For those of you that know me or have worked with me, know full well that I love the free shit! And free – not because I don’t beleive in paying for stuff because I do beleive that “when you pay – you play”…
…but when starting out – there are things you need to invest in and those that you don’t! The resources to start or expand and scale your business with free apps are fantastic. And so many of these I still use today.
Now, I have upgraded on several of these and will share with you on the next post, but for today – let’s talk about how powerful these tools are and WHY! I have created easy and clickable links for each platform to make it easy for you to check them all out.
My Top 10 Favorite Free Apps
Hootsuite is a professional plan that allows you to manage up to 3 social media profiles, schedule your posts and be more efficient by taking the overwhelm out of the posting dull drums that comes along with social media schizophrenia! I love the desk top version but that’s because I am a computer gal.
Later – is a social media marketing platform that actually helps you grow. This is a lot like Hootsuite but for me – it’s way more visual. Because I like the free stuff, both of these platforms only allow you to have one account. Because I have my business IG account and my passionate food IG account I am using Hootsuite for biz and Later for my food obsession. In additon, what I love most about Later is that I can link each post to specific outcome. The Linkin.bio is built in to your dashboard of each post and again – giving your end user and easy way to grab the info that you are offering. If you were to ask me which one to start with – my vote is Later.
Evernote has been around for a long time. And I just started using it again and I love it! I always have ideas and thoughts and Evernote makes it super simple to not only jot these ideas down, but they have easy ways to organize them. This houses all my work notes, to-do lists, recipes I want to make or post and everything in between. If you want a special code to get strated – reply to this email and I will send you one!!
Asana is my answer to getting all those post in notes – off my desk – and in one place. It’s a project management system that allows me to not only categorize my To-Do list with sub tasks, sections and milestones, but I can create different tasks lists for my VA’s and outside contractors. It allows you to work alone or with a team and what I love most is the accountability. I assign myself or someone on my team a task and attach a date to it!! Then a notification gets sent to my phone reminding that shit needs to get done. I love this app!
Slack is brilliant. Do you ever go looking for an email that you know is in your inbox but for some reason it’s embedded and cannot be found? Ugh – I hate that! Slack is a great way to communicate with your team, mastermind, accountability group and family. It allows you to break down the conversations by projects or tasks or whatever and every conversation and touch point is one place. If you have a team or are hiring one – I highly recommend this. I have also started one for my kids – you know the ones! Those that ask your for the Netflix password weekly cuz they just can’t get organized. This has really helped me with my efficiency and productivity and I love it!
Canva if you don’t know about Canva – you should! It’s the creative person’s answer to not knowing Photoshop! This graphic design platform is so valuable in creating social media graphics, presentations, workbooks, free pdf’s and documents is a must must. The app already includes templates for users to use. It’s free to use but offers paid subscriptions like Canva Pro and Canva for Enterprise for additional functionality.
Fivrr has saved me on more than one occasion. It’s an amazing platform to connect businesses with freelancers offering digital services in 300+ categories. I have found the most amazing WordPress guy and he is now helping me with other stuff like Facebook Ads and my course creation. One tip – most of these freelancers say they can do it all – but most can’t. I have wasted so much time working with someone without getting any results. Be super clear on what your objective is, what you want to create and accomplish and how much you are willing to pay!
Hashtagie – I love this app. I was getting so frustrated with not being able to space my content out on an IG post. I personally don’t like reading a post where all the text is in one, big long block. This was the answer to my prayers and it’s so easy to use. I usually write my captions in a google doc and then take it over to Hashtagie to format and add my emojis. It’s super simple to use and I highly recommend it!
Mailchimp – up until recently – I was using Mailchimp as my ESP (email service provider). It’s been great to me over the past 12+ years, but as my business grew and as I have started to scale – I needed a more all in one platform (will share in the next post). With that said, Mailchimp is free until you reach 2k subscribers – which for most of us will be a while before you hit that bench mark. It has all the tools, weapons and analytics to help you as your start your brand and business building journey. And it integrates with most of the top website platforms – making connecting the dots super easy!
Instagram – need I say more. If you want to learn how to write a great bio and post with intention – grab my free Power of the Pivot Worksheet here. It’s a great place to start and you will be on the top of the priority list when I announce some fun workshops that are on the horizon for first Q of 2021.
Still not clear or have question! Leave a comment and ask away! You can also DM me on Instagram – I love a good conversation over there as well
Now – go get busy and creative!
XO Susan
