Transcription
I use Canva all the time. For years, it's been my go-to for making thumbnails, social media posts, lead magnets, and more. But I have to be honest, I was completely sleeping on their AI features. But after testing them out, I realize that these aren't just features. They're a completely new way of working. These AI capabilities transform Canva from a simple design tool to an automated business engine. So, in this video, I'm giving you my complete workflow, and by the end, you won't just know how to use the features. You'll have a new system for building your brand online in a fraction of the time.
Okay, before we get into the magic, let's make sure everyone knows how to get started. If you're completely new to Canva, just head over to canva.com. You can sign up for a completely free account, which is amazing for basic design work. But just be aware that with the free version, you get 50 AI uses or credits, and this is a lifetime limit, so it doesn't reset monthly. So, if you see yourself relying heavily on the AI features I'm about to show you, you may need to consider a paid account because they do run out quickly. The paid plan for Canva Pro costs about $15 per month if you pay monthly or $10 a month if you pay annually. I know nobody loves a subscription, but as you'll see, the time and money that you'll save on the design work can make the $15 feel like an absolute steal. I just wanted to be upfront about it so that you know exactly what to expect.
All right, let's quickly walk through the interface in case you're new to Canva. From your Canva homepage, you're going to see the AI tools hub on the lefthand sidebar called Canva AI. This is our command center, and we can ask it to create a design, generate an image from scratch, draft a full document, and even create video clips with AI, all of which I'll be showing you in this video. It also has a cool feature called Code for Me that lets you build interactive tools for your website, landing pages, and other designs. And that feature is more advanced, so it really does deserve its own dedicated video. So today we're going to focus on building a marketing campaign using the other tools. Let's say we're launching a new company called the Good Dog Box, a subscription service delivering all natural gourmet dog treats. We'll first build our brand's foundation with a logo and a marketing strategy. And stick with me until the end because the final section on Canva Sheets is where I'll show you how to automate and scale your content workflow in just a few clicks.
All right, I'm going to show you how to create the logo for our Good Dog Box brand. I'm going to give it this prompt. All right, so the prompt is act as a world-class brand strategist. I'm launching the Good Dog Box, a subscription box for gourmet, all natural dog treats. The brand keywords are playful, healthy, trustworthy, and joyful. Your first task is to generate three fun logo options featuring a dog or a treat. Now, you could also upload an image right here where the plus sign is to give the AI more inspiration in terms of what type of logo you're looking for. But I think just the prompt is good enough for this example. All right. So, I'm going to click the purple arrow, which is submit, and see what it comes up with. And here's the designs. I think these look really good. Now, some of them have some spelling errors, which is pretty common with image generation models, but most of them are spelled correctly. Now, if for some reason you're not happy with what is generated, you can actually click on the button that says more designs right underneath to actually have it generate even more versions of the design. So, I'm going to click on that just to show you how it works. And as you can see, it's generated a few more versions of this. Now, when you decide on one you like, you can select it like this and click use in editor to continue to customize it. So, it's going to bring you right into the editor. And now we can add other elements or text to this design depending on what we want. But just a quick FYI that you can't make changes to the text that's actually generated as part of the image itself. So, that's a current limitation. So, just be aware of that.
Next, we're going to get Canva's help with creating a great marketing strategy. Every great marketing campaign needs a clear plan to guide it. And this is where Canva AI becomes your strategic partner. The great thing is that you can now do your brainstorming right inside of Canva. You don't have to go to Chat GPT or another AI tool to brainstorm, which simplifies your workflow. So, we're going to navigate right back to Canva AI and we're going to go ahead and create a doc. And here's the prompt I'm going to use. Act as an expert marketing strategist specializing in direct to consumer pet brands. My business is the good dog box. Subscription box for gourmet all natural dog treats, etc., etc. Here's the things I want it to have. Target audience details, brand voice, key messaging, and content strategy. So, it's got to have those components in there. And you can also select the document type right here, which has a bunch of different written content types. So, I'm going to select strategy. All right. So, let's go ahead and click submit. And as you can see, just like that, a marketing strategy has been generated, as well as the header on top. The written text actually looks great, and it's actually filled in and identified our target audience, our brand voice, which both make a ton of sense just reading what's written here. And it's even given us a content strategy here, which are actually amazing ideas. So, we're just going to click on use Canva editor, and then we can further customize and edit this content. Now, I can also swap out the header if I want to with another template and customize the design a little bit more if I want to. Now, maybe I'll select this one right here, change the text to the good dog box, add an uploaded picture of a golden retriever with a treat in his mouth, and boom, there you go. Looks pretty sharp.
