The Recipe for Social Media Success Part 4 - Evaluating Your Presence

In our final part of our Recipe for Social Success we're going to be talking about evaluation and how to easily and effectively measure your progress across all platforms.

As we know, within your social media strategy, objectives should be set. We advise all our clients to set regular goals whether it be across their general presence or for specific campaigns. 

You may hear people say 'it's very hard to measure social media success', and, in a way it is, but you wouldn't start a marketing campaign without setting objectives, metrics and discovering the ROI so why would you start social media activities without doing the same?

What to Measure...

• Link with your initial overall or campaign objectives and decide exactly what you want to measure. If one of your objectives is to increase brand awareness on social media then you may want to monitor reach across the platforms you are active on for example. If it's to build your presence then the obvious statistics to focus on is the number of active users
• As we've said before we believe that a key statistic you should be monitoring is engagement rates. Engagement is the way to a successful social media presence so we would recommend you include this is your tracking

 How to Measure...

• You'll find there are basic analytics for each platform available online either through the platform itself or at an external source. These are the best and most simple places to start to evaluate your social media presence. Start with a few key stats on each platform to monitor so you become familiar with them

 When to Measure...

• Measure your statistics on a weekly basis to give you a good overview of your progress
• Use these weekly recordings to create a monthly social media evaluation which delves deeper into your metrics and looks at the impact of specific types of content on your presence. We've created our own system for these here

The more you understand your social media stats, the better presence you'll be able to build. You can start to tailor your content around topics you know increase your engagement rate, you can post at specific times you know your fans are most active and can discover who your key influencers and potential advocates are.

We hope you enjoyed our 'Recipe for Social Media Success' series of posts. You can find all the previous parts here...

Part 1 - Creating a Strategy

Part 2 - Developing Content

Part 3 - Getting Organised

Jane x

App Review: Timelapse Your Favourite Memories with iTimeLapse Pro!

After spending a weekend at a festival in Lewes with friends this summer (read my earlier blog post here) I was introduced to an app called iTimeLapse Pro, a simple app that captures a series of photos and allows you to create a video of condensed moments all set to a backing track of your choice... and here's my review of this snappy little app!

For our first attempt we decided to create a Timelapse of a typical Katie & Jane working day involving an early morning exercise session, working from Jane’s office, followed by an afternoon of social media training and featuring dogs, tea, trains and many, many, to-do lists.

To get started you must first select ‘New Project’ and from that point you can choose whether you want to take photos manually or using a pre-defined time-frame. While creating our first Timelapse video, we chose to take images every two seconds. The app allows you to pause and un-pause throughout the Timelapse so it makes using the more 'automatic' way very easy.

We began to capture as many images as we could throughout the day, however, in hindsight, for a thorough (i.e. longer) Timelapse video, it would be good to capture more images so you can easily cut them without losing the length. However the great thing about iTimeLapse Pro is that you can make as many edits as you need to before finishing the project including adding extra images and deleting many that are unclear or blurry too.

After editing the frames, we chose a backing track from iTunes and rendered the video which compiled all the images together. A tip here, I found it difficult to work out how many frames I would like per second as there isn’t an option to test how it will look.

As soon as it is rendered you have the ability to watch the video and export it to your phone's camera roll. Unfortunately, the video was too large to share via email so I had to upload it to YouTube instead.

So here it is; head over to our YouTube channel here to see a Timelapse of Katie & Jane’s working world, we hope you enjoy it!

Score: 7/10

Price: £1.49

We love... The idea behind this app and being able to add a backing track from iTunes, it really enhances the Timelapse!

We'd like to... Practice more! It wasn’t the easiest app to use first time, and there was a lot of guesswork as to how the finished product would look, so stay tuned to see many more improved attempts here soon!

Here's the link to download from the App Store so you can create your own masterpiece!

Katie x

Social Media Recipe for Success - Part 3 - Getting Organised!

