The document summarizes apps and online tools for public relations, marketing, and business productivity. It is organized into categories including organization/time tracking, project management, writing assist, media relations, graphic design, social media management, surveys, and fun/miscellaneous tools. The presentation encourages selecting tools carefully and emphasizes that tools should make work easier. It provides numerous specific app and website examples within each category.
16. Fun
• Find My Car / Carr Matey
• Wine – The Tasting Guide / Plonk
• Ted – 1700 TED Talk videos/audio
• Guides by Lonely Planet
• Shazam – name that song and artist
• Tripit – keep your travel organized
• Wise Stamp – professional email signature
Going to go through a lot of content at a very fast pace. Will provide a copy of Powerpoint with hyperlinks to information about each tool. So no need to take notes, just sit back and absorb. You can go back later and deep dive into tools you’re interested in
Tools should help you do things easier and in a more organized fashion. They shouldn’t be a time suck.
With apps, read reviews and be selective. Many apps are free, but sometimes it’s worth paying a small fee.
Quickbooks-I use the invoicing, banking and time track features, easy to share with my accountant-as little as $5/mo
Freshbooks-accounting software that does invoices, estimates, time tracking, payments and reporting – free trial, $15-25/mo-50 clients
Basecamp-combines discussions, tasks, files, schedules and chat all in one place
My Hours – Free mobile app -start or stop the time, set variable hourly rates, reports for clients in PDF or Excel format, graphics
Timelyapp-capture billable hours, control project health and manage team performance. Removes dependence on manual input – designed by Vikings from Norway!
Basecamp – combines discussions, tasks, files, schedules and chat into one place – everyone sees what’s going on in real time, discussion boards, fewer emails and meetings - $99/month all inclusive VIDEO 2 min
Asana – easy way for team to track a project and each task
Bidsketch – web-based proposal generator. Interfaces with Fressbooks, Basecamp and Sales Force
Quip – allows teams to share, edit, comment and discuss living documents in real time. Docs, spreadsheets and chat, all in one place
Dropbox – file hosting service offering cloud storage, file sychronization, personal cloud and client software – mobile app – I use this for all of my client files so my team and clients can access any file at any time, upload photos from my phone
Evernote – capture, organize and share notes from anywhere – Web Clipper is really cool if you browse the internet a lot but need to find something later
Free conference calling – many good choices – try them and see what you like – I use GoToMeeting the most
Diigo - Save and tag your online resources for access anywhere/anytime, organize things and share them. Great for research – you can organize your links, references and personal input to create a structure research base through Outliner. Then, share you research with friends.
FaxZero.com send faxes for free to anywhere in the US or Canada
Doodle – build a poll for dates, places and preferences, invite everyone to vote, select the best option
WorkFlowy – a notebook for lists. Makes you more creative and productive. If you’re a list person, you’ll love it.
Expensify – expense reports that don[‘t suck – submit and collect receipts and track personal expenses - $5/person
ToutApp – for sales teams to prospect leads, target accounts and make sure there is follow-through with every contact
PrimoDPF – turn any file into a standard PDF, also turn word docs, powerpoint and edit PDF files
GoToMyPC.com – access your Mac or PC from anywhere
Slideshare – share what you know and love through presentations, inforgraphics, documents and more – owned by LinkedIn – also a great source for learning about new things
JotNot – mobile app that removes the use of paper – scan, fax, invoice or sign without paper
CyberGhost – A virtual private network encrypts your online connection, increasing your digital privacy and security. Very useful if you use public wifi a lot or travel.
GO TO SITE Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus that creates word maps. Also send you “word of the day” to expand your vocabulary
InternetSlang.com – a complete dictionary of slang, acronyms and abbreviations. Also has top ten trending slang words. DBA-don’t bother asking and VBD – Very Big Deal
DaFont – download different fonts for personal use, or buy from the author
AP Stylebook – paid access to the guide. Also AP Styleguard for Word and AP Lingofy that will find errors in spelling, usage and AP style in content you create in web browsers before you post it (WordPress, blogger, Twitter, Facebook)
Readability test – keeps your writing at a 7th grade level to ensure readers comprehend what you are writing. Enter a URL and it will test the web page’s readability
Cision or Meltwater – identify influencers, craft and distribute meaningful stories and measure the impact. Database, distribution, monitoring and analytics.
Muck Rack – search for journalists, bloggers and freelancers - monitor news and build reports
Hey.Press – Search engine - enter a keyword to find journalists who have written about that topic. Basic plan is $15/mo
Coveragebook – Customizable reports ready to share with clients in minutes. Can share the report as a PDF file or online. You enter a link, it develops a screenshot, inserts the article and provides metrics
PicMonkey – photo editing, touch up, design tools and collages
PiktoChart – infographics, reports, charts, dashboards, maps, social media visuals
Canva -Free and pay for templates for facebook posts, photo collages, facebook ads and more
Freeditialphotos.net – free photos for business use, primarily photos of people and businesses
PhotoPeach.com – Upload photos and make slideshows, share your shows by email or Facebook. Embed in blog or website.
Colorzilla for Firefox or Chrome – must have tool – I use it daily. Make sure your brand is consistent over all mediiums.
Stencil – create stunning graphics without complicated software. Free for up to 20 images per month
Tagxedo – turn words articles, famous speeches, love letters into a word cloud
Wordle – a toy for generating “word clouds from text you provide.
PhotoPin – search millions of creative commons photos and easily attach them to your blog posts.
Lumen5 – Enter a blog post or RSS feed and Lumen 5 will help you summarize the content and match each scene with relevant videos, photos and music. Customize each video with your brand. Create videos in no time at all. Video storyboard.
Hootsuite – Find, schedule, manage and report on social media content easier. Schedule posts, find prospects, track and prove Return on Investmen
Picodash – a search engine to explore Instagram and Twitter phtoos, videos, users and locations. Log in to Instagram and then subscribe to Picodash.
CLICK ON Tagboard – Pull user generated content and your own social content into one place in seconds. Find and Feature your favorite social posts across multiple networks. Quickly share the results.
Twilert – Monitor Twitter 24/7. Get real-time alerts (any time your brand, clients or competitors are mentioned on Twitter. Monitor situations as they happen and see what’s being said online. You also can search the twitter history on a topic. VIDEO
Blogtrottr – Delivers updates on your favorite news, feeds or blogs directly to your inbox.
ManageFlitter – Sort your followers and those you follow on Twitter by critera. Find new people to follow. Manage multiple Twitter accounts
SurveyMonkey – build a free survey, get result reports that you can share.
Typeform – Customize a typeform to collect information you need, one question at a time. Data collection, the human way. Form builder, a survey maker and