Author: chandni

5 Social Media Management Tools for Creators

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Did you think that managing accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms is all fun? I won’t disagree, but only if you have the right set of social media management tools to keep you ahead of the curve.

Those long lists of never-ending chores, starting from creating to editing to publishing to engaging and much more. The job is harder than it looks. Therefore, being a creator can something feel daunting. 

But thanks to the various tools that focus on doing most of the heavy lifting while leaving you at your best game – creative thinking. 

Whatever you plan, these tools just make it simpler to execute. What’s more? You can also analyze how your posts are doing out there. Are they performing or just sitting idle with no engagement?

For closer understanding, let’s talk a little about these tools before moving to the recommendations.

What Are Social Media Management Tools?

social media management tools

How often do you miss publishing the post you planned beforehand? Or does it feel too overwhelming to stay consistent with your post publishing?

For starters, social media management tools offer easy-to-schedule features. That way, you can plan your post and let it go live as intended. 

No fuss, no going crazy around deadlines! 

And much more….

  • You can create posts with design elements
  • Plan and schedule posts in advance. You can get your weeks, months and even year’s calendar ready
  • Monitor your posts and analyze their performance
  • Engage with your audience to grow your reach 
  • Collaborate with teams on posts to ensure that everyone from your creative team is on the same page

In short, you can simplify the entire workflow of how you manage multiple social media accounts.

What Are the Best Social Media Management Tools

I understand, you might want to know how these tools work before spending on them. 

Therefore, I have curated some wonderful social media management tools that provide free trials. And a few also offer free plans for a lifetime. 

Remember, free plans come with restrictions. Hence, you must choose from the paid plans to utilize the complete benefit of these tools.

Hootsuite

This one does not need any introduction. Almost every social media creator knows about this tool. 

With its free plan, Hootsuite allows you to add two social media accounts. And you can create and schedule posts from these accounts.

However, for paid members, there are other benefits too. The tool has almost everything you would need for managing social media accounts. Planning, scheduling, analysis and more, Hootsuite provide access to amazing features through one dashboard.

Buffer

This one comes with no strings attached.

Offering a forever free plan, Buffer lets users take advantage of their basic features for life. As expected, you are still limited to planning and scheduling. 

But they do have some great perks with free plans. You get to add up to 3 social accounts with a limit on scheduling 10 posts for every channel at once. However, there is no restriction on the number of posts scheduled in a month or a year.

If you plan to get a paid membership, the benefits increase manifold. Apart from access to more accounts, you can visualize engagement, reach and other important metrics too.

Plus, you can integrate over 30 other third-party apps with Buffer. Such as Feedly, Pocket, and more.

Wistia

Creators rely on visual content, especially videos. With that said, there is no way I was going to miss Wistia.

This is the best tool for video content. Plus, it is free to use. 

With its customizable player, users can create wonderful videos, add links to them and do more. 

After the video is ready, all you need to do is, embed it on social media accounts directly from the platform. You can even share it on your website and through emails. 

For greater ease, it allows collaboration among team members with no limits on the number of users.

Sprout Social

Right on the first fold of their website, you would find the free trial option. 

Sprout Social is one of my favorites with an all-in-one solution for creators handling various accounts. That said, businesses, irrespective of size can make use of this tool without any trouble.

One dashboard for everything you need. You can easily integrate with different platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and more. 

There is more. It helps you manage reviews from sources like Google My Business. Plus, it is also suitable for eCommerce businesses letting them create shoppable posts Shopify catalogs and more.

It has the ViralPost feature that ensures you get maximum reach by posting at the right time.

NapoleonCat 

A social media management tool that allows users to collaborate together on social media posts. Users can approve, publish and schedule posts while also enjoying the colour-code feature for better visualization of the entire calendar.

In addition, NapoleonCat is also a great tool for eCommerce businesses. It helps users post product updates across different profiles and manage customer queries along with reviews. What’s best is that it tracks your performance and results.

It does offer a free trial plan. So, you can easily get to know the platform better before spending on paid plans. 

The Conclusion

Undoubtedly, social media management tools have become irresistible for creators. 

The ease and results these add to the entire process, make them an integral part of the social media management workflow.

What’s interesting is that you can easily mull over the options before making the final decision. After all, free trials are worth a lot. 

So, these were a few social media management tools to minimize your efforts and maximize your efficiency. And depending on your ease and need, you can plan to start your paid membership.

How to Create a Content Calendar for Social Media Posts?

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Whether you are promoting your own blog or managing social media accounts for multiple clients, a social media content calendar can always help. It takes away the pain of juggling between different platforms, creating posts, and managing those online. All you need to do is learn how to create a content calendar and take your marketing hacks to the next level.

A thoughtfully designed content calendar can help stay consistent with your social media posts. And it is easy to master too.

Here is a complete guide to creating a content calendar and making the most of it. 

