I'm almost positive everybody will agree when I say that social media, in it's entirety, can quickly become overwhelming. I mean, between finding content, creating content, scheduling content and let's not forget actually taking the time to be social and interact with our lovely followers... you get consumed faster than a hamburger at McDonalds! I think everybody could benefit on some time saving social media tools! Along with my own social media accounts I also create content and manage social media for 3 of my clients. I have found some tools along the way that help me be productive and literally streamline my process, not only for my own social media but my clients as well. Use these 5 social media content and scheduling tools to help you save time and streamline your social media process! *This post contains affiliate links. I love passing on the things that help me do business better! 1. Adobe Illustrator First and foremost the most important tool I use in regards to social media content is Adobe Illustrator. If you haven't tried Illustrator I would highly suggest it. Adobe has a free 30 day trial available and a low monthly payment system that makes it really affordable (finally!) for people to unleash the power (<----sounds like something from a movie) that it offers. I really could not imagine using anything else that is as efficient as Illustrator. Canva and PicMonkey are great options if you only have to make a couple images here and there but I can literally create 30 branded, cohesive social media images (or blog post images, or website images, ect) in the matter of 15 or 20 minutes, depending on the exact content. Actually, I have recorded that process and you can sign up and watch it HERE if you are ready to start saving valuable time! 2. Biteable.com I use biteable.com to create social media videos for two of my accounts. First of all it's completely user friendly and simple to use. I created my first video in 10 minutes with very little effort. You can choose from their large video clip library or you can import your own video clips too. You can even brand each video with your own logo and website. I keep them short because short and sweet seems to be better on most social media platforms but you can make them as long or short as you want. Here's a video I made recently for one of my clients: 3. Pre-made content I've done it! Some days I just don't have the brain power or the time to create new graphics and/or content so there are two places I recommend for those days. In fact, that is what led me to create my own assortment of pre-made social media graphics. I knew that if I was struggling every now and then that some other business blogger or VA was out there struggling too. There are a ton in there and different categories as well. They are great for filling up your feeds and will save you loads of time. Another great resource for help in the visual content area is Creative Market . They have a HUGE assortment of social media graphic packs and they are very reasonably priced in my opinion. Sometimes I just visit and browse thru everything, even if just for inspiration! I've downloaded a template or two in my day and it has really helped me get back on the creative track as well as save some valuable time. They also have themes, fonts, icons, stock photos... pretty much everything you would ever want or need. PLUS! They send you 6 free downloads every Monday. Love love love Creative Market. 4. Bitly.com Bitly.com is the secret to turning a super long ugly link (ex. https://www.sendowl.com/affiliate_program_memberships) into something much more visable pleasing (ex. http://bit.ly/SendOwl). Plus it keeps track of how many times the link is clicked so you can log back into Bitly and see how much action your links are getting. There are free or paid plans but I've only ever used the free services. 5. CoSchedule Last but certainly not least is CoSchedule. CoSchedule is the bee's knees when it comes to scheduling social media posts! I started out using Hootsuite and it was OK but I recently switched over to CoSchedule because one of my clients switched over and I can honestly say I would NEVER go back. Their cheapest plan is $30/month but to me, it's worth the investment. Even if I didn't have social media clients to help pay for the cost, I would still use Coschedule just to keep my sanity and free up valuable time. There are just so many more features in CoSchedule than any other scheduling tool I've used. You can link your WP blog, I can have all my social media accounts plus my clients accounts, I can view them all on a single calendar view, I can go back in and edit any post at anytime (because I always forget something!) and it also has the "best time" feature which means instead of choosing an actual time of day to schedule your post, you can have CoSchedule post it at the best time of day for any specific platform! Soooooooooo awesome! Alright, so to recap the tools we've talked about today: 1. Adobe Illustrator for creating pretty graphic content 2. Biteable.com for creating social media videos 3. Download my own pre-made graphics or check out Creative Market 4. Use Bitly.com to shorten long urls 5. Let CoSchedule take the hassle out of daily post scheduling You might also like...
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Hello, Erin.
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9/1/2018 07:52:18 am
This is one of the best article for all social networking and social media marketing. It really helping me a lot in doing all social media tasks and making some good videos. Thanks a lot for sharing all tools.
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Erin GipfordI am destined to help people save time and work smarter by using the best design software on the market, Adobe Creative Cloud. I have over 21 years as a professional graphic designer. I'm excited to share my wealth of knowledge! Categories
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