How to use Canva to create your own branded social posts

Canva social media

Creating your own branded social media posts is one of the many ways you can contribute to your marketing quickly and effectively. We love it when accountants are looking for ways to involve yourself in your own marketing! The more brand consistency you have across your posts, the quicker you build trust with your audience and the faster your buyers take action.

On social media, you only have a few seconds to make an impression on the viewer so you want it to be a good one. If you’re posting random images or following trends which aren’t in line with your own brand, you’ll confuse your audience and lose their attention or engagement. You need to make it as easy as possible for them to get to know you and your firm, and you can do this through brand recognition on social media.

If you’re already creating consistent on-brand images on Canva, then read this blog to get help with improving the designs you’re creating.

Before you jump in, understand where to start with Canva

Before our PF Lab ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Canva’ training sessions, we ask our accountants how they’re using Canva, how they might want to use it and what they would love to learn about it. They came back with questions like “How do I find my brand fonts on Canva? How can I make sure all my posts are the same size? How do I create a different background for my social media posts?”

Many of you might not even know where to start with Canva. You excitedly signed up for a basic account but you’re not sure how you can use it and what designs you want to create for your accounting firm. You’ve seen and admired other accountants posting branded images on social media and think “I want to be able to do that!”

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!

Canva will help with brand consistency and inspiration in your marketing

These are the two main reasons we recommend you use Canva to create images for your firm’s social media:

  1. Being visible to your audience and showing them how you can help them with their specific problems will help them to connect with you and your firm quicker. By sharing on-brand images, you are building trust and relationship with your audience. You’re showing them you know who you are, what your values are and how you live them out as a firm.
  2. Canva offers an impressive range of templates to help you get started with your designs right from the beginning. As an accountant, you likely often tell yourself: “I don’t have any creative ideas” or “I have no idea what to post on social media” so you end up not doing anything and your free Canva trial comes and goes and you haven’t made any use of it. Make the most of the free templates and designs Canva offers, add your own brand and style, and you’re good to go! ‘Steal like an artist’ as Austin Kleon would say…

Canva is also:

  • Very user friendly – especially for beginners!
  • Reasonably priced and they offer a free 30 day trial so you can get a taster first.
  • On the go. You can use it on your phone or tablet, computer, wherever you are and whenever you can
  • You can have a bit of fun with it: social media is meant for experimenting, trying new things and seeing what works for your firm. It’s the same for the images you create for it – as long as you stay on brand, you can try different templates and styles and have a play around with what works for you!

Here’s how to get you started with the basics

How to use your brand colours


How to use your brand fonts, and if they aren’t an option (and you don’t have Canva Pro), how do you choose which font to use


How to create more than just a plain background


Once you are familiar with it, we recommend you use it to create basic design items i.e. social media templates, video templates, basic posters, leaflet and postcards. For any bigger design jobs i.e. guides, PDFs, webpages, you need to have a professional designer create those designs for you.

Bear in mind as you grow your firm and do more marketing, you will need to go higher level with your images and that’s where PF can help you. If you’re building a new website or considering a rebrand, you’ll need support from our graphic designers to source imagery which is on brand and reflects your firm’s values. You may still use Canva from time to time for more basic designs i.e. your social media posts, but the detailed support not only from our graphic designers but the entire creative team will increase the impact of your beautifully branded marketing work.

The best way to use Canva is to support the excellent work you’ve already done on your brand. If your brand isn’t 100% the most authentic and most beautiful representation of your firm it could possibly be, start with a Foundations Workshop which is a series of five deep-dive sessions with you and several members of the PF team. You’ll come out with a sharper idea of anything your brand and website and imagery are missing (or could be showing in a clearer way), and you’ll know exactly what needs to be done to fix that…and be building a relationship with our creative team so they can build it for you!