What is a Social Media Content Calendar?

A social media calendar consists of all the pre-planned social media posts that you want to publish in the coming days, weeks or even months. 

Based on your goals, you can keep the calendar as basic as possible or add detailed information to make it advanced and highly comprehensive. 

For instance, just add the date and time of posting the content on different platforms. Or include the posts, target audience, product, and service details along with the posting frequency. 

In other words, you can choose to be as strategic as you want with your content. In return, it will allow you to have complete control over consistency and relevance.

Thankfully, you do not need to do it all yourself. Apart from the traditional excel sheets to design calendars, you can also use various tools designed for this specific task. These help you store information such as:

  • Platform Chosen: You can opt between, or all the social media platforms supported 
  • Type of Content: Plain text, video etc
  • Posting Date and time: Schedule your post.
  • Post Topic: Decide the topics you want to utilize for each post
  • Post content: Write the posts in advance and schedule them to go live as intended
  • External Sources: Add any links or images you wish to add to your post

These are just a few handfuls of examples of what you can strategize beforehand. The list can go on and on, depending on the need.

Do You Need a Social Media Content Calendar?

“I would recommend trying it once and then deciding for yourself!”

Some things are better done than explained. With that said, if you think being spontaneous with the posts is the way to go, you need to try scheduling them first.

While it’s easy to learn how to create a content calendar, the perks seem more worthwhile. 

  • Stay ahead of your schedule and get rid of the last hour of brainstorming
  • Create a balance between the timed posts and those that are evergreen
  • Keep posts up to date with upcoming events in advance
  • Maintain consistency and a flow that your subscribers can relate to
  • Track performance of the posts with the help of metrics 
  • Carry A/B testing 
  • Compare the performance results and plan your next content design accordingly

How Does a Social Media Content Calendar Help?

Do you think posting content on social media platforms is all that’s needed to achieve bigger goals?

Sadly, it’s just the beginning. Following this comes analyzing the metrics, finding what’s working and what’s not, comparing results with competitors and your past performance and a lot of other tasks. 

A social media content calendar, with detailed information, can become a great aid in easing your overall tasks. Such as:

Keep You Consistent

Unlike computers, it is difficult to save every piece of memory inside your brain. Without a content calendar, it is not possible to remember every post and its details made on various platforms. 

A content calendar with upcoming posts, on the other hand, keeps track of everything. You can make sure you are not forgetting to post, regardless of how busy you get. Never miss the date and perfect timing for releasing your posts. 

Avoid Mistakes and Human Errors

By planning posts in advance, you get chances to review and rectify errors, if any, prior to the post date. Whether it’s silly spelling mistakes or incorrect redirections, you can ensure that everything is clean and perfect.

Take Leverage from Cross-Functional Visibility

Collaborating on social media posts needs great transparency between teams to stay in sync. Everyone posting on their own can never build a robust digital marketing strategy for a business. 

Hence, a content calendar provides the central source for all posts in one place. Providing every team member, a clear view of what others are planning.

Get started with social media analytics

There is no benefit to posting on social media accounts if you cannot analyze the performance. A content calendar enables you to check what’s working and what’s not. It ensures that you focus on the right content and correct social media platform. 

How to Create a Content Calendar?

Frankly speaking, you can complete your social media calendar using just a spreadsheet.

Analyse your Social Media Marketing Goals

“Success comes to those who plan it in advance.”

So, before getting right into calendar creation, you must plan your move. It is crucial to review your final goal and the ones that come in between. 

Discuss with your team and come up with the SMART goal objectives. Review the KPIs which will help measure the posts’ performance against the set goals. It could be about increasing awareness or getting conversions. 

Next comes the social media accounts where you will be posting your content. Hence, you must gather all the related information that might help plan your posts. 

  • Goals concerning each platform
  • Your target audience demographics
  • Details of prior campaigns and their performances
  • Loopholes in previous campaigns on these platforms
  • Choosing the right social media accounts

In addition, you must also plan the role of different team members taking care of these social media platforms.

Plan Your Consistency

A content planner will help you stay consistent. What’s even more interesting is that it’s you who gets to choose the frequency of that consistency. 

With a large team to take care of the different aspects of social media platform management, you can always choose to post multiple times every day. 

On the contrary, if you work alone, you can set a more realistic goal. Post once or twice a day and stay consistent with that plan. Thankfully, most of the popular platforms credit those who are consistent, even if there is just one post in a day.

Come Up with Content Topics

Breaking the social media posts into categories can help you stay vibrant with your posts whole touching the assorted likes of your target audience. 

And categorising can be done using two different approaches:

  • 80/20 Rule

As a marketer, you should never feel too pushy. Or else, your audience might consider you spam.

To avoid that, simply apply the 80/20 rule to categorize your posts. According to this rule, 80 per cent of your posts must try to engage and educate your audiences. While 20 per cent left can be utilized for promoting your business. 