We're at part three of our Recipe for Social Media Success, parts one and two looked at creating an effective strategy and engaging with consumers but this section focuses on how to source and organise your most important social media asset; content.

Content Sourcing

We believe engagement is the key to a successful social media presence but it's easy to create a presence and not find effective engagement methods. Through our years of managing platforms for brands, we know that successful interaction comes from the posting of interesting, valuable content. But how do you source the inspiring content?

A few tips...

• Pick the right sources - follow, friend and read other relevant social accounts. Don't forget to retweet, share and link to the interesting content you find. The other accounts will give you some inspiration to generate your own content but will also allow you to build a meaningful relationship with them

• The aim of content sourcing is to create a bank of relevant content to then develop into a content calendar that spans across years, months and weeks. We've developed a customisable content calendar planner to help you do this

• Keep a list of burning questions from fans - these can form the core of your social topics. Take the time to read questions, while responding and adding key topics to your bank of content to release at various times

• Use Google Keywords - this free tool is useful for discovering keywords you may not have thought about for your brand. You can then develop themes around those keywords and creating unique, interesting posts

• Remember quality over quantity! It's better to find a few really interesting, unique posts each week than hundreds of random, un-inspiring ones! If that means you only have content for three posts a week on Facebook for example, then so be it

Content Organisation

So you now have a bank of relevant content to push out to your online consumers via social media but how do you organise this information? We've found that creating a social media schedule and adding content to that is one of the most valuable things you can do. It saves time, ensures posts are timely and also enables a focus on key messages.

Things to think about...

• Your content schedule - as you can see from our customisable content planner, it's best to break down your plan into themes and then content areas to focus on at various times. Add in relevant awareness days and you'll never be stuck for inspiring content again!

• Find your optimum frequency - after creating the content plan, if you decide you're only able to post and respond to people once a day then that is fine. It's best for you comfortably manage your presence and get used to engaging as it'll help you to grow it in the future

There's nothing more inspiring on social media than seeing a brand discovering what their online consumers want to see and creating unique content for them. The above tips and tools will help you to develop your presence and manage it in an effective way for you!

Have fun!

Jane x

Images created by A Beautiful Mess app.... read our review here

Social Media Competition Guidelines Made Simple!

Did you know if you manage a brand page, want to run a competition and don't adhere to the social media guidelines, the page can be at risk of being closed down? The amount of times we've seen brand pages not following the competition 'rules' is huge  - every day we see even big brands breaking the rules so we thought we'd put out a post to make these social media guidelines a little more simple! Below are the key points to be aware of on Facebook and Twitter...

**In September 2013, Facebook eased their rules on running competitions on the site - you can read a breakdown of the new guidelines in simple terms in our blog post here

Facebook Promotions and Giveaways

Any brand which posts a competition or promotion on their brand page is responsible for the operation of that competition including rules, regulations, prize details and eligibility. This means you must have comprehensive terms and conditions detailing all the competition mechanics.

All promotions must be managed within Apps of Facebook on a Page App or Canvas Page. Applications are 'tabs' which usually sit at the top of the Facebook page. These tabs can be fully customised and include areas to add images, competition rules and details. We like using Easypromos to run competitions, a cheap, simple Application creator

Promotions must include...

• A complete release of Facebook by each entrant
• A statement showing that Facebook is, in no way, endorsing the competition
• Details informing entrants that any information they give is held by you, the brand, rather than Facebook

Promotions must not...

• Use Facebook's native features to enter the competition. Basically, native features are liking a post or photo, sharing a post or photo, tagging or commenting or uploading a photo
• Ask users to 'like' the brand page or check into a place to automatically enter the competition

A Quick Guide to Running a Competition on Facebook

• Use Easypromos (the first competition is free, after that it's around $10)
• Add the correct terms and conditions to the Easypromos tab
• Post on your Facebook page about the competition linking users to the Application tab but do not encourage liking, sharing or commenting on the page to enter
• The competition needs to ask users for contact details so winning entries do not have to be contacted purely through Facebook (although announcing the winners on the page after they know is fine)
• Having a dedicated place for your fans to find your competitions is not only within the rules and best practice but it also ensures your promotions are fair, reduces the risk for negative feedback on how winners are chosen and provides a reliable and trustworthy tool for regular engagement

Twitter Promotions

Although Twitter are not as hot on rules and regulations as Facebook, there's a few best practice guidelines that we'd recommend you follow to keep on Twitter's good side!

