So what do you do?

Well there’s several different things you can do to create great ads for your customers without AI but if you still want to use it, I have some tips for you as well. Zero/Minimal AI We all know about Canva for creating social media assets but there is also other free programs such as.

• Adobe Express
• Vista Create
• Inshot {mobile only}
• Affinity Suite {acquired by and made free by Canva}
• Picsart (nevermind they are fully AI now)

“But Tyfanny, I don’t want to do the design work myself.” I hear you, doing all the designs yourself while running a business is hard so, while of course my suggestion would be get a designer that specializes in social media ad work {like me}, there are also other alternatives as well that work for small budgets such as:

• Collaborations – There are many graphic designers that are at the start of their career that would love the opportunity to work with bigger companies on a stipend or even with bartering options once available to them, it’s okay to reach out and ask.

• Sites like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer and even LinkedIn will surely help you find a graphic designer with the experience you need and the budget you have.

“But I still want to/will use AI regardless”

Okay that’s fine but…..

“I’m using AI still, so what do I do?”

Again no {okay maybe some} judgement however it’s not because you’re using AI, it’s that you may be using it just because everyone else is or worse incorrectly for your brand which is why your assets look identical to everyone else’s and does not capture your audience.

So here’s my advice as a designer with 10+ years of experience in this game. Before you use any of these tool suggested AI or otherwise ask yourself What do I want these assets to accomplish? Is the information in this, presented in the best possible way for consumers? Will this reach my audience? While you are asking these important questions to yourself, you also should do a brand audit and ensure that you have a proper brand identity complete with logos, typefaces and colors that you will use consistently with your brand everywhere you present it, this ensures that customers always know it’s you no matter where you post. When you have done all of that then do these next steps when using AI to make your ads stand out a bit more.

• Use AI for only some of the work – if you use AI to help you generate an idea or a base for the design and then you add onto it using the softwares mentioned above or by calling your designer then already your ads are much more improved. A good example of this is using AI to create the base/backgrounds for the ads and then adding the text and logos yourself to ensure the words are legable.

• Be more specific with your prompts – Don’t take the first thing AI generates for you, make sure you tell it exactly what colours, font and stylistic approaches you want or it will generate whatever it thinks you want/what is trending.


• Run an A/B test – When you think you’ve got a hit, run a test with a small group of potential clients first before releasing it to the wider public. You can do this by either sharing in your smaller community groups and seeing if it is getting interest, posting it on your personal pages etc and just taking note of the feedback you get.