  • The Rule of Thirds

Content with no variation starts becoming boring. Hence, applying the rule of thirds helps a lot.

It suggests posting one-third of promotional content, one-third of curated shared content, and the remaining consisting of the collage of personal interactions with subscribers and followers.

Create the Social Media Calendar

Once you have all the details in place, open the excel sheet to fill in the post details. Here, you must design a template that resonates with your goals. Define post categories, number of posts and other information to complete the calendar.

How to Create a Calendar in Google Sheets?

The job is much similar to what you will do with a Microsoft Excel sheet. All you need to do is, open a new Google Sheet. And plan the calendar as you would with a normal excel sheet.

Source credit: Medium

How to Create a Calendar in Canva?

Creating a content calendar in Canva is very simple. Just a few steps and you can design your first content calendar in no time.

Sign In with Your Canva Account

Open Canva and sign in with your account username and password. 

Choose the Template

Canva has hundreds of templates for designing social media content calendars. You can use keywords to narrow down the template choices. If you find what you are looking for, just click on it and choose. 

Enjoy the Great Features

Use Canva’s library with millions of stock images, photos, memes and more to create content. Format the posts using your selected colour scheme, font styles and more.

Keep Personalizing

You can mix and match template designs, upload photos, text and more to customize the content as per your need. 

Publish the Calendar

Make sure to save the calendar once done. You can also share the content calendar with your team members. The posts could be scheduled for publishing automatically. Hence, you can just relax and let Canva do the job.

The Conclusion

Now that you know how to create a content calendar for social media posts, it’s time to give it a try. And do not forget to leave comments if you find any problem creating your first calendar. 

Ways to Repurpose Content for Blogs, Social Media and YouTube

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Do you know there are many ways to repurpose content? Yes, you can actually use your old blogs, videos and every social media post with a twist to create fresh content. This not only saves time but lets you focus on other important things too. 

I understand! Content is the key to success for businesses. However, it’s just a small part of the many things you are responsible for. Such as planning strategies for scaling your company, upgrading your products and much more. 

Let alone, you do need time for yourself. Hence, why not repurpose content if the data and insights are relevant, although written in the past? 

With that in mind, let us figure out the ways to repurpose content for various media. I will also introduce a few applications and solutions that could really ease your task manifold. So, stay tuned!

What is Content Repurposing?

It goes by its name – content repurposing. Simply put, it’s the process of bringing new life out of the old written piece no one cares about anymore. 

If that’s dramatic, I haven’t even started yet! There are many benefits of this marketing strategy. And you can master this art without spending tons of money on an online course. 

Use the already existing content to create something fresh and catchy. For instance, if you have a blog post, why not extract some key pointers and list those in a tweet while also referring to the link to your blog. 

Or, get a screenshot of the pros and cons of the blog and post it on your social media account. It’s all about how creative you can get while not falling prey to plagiarism. 

Why is Content Repurposing in Such a Hype? – Perks Explained!

Content writers spend hours researching a topic. From outline creation to putting words together to finding high authority sources to link to. There isn’t just one job to write a blog. 

And all that effort has a lifespan of a few days or a week. That is unfair. Repurposing content is what can help extend the lifeline of the written content.

What’s fascinating is that the perks do not end here. You can do a lot more. The opportunities are endless if you dare to look through the usual trends. 

Content repurposing helps:

  • Reach more people than you connected with earlier
  • By changing the format, let’s say from a blog to a social media post, you can reach a wider audience base
  • Get more time to spend on your major business goals
  • Reduce the workload of your digital marketing expert and limit the team size to enhance ROI
  • Written once, the content can be repurposed for different channels

All these benefits come along with the leisure time you get to spend with your loved ones on a beach. 

But before you proceed to make new content formats out of old versions, ask yourself:

“Can I Repurpose Every Content Out There?”

Not sure, let’s find out!

What to Consider Before Repurposing Your Content?

First thing first, you must assess your goals for repurposing content. It is important to visualize which content is doing well and at which stage of a funnel.

  • Do you want to increase your brand awareness? 
  • Are you looking to attract more leads to your website?
  • Looking forward to more sales closures?

When you know what you want in terms of results, it becomes easy to pick the right content. 

There are a few things you must also look at before choosing a content to repurpose:

  • Is the content evergreen? – Repurposing a Black Friday sales post on a usual day might put you off track
  • Picking the right social media channel for the repurposed content – For instance, a B2B post will be more suitable for LinkedIn rather than Snapchat or Instagram.
  • Repurpose seasonal content during the apt times

If you already have everything in place, we can proceed to the ways to repurpose content. Trust me, there are quite a few wonderful tactics to use the same content over and over again, without sounding boring.

What Are the Ways to Repurpose Content for Different Content Styles?

