other activities.
9. SEO tools
SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) works by dictating the order of created content that appears on search pages of Google, Bing, and even platforms such as YouTube.
Many content creators research the terms users use (keywords) and use them in names, and within the content they create. A simplified version of these is seen on social media with #hashtags, although they work slightly differently.
Facebook and especially Twitter posts can have excellent SEO if you write terms and words that users might search for.
10. A good smartphone
Many times you will have to do things on the go, and the only technological object with you will be your smartphone.
Having a good smartphone will help you meet your content creation goals. Camera, RAM memory, internal storage.
Make sure you have access to your cloud resources so you can create or edit based on past materials.
Conclusion
These are the foundational tools many successful content creators rely on.
Consider that many of the famous content creators didn’t start out with the best tools. The videos of Luisito Comunica or PewDiePie are very different from their first creations to today.
Start with what you have today, and little by little, you can improve tools or change the ones you use for more optimal ones.