Competition Do's and Don'ts...

• Do - Retweets can be used as a competition entry mechanic but asking people to retweet an uninspiring brand tweet numerous times to win isn't very engaging
• Don't - 'Whoever retweets this tweet the most wins' is against Twitter's rules so ask entrants to enter by tweeting the answer to an interesting question with an accompanying unique, relevant hashtag

A Quick Guide to Running a Competition on Twitter

• Think of a relevant, unique hashtag to include in your competition tweets; one that has the potentially to create a stir on Twitter. It's best not to include your brand name to stop it looking too commercial
• Ask users to tweet using the hashtag (and your Twitter handle possibly) adding in the answer to a brand related question to increase engagement and interest
• Once you've picked your winners, make a big deal about them by including their Twitter handles in your preceding tweets

You can read the full Facebook Promotion Guidelines here and the Guidelines from Twitter here.

Hope that's made things a little clearer!

Jane x

Social Media Success Recipe - Part 2 - Content, Content, Content!

We looked at developing an effective social media strategy in part one of our Recipe for Success, now here's part two with the most important section... creating social content.

Select your content wisely

It sounds a little corny but we really do believe when it comes to social media, content is king (or Queen!). The key to a successful, active social media presence is effective content but how do we achieve this?

Your content needs to be...

Unique

You need to give consumers insights that they can't get from you anywhere else other than your social channels. Think about what unique aspect of your product or service attracts your target audience and generate content ideas around that. Be transparent; let your customers in and give them some insight into your brand.

Useful

Always ask whether the content actually benefits users... social media users want information broken-down into simple, easy-to-read, to-the-point content. Questions to think about are 'what do my users really want to know?' 'Why is this content relevant to users?'

Engaging

Before you post check that the content engages users by asking questions or having encouraging calls-to-action. Also, engage with like-minded brands and companies, sharing information from them that may be useful to your fans. Building relationships with other influencers on social will impact your presence positively and help you to generate content.

Balanced

The ratio we advise clients for topical to brand posts is 60:40. We created this figure based on our experience of managing brand pages on social. The key reason for being active on social media is to engage and communicate with users. The topical posts encourage interaction and as long as this content is relevant and useful, when users receive the brand posts they love to engage with them. If you're stuck for topical content look at awareness days, national holidays and events that are relevant to your brand. We have a full list of them here for 2013-2014.

All images were created by A Beautiful Mess app... it's beautiful! Read Katie's blog post here

In part three's Recipe for Social Media Success we'll be talking about how to increase engagement levels (the key social media stat) and how to organise your social media content.

Jane x

The Best Things in Life (in July!)

Inspired by our favourite magazine, Red, each month we'll be answering a couple of questions that appear in the magazine, as well as an additional question of our own!

The following questions are taken from July's Red issue featuring Sofia Coppola, beach barbecues and recipes from a new cookbook, Share, which raises money for Women for Women International.

If you have any questions you'd like us to answer in August, tweet us using the hashtag #katieandjane or email us at smile@katieandjane.com

Katie

The best things in life are...

Spinning: I’m not one for spending hours in the gym, slogging it out on the running machine just leaves me feeling bored and always as though I could have done better. Spinning is my new work out – I love the fact that for 30 minutes it’s non-stop and by the end of the session you are left feeling exhausted – but in a good way! It’s a great way to build fitness into your life especially if you are always busy and on the go!

Trying new food: I’ve been meaning to try Kale Chips for a while, and this month I found the time to bake some, they were surprisingly tasty and healthy too – the perfect snack!