As discussed, there are many ways to do it. And, for different formats of content, you can find different repurposing solutions.

How to Repurpose Content for Social Media?

Take Screenshots

A Tweet I repurposed for LinkedIn Post by converting it into a screenshot

What if I say you can turn your tweets into LinkedIn posts? That too, without changing it at all. 

You have heard it right! I am not asking you to copy and paste, but you still can do it.

If your tweet is getting huge traction, it is time to reach more audiences that might like it too.

Deciding to change the format or language might disrupt the beauty of your message. So, you can simply take a screenshot of your tweet and post it as an image on your LinkedIn account. 

Just make sure that the screenshots are high quality and the texts are visible. There are many amazing tools that can help you create wonderful screenshots.

And you can use this trick for different social media accounts. 

Tool Tip: Twinsta is one such tool that helps you turn your tweets into Instagram posts. It’s completely free and also lets you schedule the posts. 

Create Quotes

Social media posts attracting too many views or comments might help you get even more from them. 

If you can, repurpose the posts into quotes. Use media editing tools to perfect the design. There are many online tools that come in handy for beginners with no prior experience with Photoshop.

Tool Tip: Canva can help you create wonderful infographics. Create memes, quotes or images as you like. Apart from the paid membership, the application also has a free version that works just fine for such tuning. 

How to Repurpose Blog Content?

Join Quora

Quora is one of the most popular question-and-answer platforms out there. People post questions from almost every industry and field. 

This gives us the opportunity to use the pointers from our related blogs to answer the question. Plus, adding the link to our blog for further reading would get us more viewers. 

Agree? Let’s go further!

Mix and Match to Create eBook

Have you been writing on a particular topic for a while now? Do you think when combined together the content is worth something?

If the answer to these questions is a ‘YES’, you have found one of the best ways to repurpose content. And, it’s never going to get older.

You can use the eBook to get leads from your website. Ask users to download a free eBook for their contact details in return. Or, add a price tag for the eBook. 

Whatever works for you, it’s fine. As long as you are meeting your goals, you can continue what you like.

Make a Video

Canva Review – The Only Graphic Design Tool You Need? 

Sharing your blog links on social media platforms isn’t something new. A lot of people do it. But most of us do not do it right. 

We either just share links or let WordPress do that for us. Yes, WordPress does have a feature of automatic sharing on social media accounts while publishing the post. 

But these won’t unless you add a twist to the process. Recently I came across a short video creation tool (mentioned a little ahead). It helps turn a few lines of your blog posts into a short video.

How about you share the video on your social media accounts with the blog link for further information.

After all, images and videos are more powerful ways to attract the attention of viewers. So, why not put them to action when it’s easy as a breeze. 

Tool Tip: Lumen5 is an AI-powered video editing tool that helps convert blogs into short videos. They have free as well as paid versions.

Showcase Your Stats

Isn’t statistics content too? Well, let me put it in the other way. You must have seen people posting statistics on social media accounts. 

If that counts for content, why not your blog’s stats. Use the statistics from your popular blogs to post on social media accounts. Do not forget to add links to your blog.

Tool Tip: Google Analytics will help pull the records of the performance of the blog. You can use that stat to flaunt your authority and boost the traffic to your website.

How to Repurpose YouTube Videos?

Trim the Video

YouTube allow us to upload long-length videos. However, when creating an Instagram story or a Facebook story, the minutes are limited. 

Hence, you can trim your videos to fit the content with the requirements of other platforms. Use the watch more link to redirect users to your YouTube Video.

Get Snippets

If you have learnt it for the blogs, you can do it for the YouTube Videos as well. Get some points out of the long video and post it on social media accounts. There are many repurposing content examples that prove the worth of these small efforts. 

The Conclusion

Do not stop just here! These are just a few ways to repurpose content. If you can think of more ways, go ahead. The sky is the limit. For instance, use blog post content to create podcasts. Or, use how to guide blogs to create infographics for Twitter or LinkedIn. Just do it!

How to do Your Website SEO Analysis? 

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Websites’ organic reach strength among its audience depends on several factors. With Google constantly making changes to its SEO algorithm, companies often find it baffling to understand how to measure the performance of their website. That is where Website SEO Analysis becomes very crucial.

It helps locate the areas where businesses can improve their website SEO health for better reach. By making a few changes to your website, you can also find a place on the first page of Google. 

Tools such as Google Analytics, SEMrush and many others provide a deeper insight into the various aspects of your website SEO. Using those data, you can come up with a thoughtful plan to better your SEO strategy.

So, without any further ado, let’s roll! 

Businesswoman using a tablet to analysis graph company finance strategy statistics success concept and planning for future in office room.

What is an SEO Analysis?

SEO analysis provides you with all the information related to the various factors that help rank on the top page of search engines. By auditing your website, you can identify the gaps restricting you from becoming visible online. 

