15 helpful and easy-to-use apps and tools for social media, communications & marketing
These are just a few of the tools and apps that I use regularly in my work – I hope they’re helpful for you too. They’ll be particularly useful if you don’t have a dedicated communications or marketing person or team. They’re quick and easy to learn and are free or have free versions. If you have tools or apps you can’t do without I’d love to hear about them: do share them in the comments.
Organising & managing communications
Buffer
What is it?
A simple tool to help you to schedule your social media posts.
Why do I like it?
It’s simpler, clearer and less overwhelming than Hootsuite, the other major player, but has everything you need if you don’t have a big team/budget. Functions include scheduling calendar; option to share other people’s posts via Buffer direct from a social media platform (Buffer button under each post in your stream/timeline); simple, quick to view analytics.
Toggl
What is it?
An app that lets you track your time and then analyse or report on it.
Why do I like it?
Because I don’t know what I did without it! As a freelancer, moving fast from project to project, it’s essential. It means I can really accurately work out time and costs for clients, and for my non-billable hours, and report on them. It could be equally useful for team members to analyse their time.
Mailchimp
What is it?
A website that allows you to create, send and manage enewsletters, landing pages, and emailing lists.
Why do I like it?
It’s very easy to use and intuitive, has an in-depth but straightforward knowledgebase including downloads and videos. Lots of great features like scheduling, segmenting lists, reporting (clicks, opens, times of day, days), viewing a visual of how many clicks your links have had, and it integrates with WordPress and other platforms as well as social media networks.
Asana
What is it?
A project management online tool.
Why do I like it?
I’ve seen this used in a really sophisticated way with teams but I use it just to help me keep track of projects and priorities, like an advanced and segemented to-do list.
Slack
What is it?
A team messaging and collaboration tool.
Why do I like it?
It cuts down on emails and encourages fast, direct and conversational communication. It allows private a group messaging, messaging about particular topics (‘channels’), and sharing of documents. It integrates with other apps (eg GSuite) and you can even liven things up with Giphys. If you have clever web developers it can notify you when certain actions happen online (eg someone sharing or publishing a post on your website).
Wakelet
What is it?
A website and app that allows you to create collections of tweets from a particular account or a specific hashtag.
Why do I like it?
It’s particularly brilliant for events and conferences, a quick way to remind people of the conversations and images that were shared.
Design and writing
Canva
What is it?
A drag-and-drop tool for designing leaflets, infographics, and more quickly and easily, without any design or design software skills. Note: It ALWAYS pays to use a professional designer if you can afford it. Just like copywriting, a professional can make a big difference.
Why do I like it?
It’s incredibly easy to use, and you get access to a massive library of templates and images. It’s free, but the paid-for version (around £10 a month) is well worth it because it gives you access to more images and templates, allows you to instantly resize designs (handy for different social media platforms), set colour palettes for your brand, upload custom fonts, and organise your work better.
Hemingway
What is it?
A website that helps you to identify complex language and make your writing is easy to read.
Why do I like it?
It’s really easy to use and it very clearly marks up your text to show you how you can improve. S/he is VERY strict though, so be warned!
PDF creator
What is it?
A website that creates PDF from your Word documents.
Why do I like it?
If you don’t have a Mac, or your PC isn’t playing ball, it’s a quick and easy way to create PDFs for free – and the finished PDF retains hyperlinks too (I tried others which didn’t).
Photography and videography
Canvas Prints Photo Editor
What is it?
A free site that gives you basic photo editing tools plus effects and add-ons like stickers, frames etc.
Why do I like it?
It’s quick and easy to use if you want to do something like, adding a speech bubble to a photo and don’t have other graphics/photo packages.
Photojoiner
What is it?
A website where you can join photos together to make collages.
Why do I like it?
It’s really handy when you want to quickly convey a range of things in one image. There are various options for different numbers and shapes of photos. However, you can’t save your work and come back to it which can be frustrating.
Lunapic
What is it?
A website where you can edit and adjust photos and images in so many different ways – change a colour completely, add effects and filters, draw on it, colour a section of an image.
Why do I like it?
For non-designers, what it lacks in style it more than makes up for in the range of ways you can manipulate your images. Give it a go!
CloudConvert
What is it?
A website where you can ‘convert anything to anything’.
What do I like it?
Because it converts anything to anything! I use it for converting audio for my podcast recordings.
Flexclip online video editor
What is it?
A web-based video maker that creates marketing videos and family stories in minutes.
Why do I like it?
It has lots of features, many in the free version, such as animated elements, dynamic text, overlays, widgets logos; royalty free media resources; video editing tool for film and music; image editing including aspect ratio; and you can add effects, voiceover and watermarks. There’s also a built-in screen/webcam recorder.
AdobeSpark video creator , InVideo and Magisto
What is it?
Three (separate) websites that both help you create promotional videos quickly and easily using images, text and video.
Why do I like it?
They’re quick and easy to use (although the free versions are a little limited). Magisto is great for interesting motion effects to give a little edge to your videos. You can’t download Magisto videos in the free version (the workaround is to upload them to your YouTube channel and download from there).
Photomania
What is it?
A photo-effects website.
Why do I like it?
It’s a quick way to add effects to images, and has lots of options from sketch to vintage to watercolour to pop art.
And here are some bonus recommendations …
I’m often finding new tools to help with my work so I’m going to add these here – otherwise the eagle-eyed will realise that there are more than 15!
Milanote
What is it?
A website that helps you organise ideas, notes, projects visually.
Why do I like it?
My graphic designer introduced it to me as a way to collaborate on creating a website. It helped us both to see the different sections, share ideas, copy and images, and notify each other when work was progressed. You can also use it a bit like Asana or Trello.
Surges
What is it?
A website that reviews all sorts of marketing tools. Want a quick overview of what a tool does and whether it’s any good? You can find summaries here, for example, this one about a tool to manage your contacts (and so much more), HubSpot
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