A Beautiful Mess app: I haven’t found such a fun app in a while, I love being able to create little masterpieces to share with my family and friends. Now with a lot more borders and backgrounds to choose from, I would thoroughly recommend it to those who love photo-sharing apps. To find out more about it, read my earlier blog post here  

I never go on holiday without...

My favourite reading material: Red Magazine, Women’s Health and Zest. Three magazines jam-packed full of inspirational articles, facts and motivational women. Just the things to enjoy while relaxing on the beach, leaving me ready to hit the ground running when holiday time is over!

The social media question I get asked the most is...

‘Should I delete negative comments?’

The answer is a definite no! Social media is a two-way street and as long as you have planned for unwanted situations, then you should be able to resolve any issues efficiently. Social media is a place where brands meet their consumers face-to-face, and if they get this meeting right, it can be such a powerful way of building brand-loyal ambassadors that translate into purchasing product. Therefore accept that negative comments will arise from time to time, but deal with them proactively and ensure the customer has a positive experience. This will allow you to be public with your efficient resolution too – gaining trust in your company long-term.

Jane

The best things in life are...

Jimmy's Iced Coffee from Selfridges (me above drinking it!). It reminds me of days spent on a my favourite Greek beach!

The Happier app, I've banged on a little about it (find out the rating I gave it in my recent blog post here) - but I genuinely love it and so glad to have been able to share it with many others.

Training for the Color Run 5K in July, will it be the 'happiest 5K on the planet'? My legs will tell you afterwards!

I never go on holiday without...

P20 sun protector - it's the only product that doesn't aggravate my prickly heat. Damn you sensitive skin!

The social media question I get asked the most is...

'Should I join all the platforms?'

No but we'd always encourage you to test them out. On a personal level, try them, if you get enjoyment out of using them continue, if not then quit. In terms of when brands ask this question, this is exactly the need for a strategy first - discover where your target market is and join them there. Better to focus on a few key platforms brilliantly than them all half-heartedly.

The Hashtag & How to Use it by #katieandjane

You may have seen a lot of ‘social media speak’ surrounding Facebook rolling out the use of hashtags, but in our usual fashion we’re going to tell you what they are, how to use them and what they mean for different social media platforms in our simple social round up!

The Hashtag Began on Twitter

First trialled in 2007 on Twitter, the hashtag is a handy way of using social media shorthand to group and connect you with other people talking about the same topic. For example, if you wanted to talk about a news topic, a sports event or a TV show on Twitter, you could use the particular hashtag associated with it so that your tweet appears in a news feed of other people’s tweets talking about the same thing. 

It also works to group topics together, for instance if you didn’t necessarily want to join in the conversation, but wanted to see what others had to say about a particular topic you could search for the hashtag and a feed of related tweets will appear.

Introducing the Hashtag to Facebook

As of this month, you can now use hashtags on Facebook too, which will allow users to connect with others when talking about the same topics and will most probably be a new way for advertisers to get in front of potential buyers!

Initially, try searching for common keywords to get a feel for hashtags on Facebook. Don't be alarmed if you get very few results, it seems people aren't embracing Facebook hashtags just yet, apart from if they're talking about #pizza!

The Hashtag on Pinterest

Hashtags can be used when describing your pins, but the key is to place your hashtag in the description area and to be unique to increase your reach. Use a distinctive hashtag and repeatedly use it on your other pins that fall under it to create awareness of your Pinterest boards and help others find you.  It can also help you to see when others repin your content, especially if you're not following the user.

The Hashtag on Instagram

When using hashtags on Instagram, be specific and ensure the hashtag describes your photo so that others can easily find it and your images will be seen by more people. That's, of course, if you want to use Instagram as a social network rather than a photo editor! Make sure if you are posting a photo that you want to appear next to like-minded images, find out what hashtags others are using to make sure your image doesn’t get lost.

What to do with a Hashtag!