Thus, it becomes simpler to optimize the website to boost your ranking on Google searches. 

Is Website SEO Analysis Important?

You must have heard that consistency matters when it comes to SEO. However, what if you are trying harder but in a completely opposite direction. 

All the efforts will go in vain unless you identify the problems and optimize your plans to solve them. 

That’s exactly what a Website SEO Analysis helps you to achieve!

You gain helpful insights by performing the SEO analysis and get a direction on what improvements are needed. 

It could be the irrelevant site’s content or different technical aspects that might be stopping you from ranking on the top page. But without exactly knowing about the disease, how would you proceed with the treatment. 

In short, if you want to become visible on search engines and drive traffic to your website, you need to analyze SEO. 

How to Perform SEO Analysis for your Website?

The SEO analysis can be divided into three parts. And you must check all these aspects to optimize your website for search bots.

  • On-page SEO: These are the parameters that you can control on your website. For instance, the keyword selection, content (structure, quality and relevancy with your keywords), the HTML source code, meta-tags, media etc.
  • Off-page SEO: Quite different from the On-Page SEO, Off-page SEO relates to the actions you perform outside your website. It mostly refers to link building. The higher the number of articles linking to your website, the better is your website’s authority.  
  • Technical SEO: This is where you optimize the website for the crawlers to index your pages. Such as page speed, sitemap and more.

Analyze Your Website SEO Health in 8 Simple Steps

Among all the SEO parameters, there are 10 that you must always keep in check. 

#1 Website Visibility on Search Engines

It is important to find out where you stand in terms of your website position on Google. Check which all pages from your website are available on Google for users to click.

#2 Analyze URL along with the Site’s Meta Description

URL matters – and it matters a lot! When optimizing your URL, make sure to follow these guidelines:

  • Keep the URL Length to 4-5 words. 
  • URL must contain your focus keyword

If you see any difference from the above pointers, edit the URLs. This way, the search engine would find it easy to identify your pages based on your keywords. 

Likewise, when writing a meta description, ensure the following:

  • It’s not exceeding the word limit
  • The description is attractive enough to nudge users to click on them
  • Includes the focus keyword

#3 Work on Your Titles and Headings

When popping on the search result pages, the first thing that grabs attention is the page’s title. Hence, you must choose attractive titles. The same goes with the headings. These must be interesting. 

In addition, your headings and titles must have keywords. 

Note: Keywords with high search volume are the most complex to rank for. Therefore, you can try long-tail keywords for ranking on SERPs. 

#4 Check Your Website’s Backlinks

Inbound links are the links that are directed to your website from another website. With higher inbound links, the domain authority of the website increases. Search engines consider websites with higher inbound links as trustworthy sources. 

Thus, it helps improve your website rank on Google. However, you must stay wary of the spam links. If you are getting too many inbound links from the low authority sites, it will decrease the trust quotient of your website.

Hence, when evaluating your inbound links, delete the ones that are spammy.

#5 Check the Broken Links

Broken links aren’t just too irritating for visitors, but they attack the SEO health of your website. Therefore, you must tackle them sooner. 

Open the Google webmaster tools to locate your website’s broken links to optimise them. You can choose to correct those links. Or you can even go with 301 redirects to valid URLs. Or just take them away completely.

#6 Perfect Your Content

How can we ignore content? After all, content is what keeps your visitors glued to your pages. So, ensure these when you write your posts:

  • Never copy and paste your content. Always write unique content
  • Contents must be error-free and high-quality
  • Use only one H1 heading with a keyword included
  • At least one of the subheadings must include a keyword too
  • You must also include the keyword in the first and last paragraph

Note: You can use Yoast SEO to check the readability and SEO score of the posts.

#7 Check Your Media Files

Posts without images look dull and unattractive. However, when including images, you must make sure that these are high quality and do not appear pixelated. At the same time, images must be too heavy, or it would affect your page load speed. 

Never forget to optimize the alt text of your images with the focus keyword. If you follow these simple tips, your SEO score will get better. 

#8 Page Load Speed 

Pages that load faster are more likely to stay on the top results. That being said, visitors often neglect websites that take too much time to load. It results in a higher bounce rate. 

Simply put, even if you start ranking on top results for all the great SEO efforts, a slow page load speed will take you down as faster. 

Check your page speed insights on Google and optimize the website accordingly.

#9 (Additional Tip) – Do Competitor Website Analysis

It is very crucial to keep a check on what’s working for your competitors. Use free website audit tools to find out how your competitors are ranking well. Check their keywords usage, page speed and other factors and compare those with your website audit results.

By performing competitor website analysis, you can easily improve your website’s SEO health.

The Conclusion

Ranking on Google is not easy. There are many companies and businesses struggling to rank for the same keyword. However, with consistent efforts in the right direction, you can make it through. 

Hence, always perform your website SEO analysis from time to time to stay on top of results. 

