4 Blogging Tools to Boost Your Content Efficiency
If you’re serious about blogging, you can improve your workflow and benefit from using some key tools to streamline your content production and promotion. Here are our top four picks:
Stock photography websites
In an ideal world, bloggers would use original photography for each and every post but, in the real world, that means spending time and/or money that goes beyond the commitment level of some bloggers, particularly those who are either just getting started or are still very much working to gain a following and traffic. While you can pick up royalty-free photos from sites such as Wikimedia Commons, the limited rights can be confusing and restrictive. Using a stock image site gives you access to a large bank of good-quality images that are affordable and safe to use (from a legal perspective).
Hootsuite
There’s a whole lot of functionality in the paid-for version of Hootsuite but, in the early days at least, the free version of the product will be more than sufficient for following the people who matter in your niche. And this is all-important when promoting your content.
You want to be absorbing other people’s content as much as you can so you know what’s popular with whom and when and what the key influencers are saying about any given subject. If you can find the time to make quality contributions to other people’s channels, e.g. leaving genuine comments, so much the better.
Buffer
Buffer and Hootsuite share a similar feature set, so you could opt for one or the other. Hootsuite will likely be preferred by people who like the vast range of customizable options it offers (even in the free version), whereas Buffer would be the choice of people who prefer to keep life simple.
However, at this time, there is a compelling argument for running both, which is that Buffer has the edge when it comes to scheduling your own posts, whereas Hootsuite is better for managing your relationships with your followers, e.g. responding to their comments.
SurveyMonkey
This may seem like an odd choice but, if you want to know what your readers want, then asking them is a good way to find out!
It’s always recommended to go through your comments section (and respond) and this can certainly give you a lot of useful information, but sending out the (occasional) survey can help focus your followers’ minds and get opinions from readers who might never leave comments.