The 8 productivity tools for Social Media Managers
There are literally hundreds of productivity tools for social media managers out there. When looking after multiple social media accounts, organisation has to be your middle name. There are hundreds of useful time-saving platforms that have been developed to help you along the way. To make life easier we've summarised our Social Media Manager's most effective tools based on experience.
The tools listed below work seamlessly through apps and desktop use - your progress is saved virtually, whether on mobile or laptop you can pick up where you left off.
To manage ideas, planning, and tasks
Evernote is the ideal note-taking app for Social Media Managers. You can use it to draft content ideas and copy for social posts. You can type, dictate or snap an image of things that catch your eye or spark inspiration.
Evernote has excellent features that come in handy, e.g. allowing you to tag projects by campaign type or date, share documents, and add links to other documents like calendars or decks. Evernote works well for team sharing and personal use.
2.Trello
Trello is an easy-to-use tool for organising thoughts and arranging content ideas with boards, lists, and cards. You can attach files, add comments, create checklists and so much more. It's also useful to create and manage various content calendars and collaborate with team members and clients.
3. ToDoist
Small regular tasks are the bread and butter of a Social Media Manager's daily routine. ToDoist makes sure you don't miss a single one. It has proven to be the absolute best to-do list manager: enabling you to assign tasks to a specific date, reschedule the ones you don't get done and highlight in order of priority. You can even choose recurring tasks so you're reminded daily, weekly, or as often as you like.
Productivity tools for social media managers to prepare content
- For graphics - Canva
Canva is an awesome photo editing and graphics tool. It is a complete graphics solution for all your social media posts. Not only is it free, but it will also save you time with its huge collection of free and paid photos, so you can find images quickly depending on theme or style.
2. For images - Snapseed
For Instagram-ready picture editing on the go, Snapseed has all the features you need to get images to pop. It offers features that most other apps don’t – such as a healing brush and a Face Enhance tool, as well as a load of unique filters and artsy effects.
Another big bonus – it remembers your edits so you can upload a new pic and select 'last edits' to keep consistency with the editing style, saving time in the process! You can read more about turning blog posts into social media content here.
3. For video - Splice
This user-friendly video-editing tool by GoPro is ideal for social media-friendly edits. With Splice, you can trim and crop footage, apply filters and customize video audio in one place.
Tools to store and schedule content
Google Drive is a safe haven for all your files, you can easily access your files from any device connected to the internet. The mobile app contains almost all the functions of the desktop tool such as the creation and sharing of documents, sheets, and slides. With the app, you can set the viewing and sharing permissions, as well as, update documents.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is probably one of the biggest productivity tools for social media managers, with over 15 million users worldwide (including more than 800 of the Fortune 1000 companies). It gives you the flexibility to collaborate with your team and manage social projects while on the go. Hootsuite also allows you to curate content, schedule content, run social media ads, measure your ROI, publish posts to all major social networks, and connect with customers. We love Hootsuite because of its' comprehensive platform that can monitor accounts and keywords across 35 social networks
When all else fails - notebook and pen
We love these time-saving productivity apps, but sometimes nothing beats a good paper and pen to jot down ideas and create to-do lists.
Ultimately, the important thing is to find what works for you, get in the flow of using the basic apps really well, and flourish.
Do you use any of the tools we listed? What productivity tools for social media managers would you recommend? Let us know in the comments below.