Canva Review – The Only Graphic Design Tool You Need? 

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Are you looking for an image editing tool and want to find out if Canva can be your best fit? Well, here is a detailed Canva review to help you make that choice. 

Find out if Canva can help you meet your graphic designing needs. And, if yes, should you go for the paid plan or stick to the free one.

I started working with Canva a few years back to edit images for blog posts and social media accounts. And soon, it became a part of my routine. With its amazing features and great user interface, anyone can fall in love with this tool. 

There definitely are a few recommended improvements. Despite that, Canva is a catch. Want to know how, let’s keep reading!

Canva Review – Pros and Cons

Here are the pros and cons of Canva.

Pros

  • Great for those who are from non-designer background
  • The free version is available to get you started right away
  • Wonderful resources, a vast library, easy to use editing tool makes it all a breeze
  • Let’s you integrate various apps
  • Brand kit available

Cons

  • No audio or video calling with collaboration
  • Limited capabilities with video editing
  • Requires you to connect with the internet

What is Canva?

Canva is an app for designing graphics. The tool helps users create fascinating visual media without much effort. Therefore, anyone without any prior experience in designing can use this app to get the job done. 

You can use this tool for creating images for social media posts, short videos, posters, brief presentations, and whatnot. Using the plethora of customizable templates along with the free images, users can get a lot more creative than otherwise. 

Whether you are a small business with a limited budget to hire a designer or a freelancer, doing everything on your own, this tool will help ease your workload. 

With its vast template options to choose from and a large image library, you can start right away. Or try the free workshops by Canva to know about the best practices. 

How Does Canva Work?

Available in a web version and as a downloadable app, Canva gives you the flexibility to work as you want. The downloadable app is compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Chromebook.

Essentially, there are three ways Canva help you to get started! 

First is its template, the pre-designed and uploaded layouts for various design aspects. 

Then comes the elements of Canva. These are the images, gifs, videos, and other media assets you can use to create your designs. 

Lastly, it’s Canva’s user-friendly editor. With drag-drop design, working with the editor is a breeze.

But this is not it! Those who love doing it themselves can create their custom templates and designs too. 

Who Can Use Canva – Is Canva for You?

To put it precisely, anyone and everyone can use Canva. However, the tool aims at helping those who either are a novice or wants to complete their design projects quickly. 

Hence, Canva is for small business owners, solopreneurs, freelancers, and marketers. And, expecting very sophisticated designs from Canva like other professional tools such as Photoshop won’t be justified at all. 

But that’s the catch here. Canva is to help users avoid going through the steep learning curve and let users with no background in editing graphics create media files. Or else, there wouldn’t have been any need for such a platform after all. 

Canva Review – What Are Canva’s Best Features?

Canva comes packed with many features, some basic and a few excellent ones. Here is a glimpse of some of the wonderful features that are commonly used by designers. 

Brand Kit for Maintaining Consistency

As the name suggests, Canva gives you access to Brand kits. These are the set of guidelines for logos, color palettes or other assets of branding. Just note that this feature is not available with the free version.

Using Canva, you can preset a few parameters such as fonts, brand’s name and more to reuse with your designs. 

Happy to Collaborate!

This feature had to be there. In today’s time when most of us are working from home, online collaboration on projects has become a part and parcel of daily work. And Canva makes this possible.

Users can collaborate to work on the same file in real-time. The admin can provide the editing rights or just maintain the viewing rights, depending on the needs. 

With collaboration in place, Canva certainly can do better by introducing audio or video calling features when editing together. Currently, it does not even allow screen sharing.

Great Editing Tools

As discussed, the drag and drop editor makes choosing easy from the array of images and template library. In addition, it’s not just the images that you can design with Canva. But a lot of other things too. 

For instance, business cards, flyers, blog banners, posters and more. 

Wait! It’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can even animate images and share your designs directly to social media accounts. 

In short – To know what it’s worth, you must use it first!

Integrate Apps with Canva

Canva helps you integrate with other apps such as Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. 

Apart from that, users can import images from Facebook, Bitmoji, Giphy, and various websites.

Plan Your Content with Canva

I personally love this feature. There are other content planner apps. But when combined with Canva, it becomes even more powerful. 

You can plan your entire calendar of social media posts with Canva. Click on the ‘+’ sign to either add a media file created in the past or create it right away. 

Which One I Must Choose – Canva Free, Pro or Enterprise Plan?

Canva offers three price plans for users. The plan starts with a free version. Then there are two paid plans. 

As you might expect, the free plan comes with limitations and does not require you to make any payment for the subscription. 

On the other hand, the Pro plan is $12.99 per month. In this plan, you can add up to five users to the account.  

Lastly, it’s the Enterprise plan that is $30 per user per month. To avail of this plan, you must register a minimum of 25 users.

