If you’re a small business, entrepreneur, blogger or freelancer it's likely you've come up against the same challenges again and again:
1) How to make time for all of the marketing and social media you need to do
2) Figuring out which free or low cost tools are out there that can help you
While there are hundreds (maybe thousands) of content management, content scheduling, social media profile enhancing, image editing, graphic design, and promotional tools out there these days, finding the ones that work best for you (and don’t cost a fortune) is a challenge.
Having spent the past two years traveling, freelance writing, running a blog and website and doing social media/marketing consulting work I have found a lot of resources that work and that don't work.
Here are 7 tools I couldn’t live without currently, as a marketer/freelance writer/blogger. Most are free (at least at the level I use them at) but some have a monthly fee. If they have a fee, the reason they are on this list is that I have found them of high enough value, that I am willing to pay for them (even when I'm making almost no money!)
1) Hootsuite: This is still my favorite content management/scheduling tool, even with all the other options out there. Is it perfect? No. But you have more choices of channels to manage here than any other free tool and you get to see more information (your home feed, mentions, DM's and scheduled messages) than on similar tools like Buffer (also a great free tool). Hootsuite is the only free tool I know of, that lets you schedule content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wordpress, LinkedIn and
2) Google Drive: Finding enough storage space to hold all your photos is tough. If you work from a laptop or on the road a lot it's even more challenging (due to small storage space). Dropbox's free storage runs out fast, and the price for an upgrade is steep (over $120/year). Add to that, the fact that using a tool like Dropbox still takes up the storage space on your computer and it doesn't really cut it for those of us who have no extra storage to spare, but still need space to hold more photos.
Drive is the answer to this. Though you can't attach photos directly from drive like you can if they are stored on your computer (or on Dropbox) you can use it to hold a TON of photos, as well as share folders with others without taking up storage space on your computer. for FREE. Download each photo as you need it, and count the $ you saved in storage fees!
3) Befunky: A great free photo editing tool. Don't have thousands to spend on Photoshop or just don't want to have to get trained on how to use Photoshop (an entire process in itself)? Befunky is your answer. You can correct, brighten, stretch, cut, rotate and do most necessary editing with their free version. And, if you want to pay a little extra for their premium version you can do some fancy Photo-Shop type stuff (but with the click of a button...). They have also started adding some design features so you can do some similar things you might do on Canva: design invitations, use or purchase images to turn into marketing materials, etc.
4) Canva: By now most people know about Canva, but if you don’t you need to get over to this site now. Canva is a tool that helps you create infographics, graphics, and other visual materials for FREE. You can upload your own photos to your dashboard and use them to create Facebook banners, Blog images, ebook covers and many other things. You can also choose from their selection of free images and designs or purchase photos, designs and graphics that are more specific to your needs for small fees. This is a design/marketing tool that even the least tech savvy marketer/blogger/entrepreneur can use easily.
5) Feedly: We can only produce so much of our own content so sharing others content is a must, when it comes to social media efforts. How to find that content? Sure you can google subjects you are interested in, find content and then post it. Or just re-tweet stuff from people you follow on Twitter (requiring you to read through your home feed quite often) or Facebook. OR you can go to Feedly, set filters for the kind if topics you are interested in keeping up on, see which bloggers/websites are on Feedly with that type of content and add them to your Feedly Feed. You can then categorize the content by groups (you can choose the title of the group) and voila! A one stop shop to source your share-able and relevant content. Also a great place to go to keep up on business/marketing/social media/travel/blogging related news.
6) ManageFlitter: a tool that allows you to curate and grow your Twitter account 10x faster (in my experience) than you could do on your own. How? By allowing you to choose/filter people to follow (with results up to 5,000) by parameters such as 'followed by...(choose someone you admire)' or 'followers of...insert big blogger name here' or the terms they use in their bio or tweets.
You can also set the # of followers and the level of influence you want them to have. Then, you simply click follow for the whole list that meets your parameters (up to 100-200 follows per day are allowed depending on your follower #) and voila! Naturally a % of people always follow you back, so you can imagine the results if you do this 5 days a week for months.
Of course you have to have good content going out on a regular basis at good times for the bulk of your audience (ManageFlitter shows you what times are peak each time you post/schedule a message and then shows you the results of how many people clicked and engaged) to complement your other efforts.
You can also unfollow people just as quickly as you can follow (100's at a time if necessary) and can set filters on who/how to unfollow.
There is a fee for this service on Manage Flitter of $11-$12/month. I've found it well worth it.
7) Google Shared Calendar: (on gmail) – I spent years using Outlook shared calendars at my former companies. It was the only way I knew. But when you are no longer using Outlook for work and don't want to purchase an Office Suite package, it’s time to find another calendar that can be shared easily with others (even those who don’t have Outlook!). Though I have hesitated to jump on the everything Google bandwagon, it’s hard to argue with a calendar that I can access in the same place as my gmail account and Drive photos and that can be shared so easily with anyone. For free.
Also, as a social media & marketing consultant, this calendar is helpful to me in keeping up with clients’ events and activities so I can curate real-time appropriate content and keep adding fresh genuine content.
Looking for any other types of tools to help you in your marketing efforts? Or have specific questions about these tools?
Feel free to contact me. If I can be of any help I will!
Brooke @ A Different Kind of Travel