It’s important to know when to use a hashtag; keep it simple, relevant and remember it’s a tool to ensure you are connected to other people talking about the same topic while automatically categorising your post to show up in a related search.

An example for you; when we post related to social media we will use a hashtag #socialmedia to ensure it shows up in conversations where other people are searching for, or talking about social media.

Similarly we like to use the hashtag to localise our posts too. We are putting on a free social media event tomorrow in Birmingham, so all our posts related to this will carry the hashtags #socialmedia #Birmingham. This way we are narrowing the audience to those who could potentially be interested in the event, rather than get lost in a feed of #events which would be a very general.

What Not to do with a Hashtag!

Simply, don’t use too many! Using lots of hashtags in one post will make it look like spam, and you won’t be using it to correctly target posts. #We #don't #want #every #post #looking #like #this! Make sure you use them sparingly and purposefully or not at all!

Finally, let us know if what you thought about our hashtag post by joining us at our #katieandjane

Katie x

Happier App Review - What Makes You Happier?

My absolute favourite app at the moment is 'Happier' - a colourful, simple app that helps you to collect all those moments that make you happy and share them with others.

The Happier team created the app after being inspired by research that shows when you acknowledge and share positive things you become happier, healthier and more productive.

**Happier has been updated (as of August 2013)... head to the end of this post to read about what I think of the changes!

After spending much of my time on holiday in Australia in the stationery shop Kikki.K (yes really!) I collected a number of their journals including 101 Dreams, Happiness and Gratitude and the overwhelming thing across all of them to increase your happiness is to be grateful everyday... Happier helps you to do just that.

The notion behind the app is not only an inspiring thing but the app's design is smooth, clean-looking and very clear. The colours blend perfectly together and the layout is so natural, it's effortless to use.

When you are ready to 'share happy'  three boxes appear (it's recommended that you input three moments per day to increase your happiness, although you can add as little or as many as you like), you then add your moment and are able to upload an image with it too. Adding an image really enriches the experience so I'd encourage you to do so.

Next is where my favourite feature comes in... categories. You select a category to sort your Happier moment from 'working out' to 'eating awesome food' or you can add your own; the team says they love to see new ones. Categories really make a difference to the user-experience as on the home screen all your Happier moments are sorted into boxes for each category so if you need to feel inspired to do some exercise for example, your past moments are there to inspire you. My most used category is 'the little things' as Happier has really helped me to discover more of the simple things that make me happy every day.

The features and design have clearly been really thought out with easy sorting of your moments by a-z, top and recent; scrolling images and the beautiful animations that appear once you have added three or more moments. It's worth adding three just for them!

Although you are unable to add much personal information (name and image) it's great to interact with others and read their Happier moments. Research has shown that happiness is contagious and Katie told me that after looking at my Happier profile it certainly brightened up her day!

I knew I'd enjoy the app when I downloaded it but didn't think I'd use it on a daily basis and I do... Happier makes me, well, happier!

Jane x

Score: 9.5/10

The only reason Happier didn't get 10/10 for me is unfortunately I lost my notifications after viewing them but I contacted the friendly team who replied straightaway and are looking into it for me.

Price: Free

We love... the fantastic design, fun features and happiness it brings to the day!

We'd like to... be able to interact more with other users but giving a virtual smile to them at the moment will do just fine!

Find out more about this fantastic app and download it for free at the Happier website

**My review has been updated as Happier has added more features!**

The team at Happier listened to user feedback and decided to make the app 'easier, faster and more fun' and here's my opinions on the changes...

As I said above in my original post, I wanted to be able to interact more with other users of Happier and I'm pleased to say that this feature has been updated. It's much easier to connect with others and 'follow their happy moments' but the key improvement for me is you can now comment easily on moments and also say 'me too!' if you really love a happy moment.

The update also features a 'cleaner overall layout' with 'fewer steps to share happy' - this feature is my only negative of the update... I no longer land on my happier moments when I open the app and this is certainly something I miss. To open the app and be hit with all my happy times was really uplifting and although now my friends happier moments appear instead so actually it takes me longer to get to my favourite part of the app.