There are two more plans designed specifically for nonprofit institutions as well as verified teachers. Although these are free but require submission of a form with proof.

When it comes to choosing between these plans, the use case is simple. Those with limited use of the tool can easily survive with the free plan. However, if you wish to use advanced tools such as brand kit and many other features, you must switch to the Pro plan. 

The Enterprise plan, however, is for companies with over 25 designers working on the platform.

To compare plans, visit here.

Canva Review – The Verdict

Undoubtedly, Canva is a very impressive tool for designers, especially those who want to complete the job faster. Created for users with no background in designing, Canva features an easy learning curve.

You must explore the app to know what it can accomplish. I hope this Canva Review nudge you to go straight to the app. 

Social Media Marketing Tips – Works for Every Platform

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Do you know you can better your social media marketing results by 30 per cent? Using some of the tested social media marketing tips, you can leverage the benefits of these platforms to the fullest. 

I am a social media marketer and a content creator who has been working alongside various clients to boost their online presence. While most marketers claim that posting on digital platforms is complex, I trust a few tips that really takes away blind efforts from the equation.

With just the right tactics and proper consistency, anyone can achieve desired outcomes through a social media marketing plan. And, in this article, I will put some light on those tips that could offer you an edge with your strategies, starting today.

Social Media Marketing Tips – Benefits of Following the Right Tactics

From new businesses to the ones that are well-established follow a personalized social media plan to increase their followers, generate leads and thrive in sales. 

From organic posts to paid ads, there are many ways to reach out to your audiences. However, before you leverage the perks of these strategies, you must understand a few common practices to invest your efforts in the right direction.

Businesses following these social media marketing tips have been able to achieve success in less time. Here are the various ways these tips can be helpful for you too.

  • Create higher awareness for your brand
  • Build a relationship with your target audience
  • Increase your ROI by investing in the right strategy
  • Save time by utilizing the platforms that matter the most
  • Boost your sales 

If that seems like something you want to achieve too, check the tips and prepare a plan based on these tactics.

Tip 1 – Design a Personalized Plan for Different Social Media Platforms

No two digital platforms are the same.  While Facebook has the largest user base, Twitter is the most used option for ads with media. On the other hand, Snapchat caters to the younger generation. 

Taking these things into consideration, you must plan your strategies for different platforms accordingly. 

Not to forget, these platforms have their own set of best practices in case you wish to generate engagement. Some have the most active users in the afternoon and others are busy at night. 

Hence, you must plan your social media calendar considering these facts. 

Note – It is recommended to choose two or three digital platforms that have the largest base of your audience. This way, you can minimize your efforts on those platforms that won’t get you enough conversion to justify your time spent.

Tip 2 – Consistency is the Key

Posting consistently is the basic rule of thumb that every marketer must follow. 

If you post today and go missing for the entire week, it would be difficult to remember you as a brand. But if you post regularly, you can capture the attention of your target users in less time. 

Also, a few ad formats such as Twitter Stories need users to stay active more than once in the entire day to take advantage of it. On the contrary, you can manage your usual Posts on Facebook without that kind of urgency. 

Note: Never forget to check the maximum allowed posts for each platform. Crossing the limit might affect your social media marketing strategies adversely.

Tip 3 – Know What’s Trending

When you post something related to what’s trending, you get more traction. Because people are already discussing the topic, you can generate some great leads being in the loop. 

Note: Check the trending posts on Twitter to find out what people are talking about. You will get an idea to create a post that could help attract more audiences.

Tip 4 – Always Measure Your Output

Social media analytics can give you a clear picture of what’s working and what isn’t. Here is what you can find out using these statistics:

  • How many users you are able to reach?
  • What kind of engagement you were able to generate?
  • Did people share your content?
  • Could you entice your audience to click the link with the post?

And a lot of other parameters that would allow you to identify the posts that are doing great for your marketing goals. 

Note: Try investing more time on posts that are getting you the maximum results. Also, change those posts that are not working to find out what went wrong. 

Tip 5 – Connect with Your Audience

Your job does not end after you post the content on social media platforms. Rather, talking to your audiences and interacting with them on comments would help you get more reach. 

Note: Never dodge negative comments. Instead, reply politely and try to solve the issues through proper communication. Request your users to edit their reviews with the given resolutions. 

The Conclusion

There are various social media marketing tips that you can follow to enhance your strategies for the best results. While these are the most common ones, you need to find out the tactics that work for your business. And stick to it for great results. 

Six Cognitive Biases – Help Influence Your Buyers’ Decisions 

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Many marketers ignore learning about human psychology, not knowing that the two fields are strongly intertwined. However, the fact is, by understanding how purchase decisions depend highly on human behaviour, marketers can turn their strategies to their advantage. Therefore, knowing about these six cognitive biases is very essential.

These biases are the cause of unpredictable human behaviour. When utilized correctly, these can help businesses succeed exponentially.

