Ok, I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for a new app, plugin, or automation tool. I am constantly testing them out to see which ones I want to add to my arsenal. Some work and some really fail to impress, so I thought I could provide some value by sharing with you the ones that have been the most helpful. Consider me your social media productivity tool guinea pig.
Let’s start with the best. These tools are my “can’t live withouts”. I use these apps every single day as a part of my social media toolbox.
Evernote
I’ve written extensively about Evernote and have said before that it is my external brain, because that is exactly how I use it. It helps me be a better writer because I never lose an idea or a useful piece of research material.
It is based in the cloud (aka – magical data land that no one fully understands), so I can access it from any machine that has an internet connection. It lives on my phone and my tablet. I can email to it, save images to it, and even publish to social media from it.
I save ideas there when they come to me, nurture them into useful content when I’m ready, and then publish my work using whatever device I have handy. It’s basically Uber for thoughts. Did that blow your mind?
Buffer
Yes, I’ve written about them before. Well, a few times, actually. It is because I haven’t found a better tool for social media management. I love that I can create a schedule ahead of time and then load up posts as I find them. This way, they get published at the ideal times, but I can do my “curation” in protected blocks of time.
Feedly
This RSS reader is a simple, no-frills option for curating content to share on social media. I usually start my day here to see what is trending in my industry. It connects with Evernote and Buffer, making it especially valuable if I want to share directly from it, or save an article as research for a blog post I’m writing.
Pro tip for social media managers: Set up a separate “Collection” for each client or area of focus. This will make it even easier to find great content to share.
Now for the second tier – These are highly valuable apps that I wouldn’t want to live without.
Sidekick by HubSpot
This is my eye-in-the-sky, giving me a bird’s-eye view of my contacts in real time. It shows me valuable information about my contacts, right there in the sidebar of Gmail (works in Outlook and Apple Mail as well). I can see when my contacts and prospects open my emails and if they’ve downloaded any contained attachments. Also, I can see their social media feed in real time. This helps to frame the conversation and gives me that slight edge I need to close deals. I highly recommend it for anyone in a business development or client management role.
Day One
I’m a big believer in the value of keeping a journal. While I can’t claim to be a daily journal-keeper, I’ve never been more consistent than when I’m using the Day One App. The design is what sets it apart from others like it. It’s simple, yet highly visually appealing. Its appearance has a social media vibe to it, like a network of one.
The one drawback is that it’s only compatible with Apple, but if you are an iPhone/Mac user like me, it is a fantastic way to chronicle your life.
Pro Tip: You can take posts public if you dare. It integrates with Twitter, Facebook, and many others.
Great post, Reade. I use both Evernote and Feedly every day. The one thing I can’t seem to do is journal electronically. I do keep a paper journal – it is actually the only thing I do on paper repeatedly. I might have to check out the Day One app, though.
Thanks Adam. Day One is the only thing that has helped me become somewhat consistent in my journeling.
The difference-maker for me was creating a template using aText. That lets me basically just answer the questions each day.
Reade,
I love all these recommendations. Using all but sidekick. I’ll have to give that a look. I found text expander works really well with Day One and can create several scripts that work not only in Day One but other applications.