Other great new features I love are the photo frame function where users can add more than one photo to their happy moment and position them in a lovely little frame - great for sharing even more fun photos. There are new celebrations, which I just love! These colourful animations make me smile and are even easier to share across social channels. Finally, another great new feature is the app now reminds me of my past Happier moments while I'm browsing my newsfeed - a lovely little touch!

Content is Queen…Our Newest Toolkit Addition Will Help You Plan All Your Social Media Content!

We know that content is by far the most important element and key to your success on social media. Many people look for expertise on how to use the many different social networks and platforms on offer and what each platform will mean for their business. But by creating inspired and meaningful content, you will improve your audience engagement – because without that, you may as well not be using social media for your business. 

It's not easy managing all your content on a daily basis, we recommend you have one overall yearly plan which can be populated with quarterly themes, monthly activity and key dates within your business. This can then be used to plan your content weekly, which will ensure a smooth flow of balanced and timely posts.

How to get started
Begin by creating a bank of content that already exists within your company, and then start to develop themes and ideas by answering the following questions:

• Who is your audience and what are their problems?
• What do users really want to know?
• Why is this content relevant to users?
• What unique aspect of your product or service attracts your target audience?

Once your bank of content is complete, use our content calendar to organise it and remember the content must be: 

• Engaging
• Unique
• Inclusive of calls-to-action
• Valuable to the consumer
• Transparent– let your customers in, give them some insight
• Relevant – before you link to website make sure it’s relevant and adds value
• Timely
• Frequent
• Quality over quantity

Your content calendar will be your greatest tool, create a solid content plan, and stick to it! 

Download our Content Calendar Template which includes recommendations on how to create a balanced, engaging and successful social media content plan, including tips on frequency of posts to achieve the best engagement rates and small-scale metrics for you to monitor. 

The Template features an outlined yearly and weekly calendar with content creation pointers and themes.  Visit the Toolkits of our website to view our available downloads here. 

Katie x

Celebrating Social Media Day with a Free Meetup!

When it comes to social media, we like to keep it simple. That's why at our free social media meetup  on Friday 28th June, we will answer all your burning questions on the topic of social; simply, honestly and without any technical jargon!

Whether you are joining us on behalf of a small or large business or just as an individual, we will help to dispel social media 'myths' and make it simple for everyone, whatever stage you are at on your social media journey.

The meetup will be an informal chat, open to questions throughout, whether your questions involve which platforms will work best for your business, which statistics will be helpful to monitor, or just some easy tips to get started, we can help you out.

We're holding it at Fleet Street Kitchen, one of our favourite new restaurants and drinks and nibbles will be provided!

Find out more about our first meetup in Birmingham and register to secure your place at: http://katieandjane.eventbrite.co.uk/

The Recipe for Social Media Success

Since the launch of our social media consultancy in January this year, we've been having lots of fun training brands to become better at social. Here are some simple 'ingredients' that mix together to create a successful social presence and we'd like to share them with you. Whether you're an individual, small business or multi-national brand, these steps will be useful for you. Here's part one for you to enjoy...

Step I: Create a tailored strategy with clear objectives

The first step onto social is to create a tailored social media strategy. This strategy gives you the basis of a successful, engaging presence that really makes a difference to your online community. A strategy gives you a clear reason to be active on social, simple guidelines to follow and a helpful plan to achieve success!

Ask yourself the following four key questions to help you kick off your strategy outline...

1. What is your reason for getting involved in social media?

Maybe as an individual you'd like to express yourself more. If you're a small brand, perhaps you want to reach more relevant people, if you're large, maybe you'd like to communicate with your community.

2. What are your objectives? (Hint: It's not 'likes' or followers but engagement!)

This is particularly key if you're creating a social media strategy for a brand, you need to have a purpose. After establishing your reason for getting social, you now need to set some objectives to help you with your strategy so you can measure your success and have a clear idea of the potential ways you'd like to engage with your community.

