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Hi there South Bay Social Media folks! I’m very excited to be able to share with you some of my favorite tips, tricks, and lesser-known social media goodies via our blog here. Please feel free to contact me with absolutely any questions you might have.

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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I’m a firm believer that it’s worth at least 140 characters.

Today I’m going to show you how to go from this:

to this:

I’ll also show you how to easily share that photo on a lesser known social network that integrates quickly with any others you may currently be using.

Let’s jump right in!

1.  Creating the framework through PicFrame

The first app I open is called PicFrame. It’s a great little app with easily customizable layouts that make it look as though you spent quite some time putting together your photos in Photoshop rather than the minute or two you spent putting them together in PicFrame.

1.  You’ll see when you first open PicFrame that you have a variety of layouts to choose from. Play around and see what you like.

2.  Once you’ve chosen your layout, click each square to add a photo.

3.  You can then zoom in and out of the photo as well as reposition it until it looks how you want.

Once your layout is in place, you can even adjust the corners between square to rounded and change the background color or add a pattern.

My photo now looks like this:

2.  Choosing and applying filters from Magic Hour

I’ve used quite a few different apps for photo effects, but this is the first one I’ve found that offers truly unlimited filters and effects for just the initial purchase price.

Not only can you download from hundreds of filters in the filter market, you can easily create your own filters as well!

1.  Once you have some filters you love in MagicHour, go ahead and open the completed layout photo you just created in PicFrame. You can then see how each different filter you have looks with your photos.

2.  Remember, since you can customize any filter, you don’t have to worry about frame overlap. If you like an effect, just hit the “recreate” button and adjust anything on it you choose. For my example, I’m using a filter called “Reality is Beautiful” that I downloaded from the filter market.

Once your photo looks the way you want, I’m certain you’ll want to share what you’ve just created.

In comes another great feature of MagicHour: the share button. As you’ll see, you can easily share to a number of social networks right there from MagicHour.

3.  Share your masterpiece photo and boost your social connections through Instagram

I happen to be a huge fan of the third app I’d like to share with you: Instagram. Instagram is a wonderful, FREE photo app that I was so pleased to discover. Instagram has built-in filters as well, which are excellent on a single photo, but when I combine photos I like to run them through MagicHour instead.

1.  When you hit the Instagram button to share from MagicHour, your edited photo will immediately populate in Instagram’s Filters window.

If you’d like, you can click through the filters Instagram offers and see how they might looked layered over what you have just created.

However, more often than not, your photo is already good to go.

2.  Once your photo looks exactly how you want, hit next and you will be able to fill in your additional information.

3.  Give your photo a title, geotag it if you’d like a location attached (there is even a capability to integrate with Foursquare), and, again, easily share your completed photo with a variety of social networks, right there from Instagram.

Now not only do you have a beautiful photo, but you’ve shared it with your network without ever having to take your hands off your phone!

I have personally found Instagram to be a great niche social network.

Not only am I able to share beautifully-presented photos with friends and family around the world, but I am also able to find other people with a passion for photography and finding beauty in the world around them.

So go forth with these great apps and create! I would also love to see what you come up with, so please share your photos in the comments if you try any or all of these apps and tips out!

• PicFrame is created by ActiveDevelopment and is available in the iTunes app store for $0.99
• Magic Hour is created by Kiwiple and the full version is available in the iTunes app store for $1.99
• Instagram is created by Burbn, Inc. and is available in the iTunes app store for FREE

About the author

Anika
Anika is a Jr. Social Media Manager at Mission Driven Brand and South Bay Social Media. She considers herself a lover of stories in all forms, a girly geek, a bibliophile, and a cat lover. For more information on Anika and where else you can find her on the web, see: about.me/anikaguldstrand