How to create catchy social media visuals with Jitter

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

Jitter is a free tool for creating visuals that stand out. In a sea of online text, distinct images catch people’s attention. Here’s how to use Jitter to make a quick motion graphic you can use on social channels, in email, or on your site.

How to create a simple motion graphic with Jitter

• Get ready: Pick a template or start with a blank canvas
• Add text or an image: Import an image or type in a key phrase, quote, fact, stat or idea. Combine images and text if you want.
• Style and size the text or image: Change the font, color, size, or position.
• Pick an animation: Select from options like appear, fade, slide or scale. This determines how the text or image enters or exits the canvas. You can animate text and images together or separately.
• Adjust the animation: A simple timeline lets you decide how slow or fast to move things onto or off the canvas. You can add elements one at a time, like I did in the gif I made with Jitter below. ????
• Export and share: After editing, download your graphic as a video or gif. Most of the time, opt for a gif. Unlike videos, gifs will automatically play within blog posts or emails without requiring readers to hit play.

Why to use Jitter

• Add visual pop to a blog post: Make your blog or Medium post more visually engaging by adding a Jitter gif between sections.
• Spice up a social media post: Add moving text to a note on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook to catch scrollers’ attention.
• Bring an email to life: Separate your note from 50 others in someone’s inbox. Add a motion graphic that slides in or a quote to make someone smile.
• Boost a slide deck: Stale bullet points in a presentation bore people. Replace drab boilerplate with visuals that grab colleagues’ attention.

Caveats

• Jitter’s free, but you’ll need a $9/month subscription if you want to remove the tiny watermark (as in the gif above) or to export at top quality.
• Jitter works on Chrome now; other browsers will be supported later
• Until the next version of Jitter is ready, you can only make one motion graphic at a time. You’ll need more advanced software for multi-part videos or complex graphics.
• You can’t yet collaborate with other users on Jitter, though that feature is planned for 2022.
• If you want to create a quick data gif to compare a few numbers or stats, consider using Google’s Data Gif Maker as a simple free alternative.

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.