Next, I'm going to create a new document so I can show you how to use magic media. I'm going to select an Instagram post as my document type right here. Now, we're going to go over to the left-hand side of the page and click on magic media. If we wanted to create unique marketing materials for our social media channels promoting our new dog treats, then we can go under images and we can create an image by adding this prompt. Add an image of a happy corgi dog with a dog treat in his mouth at home. We can also add different styles to this image. I'm going to select vibrant. And we can make the image square. And when we're ready, we can hit generate images. There they are. So, I think these look pretty decent. If you're not happy with them though for any reason, you can click on generate again and it will come up with different ones. Okay, so I'm going to select this image here and I'm going to make it a bit bigger. You can also generate graphics as well if you wanted to by adding a prompt in this box right here just like we did for the image.
Now, I'm going to walk through how you can make changes to your images inside of Magic Studio. I think most people that use Canva regularly and have the paid version know that you can click on the BG remover button and it will remove the background images of your photos, which is super convenient and gives you way more flexibility. But now they have a cool new feature which actually allows you to generate a new background image for your photos. So let me show you how that works. We're going to hit the BG removal button to remove the background in this image. And then I'm going to go to BG generator and I'm going to describe a new background. So, let's put beautiful park with green grass and trees and a park bench. And there you go. The new background looks really good. There's a couple pictures that look a little funny with a bit of a gap between the bench and the dog, but a couple that look really good. Now, another feature here is magic eraser, which lets you remove certain elements in your photos. So, if we select click, I can click on the things in this image, like the park bench, and hit erase, and it gets rid of it completely. Another cool thing you can do here is you can move around certain elements in your photos by clicking on the magic grab button. Then I'm going to select click at the top. Click on this item. And now I can drag it and move it around in the image. And then we have magic edit here which you can select part of the image and then make changes to that part of the image. So I'm going to select the click button and then select the bench. And then I'm going to type in this prompt. Change the color to blue. And there you go. And then lastly here, you also have the magic expand button, which leverages AI to fill in the rest of the image. So if we click that, you can then click on the corners of the image to drag them outwards. And then when you're happy with the size of it, click generate. And we get this really nice expanded version of the original image. I love this.
Next, I want to quickly show you how you can modify different elements of your photos also using AI adjust. So, if we take this image here that we generated and we select click, you're going to see that it highlights different things in the picture. So, if we click on the dog, then we can adjust the look based on white balance, tint, brightness, contrast, saturation, and more. You can also select the background of the picture or the foreground and also make changes to those as well. And if you want to change all the elements at the same time, then you just go to the top, select all on the left hand side. So, you can see that it's pretty powerful how you can use AI to make changes and modify your images to really make them your own.
One of the coolest features that Canva now has is video generation using AI, which uses Google's new V3 model. The create a video clip tool now allows you to generate 8-second cinematic quality videos directly from a text or voice prompt. So, I'm going to show you how to do that. But before we get to that, I just want to mention a big disclaimer here. This is a paid feature. So, if you're on the pro plan, you only get five image credits per month, which is not a lot, so use them wisely.
Okay, we're going to go back to the main Canva AI page, and we're going to create a quick promo video for our new dog treats. So, I'm going to select video clips here, and I'm going to give it this prompt style, bright, joyful, cinematic with warm, sunny glow. It's going to be a dog in a backyard with a human's arm stretched out, and the dog leaps and catches the treat in his mouth. Now, we can choose from a bunch of styles here. We have everything from cinematic, cyberpunk to surreal and dreamlike. I'm going to select cinematic. And then for the aspect ratio, we only have one option right now, which is the 16x9. They'll be coming out with a mobile version soon. And then the duration is 8 seconds. And then you have framing where you can establish what kind of shot you want. So you can go for a wider shot, medium shot, top down. I'm going to leave it as a wide shot. And then you also have the lighting options. So I'm going to select soft lighting. But you can also specify these things within your prompt, too. Just an FYI. All right, we're going to hit submit and see what it generates. I'm excited. Okay, so let me play this for a sec. Wow, looks great. I think it actually followed the instructions we gave it pretty well. I really like this. So now we can click on the use editor button to make more tweaks to it.
