6 Reasons You Should Be Using Canva Pro for Social Media Content

If you’re new to thinking about graphic design, you probably assume when you see a sharp or compelling ad on Facebook or Instagram that it was made using expensive design tools such as Photoshop or Illustrator.

But you might be wrong. More and more people are turning to Canva, an easy-to-use, free application design tool that empowers businesses to create their own social media ads in-house. It’s a cheaper and easier alternative—one that even beginners can use to start building visually striking content: from ads to posters, slide decks, business cards, or anything else you can think of.

And while every tool has its pros and cons (we’ve definitely got some Adobe fans in the house), we’re focusing on Canva for this post for its sheer accessibility, functionality, and affordability. If you’re a small business owner or startup company trying to get recognized while establishing your brand, using Canva to create visually engaging social media content can help you draw the audience you need to grow your business.

The Top Canva Pro Features for Businesses

Canva is free to sign up and use (you can try it out here), but upgrading to Canva Pro provides many more features you can’t get with a free account (check out their pricing plans here).

Since Canva’s an online platform, it’s easy to access wherever you need it via your phone or tablet (iOS and Android). Plus, it’s exceptionally user-friendly, with pre-made templates for whatever design pieces you need. It’s worth it in our book.

With that, here are six of the top reasons you should use a Canva Pro account to enhance your business’ social media posts right now and suggestions for getting the greatest benefits.

>> Work in the nonprofit sector? The Canva for Nonprofits program unlocks all the premium features of the Canva Pro plan—for free. Explore how nonprofits can leverage Canva’s features to create compelling visuals that will help drive awareness, donations, and community engagement on our blog.

1. Keep all your brand assets in one place.

Photos: Imagery is the most crucial part of social media content. According to research by Buzzsumo, Facebook posts with images see 2.3X more engagement than those with just text. Not only does Canva Pro offer unlimited storage of your images, but it also grants you access to millions of stock photos from a growing stock media library.

Storage: Canva Pro lets you store up to 1 terabyte of designs and create unlimited folders to keep things organized.

Fonts: Canva already offers over 3,000 fonts, but Canva Pro lets you upload any font, which is great for businesses that follow stricter brand guidelines.

Color Palettes: With Canva Brand Kit, you can keep your brand identity consistent across all your designs.

2. Choose from pre-made templates and pre-set sizes.

Running short on time? Feel like you don’t have the graphic design skills to just build an image from scratch? One fantastic feature of Canva Pro is its hefty selection of free templates and pre-set layouts that are ready to use with a click. These Canva templates are already designed for you; all that’s left to do is change out your brand colors, fonts, imagery, and logo.

(Of course, you always have the option to let your creative flag fly with custom templates to showcase your professional designs.)

3. Easily adapt and resize your designs with just a few clicks.

Once you’ve successfully designed a Facebook banner, you might want that same social media design adapted for Instagram, Linkedin, Eventbrite, or MailChimp. But one image size won’t work for every social media platform.

With Canva Pro’s Magic Resize button, you can alter the size of your design to various social media templates (and more!) with just a few clicks. You can even change the dimensions of one design into several different design types simultaneously.

Even better: the tool comes with most social media platform image sizes preset, but you can also customize it to specific dimensions if needed.

Canva Pro also has various image customization tools that are unavailable in other graphic design apps. Our favorite is the image background remover tool, which automatically removes unwanted imagery from photos and replaces it with a transparent background. Using design elements like these will allow your eye-catching visual content to stand out from the rest.

4. Stand out using Canva’s Video Editor tool.

Viewers tend to connect more with video messaging. Sprout’s 2024 Content Benchmarks Report found that a majority of consumers—81% of them, in fact—wanted to see more short-form videos from brands. You can expect that number to grow in 2025!

Try incorporating video footage, animations, or GIFs to take your ad to another level. This brings your designs to life, and it’s a surefire way to grab a viewer’s attention. And with a Canva Pro subscription, you can choose from thousands of stock images and videos to make your message stand out.

Try out Canva’s Video Editor to put together compelling videos with tons of graphic elements to choose from. Use their tools to create incredible Instagram posts, Reels, and even TikTok videos.

5. Design now and post later by scheduling your media directly with Canva.

We think there’s something deeply satisfying about planning posts for all our accounts in advance from a single platform. (Is that weird to admit? Maybe, who knows.) With Canva, you can apply the right high-quality templates then schedule them all directly from Canva. The built-in content planner is a real game-changer for social media managers and those who value saving time in design.

6. Create a team, add members, and assign roles to them.

It’s no secret: teamwork makes the dream work. Canva’s free teams and Pro teams options let members of your organization work together more effectively on the platform.

Free teams are available to all Canva users. You can have up to 20 teams with up to 3,000 members divided into Member or Administrator roles.

With Canva Pro teams, you get all those same features, plus you can assign members to the role of Template Designer. Learn more about the descriptions of each role here.

Regardless of which you choose, you can still create a wide variety of engaging and compelling content: everything you need to entice your target audiences and win new prospects. And, well, that’s what marketing’s all about!

How to Get the Most Out of Canva Pro

Canva Pro is a fantastic tool for creating better social media marketing assets. However, without a strategy, great content will do little to fuel your business’s growth. We know it is hard for entrepreneurs to stay current on the latest social media tools, strategies, and trends. The Big Sea team is here to help you increase your reach or growth through social media strategies, including organic content and advertising.

Get started with the Canva Pro free trial to test it out, or play around with the free plan. If you want strategic guidance to help get the most out of Canva Pro and enhance your social media graphics, contact us and tell us about your growth goals. Happy designing!