Tools exist to help bloggers.
Overwhelming, isn’t it?
You’re running a blog, and then you must promote it as well. Your 1,440 minutes a day aren’t enough.
You are not alone anymore. Tools exist to help you save time by simplifying your blogging.
Thanks to the evolution of technology, blogging is much easier than in years past.
Tools Exist That Can Help You
1. Your Phone
Rationale: Your phone is always with you. Today, cameras on phones take great photos and have impressive editing capacities. The Iphone has an amazing camera. I hear the Android does now as well.
Plus, your phone is always with you. If you see an image that might make a good blog graphic one day, pull your phone out and take the photo.
Downside: Digital cameras also take great photos and have even more impressive effects than the phone.
2. Blog Photo Folder
Rationale: The Iphone enables you to make a folder and put your photos in them. If you see an image that has potential for a future blog graphic, add it to the folder, so you don’t forget about it. The photo folders on the phone are effective for organizing your photos.
Downside: Once you’ve added the photos to the folder, they still stay in your photo stream which creates clutter combined with your other photos.
3. Picassa
Rationale: I Email the photo from my phone to my Email and open it on the computer. I then use Picassa to modify my image. Once in Picassa, you can crop the image, change its colors, blur it, or do many other special effects.
Downside: You may not want to modify your image. Therefore, putting it into Picassa takes an extra step.
4. Canva
Rationale: Once the graphic is the way you want it, put it into Canva. There are free backgrounds, and templates with text are already designed for your use. If you’d prefer, you can just write the text and not use a predesigned template. The graphic above contains a predesigned template. It came in with a blue font which I changed to white.
You can crop once you’re in Canva as well.
Downside: So many people are fans of PicMonkey. They can’t all be wrong in preferring it to Canva. However, Canva is newer than PicMonkey. People just may be use to what they like, the same way I am use to using Canva.
5. Easel.ly
Rationale: The more I read about the popularity of infographics, the more I make them. You know what, the hype is true. My infographics get shared on Pinterest far more often than my other graphics.
Canva, Easel.ly, and Piktochart can all be used to create infographics, but I find myself repeatedly returning to Easel.ly more than the others when I need an infographic.
Downside: Eventually I will run out of free template choices.
6. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer
Rationale: CoSchedule is easy and free to use. You type your headline in, and it analyzes it based on emotion, power words, and common and uncommon words.
The site shows you your repeated attempts at checking the merit of various headlines based on the four criteria, so you can’t forget which headlines you’ve already tried to analyze.
In addition, the site critiques the length of the headline and actually shows you how it would look if found in a Google search.
Downside: While I find CoSchedule more fun to use, Advanced Marketing Institute is better at enhancing your self-esteem.
7. Notes
Rationale: When you get an idea for a blog post, put it in your notes, wherever you keep them. I keep them on the “memos” in my phone, which I always have with me.
I know a reporter who always has her notebook with her.
The notes for this post were on my editorial calendar.
Downside: If the memos are saved in the Cloud or synced to a computer, I don’t see a downside. However, if the phone is lost or damaged before that occurs, you’d lose your information. My friend may lose her notebook.
8. Google AdWords KeyWord Planner
Rationale: When you are ready to tag your post, search the amount of interest and competition for your keywords using Google’s Keyword Planner. This will ensure there is currently an interest in your topic. Thanks to this site, you can also make sure you are choosing the keywords with the lowest competition for readers.
Downside: Despite my having written two tutorials on how to use it, readers still report they are finding it confusing or they are being asked for money.
9. Hootsuite
Rationale: It’s amazing. Because I’m unable to be at a computer when it’s the best times to promote my post, Hootsuite puts it on social media for me. Currently, I’ve only tried it with Twitter, but I’m planning to try it with other forms of social media. I read that Tweets do best with a graphic attached. Hootsuite easily enables me to attach a graphic in addition to advance scheduling of my posts.
Downside: So many people prefer CoSchedule, they can’t all be wrong about its merit. However, my understanding is that there is a minimal charge to use CoSchedule, and Hootsuite fits my needs.
10. Social Media
Rationale: When it’s time to promote my post, I make sure it is visible on LinkedIn, Facebook (my page and my timeline), Pinterest, and Twitter.
Downside: I get so much traffic from Facebook, sometimes I feel like I’m spinning my wheels with the other forms of social media. Check your page stats under “Referrers” to see where your primary source of traffic comes from.
11. JustRetweet
Rationale: I love shopping, so shopping for Twitter exposure with other people’s money called credits is fun for me. It’s easy to get credits too. Click on users you want to follow, and you get credits. Click on Tweets you want to Retweet, and you’ll get even more credits. You only have to pay these credits when you want your link Tweeted. You decide how much you’ll pay and how many times. It’s like bartering, which I enjoy.
Downside: As I indicated above, most of my traffic comes from Facebook, so I could be spinning my wheels. Also, readers are complaining of confusion despite my embedding a video in my tutorial.
Conclusion
Hopefully, these tips helped you cut some corners by saving time you would have ordinarily spent. Successful bloggers know how to be organized in order to be more effective.
What will you do in the time you saved?
Readers, if you feel others can benefit from these tips, please share.
What time-saving tips and tools help you be more efficient? What strategies do you use to be more organized? I look forward to your views.
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