Another cool feature that we can do now with Canva AI is called AI voice. And this allows you to put in voiceovers for your videos, slideshow presentations, or other materials. So, we're going to add a quick voice over for this video. To access this, we're going to click on apps on the left hand side. And then we're going to click on AI voice. And now we can add a prompt right at the top for what we want the avatar to actually say. So, I'm going to give it this prompt, the good dog box, because only the best will do for your precious pup. And then we can select which avatar's voice we like the best. We can choose from a ton of different languages here. I'm going to select English from the UK. And I'll select this avatar here. And then I'm going to click generate. The good dog box because only the best will do for your precious pup. Now the voice sounds okay. A bit AI like if I'm being honest, but I'm sure these will get better and better over time. Now once you're happy with your video and voice over, then you can click the share button on the right hand side and then click download. and I'll play the finished result so that you can hear and see how it looks. The good dog because only the best will do for your precious puff. Awesome. That actually turned out really good. So now we've created a quick little ad for our dog treats that we could potentially post on social media.
Okay, so we've got our video ad to capture attention, but what happens when we want to pitch a partnership with a pet store chain? We need a professional presentation and we need it fast. All right, let's head back to the main Canva AI page from the lefthand sidebar. And then I'm going to type in this prompt right into the prompt box. Create a five slide pitch deck for the good dog box. Presentation should introduce the gourmet treat subscription, highlight all our all natural ingredients, explain our monthly themed boxes, and end with a strong call to action for retail partners. Great. Click submit. And here's what it generated. Not too bad. That looks pretty good. And actually, it came up with four different versions of the presentation. This is not just a template. It's actually fully drafted the presentation and written some compelling copy for each slide. And this is awesome because you have options you can choose from. I really like this. This looks pretty good. To get a first draft this good would have probably taken me about an hour if I was doing everything manually. The AI did this in less than a minute. This is an absolute must try for anyone who needs to create a presentation on a tight deadline. Now I'm going to select this presentation right here. And then I'm going to select use an editor. And now we can make edits to any of the materials on these slides.
All right, so this next feature gets me super excited because it truly turns Canva into an all-in-one platform. It's called Canva Sheets. If you're still using a separate spreadsheet for your content calendar, then you're missing out. Canva Sheets brings your data and designs together all in one place, powered by AI. Let's do a deep dive into the AI features that make this a game changer for the good dog. First, let's create our content calendar. So, we're going to navigate back to Canva's homepage, and we're going to click on create a design. Then, we're going to select sheets. Now, you could start with one of Canva's great pre-made templates for social media calendars or lead trackers, which I highly recommend exploring. But today, we're going to use AI to build exactly what we need from scratch. So, in a new blank sheet, instead of manually typing headers, I'll go to the actions menu at the top of the page, and I'm going to select generate table. Now, I'm going to give it a simple, clear prompt. Generate a table for a social media content calendar for the good dog box. Columns should be post date, pillars, post ideas, captions, etc. Content pillars are community, education, fun, engagement, etc. Start date should be July 15th, 2025. And hit enter. And just like that, Canva's built our structure. And it even includes our post ideas already filled in, which is so nice if you're having a tough time coming up with ideas. And if you didn't like the post ideas for some reason, you could always delete them and put the ones that you like better. I'm just going to change the color at the top to blue. Perfect.
Now, our table's missing hashtags for our post. So, I'm going to add a column right here. And instead of searching for hashtags and writing them out one by one, which is so tedious, I'm going to select the empty cells in the hashtag column. Then, I'm going to go back to the actions menu, and then I'm going to click on fill empty cells. And as you can see, Canva has actually come up with a few hashtags for each post idea, which is amazing. Then I'll hit insert, and it's added them to the table. And of course, because this is Canva sheets, we can also make it visual. So I can go to my uploads right here and literally drag the social media graphics that we generated earlier and a few that I generated off camera right into the visual column. Now, our calendar isn't just text, it's a visual planner.
