In my previous blog post I talked about my favourite tools I use in my social media outreach. Here’s part 2. In this post I will focus on my favourite productivity tools, mobile apps, events, podcasting and content curation tools.
Productivity
By working in the cloud, you become a lot more productive. You can access your content anytime, anywhere, from any device. And more important, you can share it with others as and when needed. My favourite productivity tools are within Google. Google Drive (former Google Docs) allows you to do your word processing, spreadhseet and presentations online and share it with others. Google is integrating all its online tools bringing it together under your Google+ account. Google+ is Google’s social layer over all of Google’s products. Google Apps is Google’s initiative to bring all Google’s tools to business to promote working in the Cloud. A serious competitor for Microsoft Exchange. Evernote is another favourite of mine. It allows me to take notes during meetings, on my laptop, my desktop, online or my mobile. With full synchronisation between all of them. To exchange files between my various devices (mobile, laptop and desktop) I use Dropbox. I find this the easiest way to get photos from my iphone to my Macbook or iMac.
Mobile
When I commute I always do my social media listening or some sharing as well. First of all, get Hootsuite for your mobile. It enables you to listen to your social media channels but it also helps you sending out messages to your networks. Use Foursquare to let people know where you are and to find information about the environment of where you checked in. Also, make sure you have Google Analytics on your mobile. I use idashboard on my iphone to give me up to the minute info about traffic on my web site (page views, visitors etc.) so I can push new content via hootsuite if traffic is low. Finally, my mobile social magazine is Flipboard, a very innovative mobile news curation service that you can set up to your own requirements, with a fantastic flip-like interface. A must-have on your mobile.
Events
Events and social media go very well together. Don’t forget, people continue their online conversations offline as well. That’s why using social media to launch and manage your events is so effective. My favourite site for networking through events is Meetup. You can even built your own Meetup community and schedule your regular events for it. With LoveSocialMedia we have our own Meetup community here. Feel free to sign up and join our next Meetup in London. A similar site to Meetup is Eventbrite. Eventbrite is particularly useful when the organiser needs to sell tickets and manage RSVPs.
Podcasting
Podcasting has been around for a long time. But now its finally getting through to businesses that podcasting can be a very effective marketing tool. Many people download podcasts about their favourite topics onto their phone. And listen to it when they commute home. One of my top web sites for podcasting is Podomatic. This site not only enables you to create your own podcasts in a very easy manner, but it also lets you upload and share it in the global podcasting community. An absolute must have for the social media afficionados.
Content Curation
You don’t have to share your own content. There can also be good reason to share other people’s content. This can be a good video you watch online, an interesting article you want to share with your followers or a tweet you want to retweet. its a good way to build your online reputation. But with many things, use it sensibly. Don’t retweet your way to the top. Don’t share articles for sharing sake. It soon becomes link litter. And always add your personal note to the article or tweet. One of my favourites to do this is Paper.li You specify the type of content you want to collect and paper.li will present it to you in your personally designed newspaper. Another great content curation tool is Storify. Similar to Paper.li but it is more based on building story boards where news will be added to your storyboard when it appears online
So here you go, all my favourite tools to develop, manage and measure my social media and online productivity. If you have any cool tools you like to share with us, use the comment section to do so.
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