If you're an individual these objectives may be as simple as 'to create an original, unique pin on Pinterest once a week' or 'engage with at least two of my key influencers on Twitter once a day'. We love to set goals whether they're on a personal or brand level!

3. What platforms (Facebook, Pinterest, etc) should you be active on and why?

It's crucial to look at resources and decide how much time and effort you have to put into creating a successful social presence. This will help you to decide which platforms are key for you to be active on. There's really no need for you to be on all platforms if, a) you don't particularly enjoy using them if you're an individual or b) if you're a brand, your target audience aren't using them. Lack of resources or commitment will only result in an ineffective social media strategy.

4. What are your key messages?

As a brand, you should be able to easily discover your key messages through your traditional marketing efforts and these positive benefits and features of your brand can, and should, transfer to social media. Establishing these messages will help you to create an interesting bank of content which is the key to high engagement rates and a successful presence... But that's a whole other blog post (coming soon)!

Individuals, your personal 'messages' should be those keywords, values and personality that reflects you and how you want to be portrayed on social media. As business-like as that may seem, remember your social media presence is your online CV and your activity will be monitored so try to keep it true to you!

Jane x

P.S. All images were created with A Beautiful Mess app which we reviewed earlier

App Review: A Beautiful Mess

A Beautiful Mess is a stylish photo app which allows users to add fun filters, fonts and doodles, to an image of their choice. The app was created by Elsie & Emma founders of the blog of the same name www.abeautifulmess.com. The app has quickly risen to the top of the app charts and at the point of writing is currently enjoying spot number 15 in the top 100 paid charts in the App Store.

**A Beautiful Mess has been updated (as of September 2013)... head to the end of this post to read about the latest additions! 

Users can download either an existing background, or select an image from their photo library to begin. Images can then be scaled or cropped and then styled by applying a choice of borders, filters, text, doodles and phrases to create your own masterpiece. The image can then be easily shared with friends via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or email.

We love the colour options, the unique fonts and the interface which is really easy to navigate.  The filters apply a number of different looks including ‘classic’ or ‘spotlight’ which transforms the image, making it a lot of fun to use.

There are however a number of in-app purchases and due to this, a significantly limited choice of backgrounds. A great update in the future could include saving completed images in the app, so that there is one place to view all user-created photos.

A Beautiful Mess in a word is gorgeous, it helps you create fun and engaging images and it’s simple to use. We would definitely recommend it to those who love creating pictures, messing with fonts and applying doodles to photos and sending them to your friends!

Score: 8/10

Price: £0.69

We love... The app's design, colours and icons

We'd like to... View all of the photo creations in one place within the app

Here’s one we made earlier… 

**My review has been updated , since  A Beautiful Mess released its latest version of the app and added more features!**

Since the initial launch of A Beautiful Mess, Elsie & Emma listened carefully to user feedback and with this latest version (1.06) released a wealth of additions including extra fonts, doodles and backgrounds to the free & basic package you get when you first download the app.

The most significant change has to be the addition of the undo-redo feature which now finally allows you to swipe left to undo and right again to redo your actions. This enables the user much more flexibility when creating images and the ability to edit, instead of starting all over again each time you make a mistake.

There are still many in-app purchases taking the form of doodle, font and border bundles or packages, so to have full use of the app, bear this in mind. However you can still create gorgeous images even with the basic package, and the app continues to be one of the most helpful tools when creating images to go with our blog posts , or inspiring pins over on our Pinterest boards. 

It’s also worth mentioning that the team at A Beautiful Mess love to see the creations on Twitter, so make sure you use the hashtag #ABeautifulMess when sharing to be in with the chance of being featured over on their lovely, and incredibly popular lifestyle blog!

Here’s one we made earlier….

To find out more about their latest photo book and to see the photo challenges Jane has been attempting over the last couple of months click here.

Katie x