To take our calendar to the next level and turn it into a real project management tool, let's use the status column. So instead of just typing the status, we can actually create an interactive drop-down menu. So I'm going to select all the cells in that column except for the status title part. I'm going to go to the actions menu, scroll down, and choose drop down. From here, I can actually create custom options. So I'm going to add idea, drafting, ready to post, and published. And I can also change the colors of all these things so that I can easily see what status in the table. So I'm going to change the colors for each of these. And when I'm done, it says update seven similar drop downs. And I'm going to update the entire column here. And there you go. This is how you manage your entire content workflow without ever leaving Canva.
Now for the real data magic. We've got some sample numbers that Canva AI has generated in our ad spend and engagement columns. Now, if you're not an Excel person and you're not really great with formulas, you're going to love this. Instead of having to type in a formula to actually get the total ad spend, I can click this cell right here, type in the equal sign, and then go to the top and select magic formulas. And then I can ask in plain English, what is the sum of the ad spend column? And it generates the correct formula instantly and gives you the answer. Next, to find out what's working best and get some other insights from this data, I'm going to select my entire table. Then I'm going to go back to the actions menu and select magic insights. And then I'm going to ask this strategic question. Which content pillar has the best engagement? And then it gives you the answer right here on the left hand side. Not only does Magic Insights give me an answer in plain text, it also suggests charts to visualize the information. I can click this bar chart right here and instantly a presentation ready graphic showing my content performance is added to my sheet. Now, let's quickly go into magic charts so I can show you this feature in more detail. So, as you can see here, it has all these different chart options where you can visualize your data. So, you've got line graphs, bar graphs, pie charts, all kinds of stuff. And the best part about this is that it's a live chart. So, no matter what changes you make to the data in the table, it's going to automatically update your chart with the same numbers.
Okay. This next thing I'm about to show you is the ultimate workflow that ties everything together. We can connect this content calendar directly to a design template to create a week's worth of social media posts in seconds. This is how you truly scale your content. The feature I'm about to tell you about is called bulk create. But first, I want to remove all the backgrounds from the different images in my chart. And I can do that all with one click. So I'm going to select all the cells in the visual column and then I'm going to hit BG remover. And we're done.
So to access bulk create, you're going to go to the apps on the lefthand side. Then we're going to select bulk create. And then I'm going to select the actual data from the spreadsheet that I want to include in this post that we're going to be doing. So I'm going to highlight the cells. Then I'm going to click continue. And then I'm going to find the actual design that I want to use as our template, which is this one right here. Next, I'm going to connect my data from the sheets to the design right here. So I'm going to make the post idea go where the title goes. My caption's going to go right here. Then my image is going to go right here where this image is as the placeholder. Then we'll go to advanced options and we can select whether we want to have all the pages in one document or have separate pages for each design. So I'm going to select all the files in one document. And there you go. Now they've all been populated in this new design column within our content calendar. So I'm going to click into it to show you what it looks like. And there it is. A full week's worth of unique social media posts. This feature is a dream for batching out content for Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, or even product listings. But this isn't really meant to be posted as is day in and day out. It's really supposed to lighten the load for you, fill in your content when you're in between posts or taking a break so you always have something scheduled. And get this, if we wanted to launch the good dog box in Paris, France, for example, we could select the columns that we wanted to translate in this table right here. Go to apps, select translate, choose French, and create an entire second set of translated content in one click. That's the power of Canva Sheets. It's not just a spreadsheet. It's a data-driven engine for your entire content creation process.
Okay, let's take a breath and actually think about what we've done here. In just a handful of steps, we've built an entire business campaign from the ground up. We generated a logo for our brand. We drafted a foundational marketing strategy. Now, are the designs perfect right off the bat? Well, no. But they're a great foundation that you can build on by tweaking the designs and making light edits. I find that it's much easier and faster to edit something that's already produced versus staring at a blank page. So, this is a fantastic way to get more time back in your day. So, as you can see, the game has changed. Canva AI is now a strategic partner for your business. By giving it the right context and the right prompts, just like we did in this video, you can create quality marketing materials with shocking speed and efficiency. If you enjoyed this video, then please show me your support by hitting the like button. It really helps the channel. And if you want to learn more about how you can use AI every day, then click this next.