Please note that there are around 100 cognitive biases. However, using each one of these for fabricating your marketing strategies will only make things complex. Hence, we will stick with the major biases. 

What Are Cognitive Biases?

Cognitive biases are the reasoning mistakes that people do when making decisions. Instead of focusing on the real factors, people involve their past experiences, social boundaries, preconceptions, and other influences to conclude their decisions. 

The good news is, based on these top six cognitive biases, it becomes easy to manipulate your buyers’ buying priorities. 

All you must do is, find out what these biases are and use them to build the most effective marketing campaigns. 

Six Cognitive Biases – What Are These?

Driven by human A/B testing, scientists came up with some very strong cognitive biases to help marketers with their campaigns. 

I have curated the six cognitive biases that are highly active within consumers. 

1.     Availability cascade

“Repeat something multiple times and see it come true”

If you know about this phrase, you will easily understand what the Availability cascade means. Precisely, the more we hear about a belief and the more it keeps getting popular among people, it starts becoming more plausible. 

Hence, in marketing terms, when you keep repeating yourself, everyone starts thinking it as true, irrespective of the information authenticity.  

Let’s take a simple example. We have all heard stories of haunted houses when we were young. However, going to that same place now will still make you uncomfortable, isn’t it? 

It is because your brains are wired to that truth – the house is haunted!

Marketers can use this bias in remarketing campaigns. Showing the same ad multiple times does nudge the buyers to make a prompt decision.

2.     Confirmation Bias

This happens when someone goes to any length to confirm their belief by researching and interpreting information. 

For instance, when we support a candidate during elections, we often ignore their negative feedback while sticking to only positive ones. Even when the negative emotions overweigh the positive opinions, that does not change our views.

Marketers can use this bias to their advantage. The most suitable way to do this is by keeping consistency between your landing page and the ad that redirects to it. The bias is also useful for making remarketing strategies. 

3.     Herd Mentality

This bias stops people from using their independent analysis to make an informed decision. On the other hand, they follow what maximum people believe. 

To utilize this bias for your interest, use testimonials and reviews to back your product or service. 

4.     Loss Aversion

People do not like to lose things they already own. Even when you offer something of the same value or even greater in exchange. 

Marketers can cleverly use this bias by offering customers free samples. And losing on these products would feel like a huge loss afterwards. 

You can also offer discounts for a short period of time to influence buyers to make quick buying decisions.

5.     Framing Effect

The simpler and more straightforward the information is, the higher its probability of being accepted. 

Let’s look at these two examples:

A – The product worth INR 1000 is available at a discounted price of INR 850.

B – Buy a product for INR 1000 and get it at one-third of its price.

Among these two options, consumers will often click on offer A. This is because of the simplicity of its design. 

That said, you must now know how to use this bias for your campaign’s success.

6.     The IKEA Effect

According to this bias, people value products if they feel their involvement in them in any way possible. Even if the product does not entice them at first. 

As a marketer, you can help your customers feel a part of the product’s journey. You can ask for their feedback, and input when coming up with new features.

Or, asking them for their preferences during product creation. These steps can significantly help improve sales. 

The Conclusion

Marketers must find out which among these six cognitive biases will suit best their campaign goals. Hence, you must consider the objectives of your marketing strategies and the target audience before leveraging on these biases. 

Mailchimp Review – How Good It Is for You?

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When thinking about email marketing, which is the first name that pops in your mind? Undeniably, Mailchimp, 9 out of 10 times. So, why is it that this email marketing solution is so popular among businesses? Read the complete Mailchimp review and decide for yourself. 

As a blogger, I have tried this software for some time. And it certainly has some wow factor to it. From free plans to amazing features, you can enjoy various perks when working with this marketing tool. However, not everything is rosy though.

So, without wasting much time, let’s find out how great is Mailchimp and why you should use it. Or simply the other way around. Let’s get started already!

Mailchimp Review – Pros and Cons

How about we take a quick look at the benefits and limitations of using Mailchimp? 

Pros

  • Offers amazing reporting features starting from geo-tracking to google analytics to more
  • Users can easily start with their free plan that allows access to many great features
  • With the free plan, you can send up to 10,000 emails and can have 2000 subscribers 
  • The software supports a wonderful editor with a user-friendly interface to make the job simpler for its users
  • Mailchimp keeps working on additional features to keep its users enticed 

Cons

  • The free plan has limitations. So, when you start to scale up with this software, the prices start to soar too.
  • Email scheduling isn’t available with the free plan

Features

Mailchimp is popular for its feature-rich offering. The marketing software comes packed with plenty of valuable functionalities that help professionals up their game. 

Web Form Builder

As someone wanting to send bulk emails, you will need to have a subscriber list. And Mailchimp makes it easier for you by giving you access to its web form builder. You can embed forms on your websites to ask visitors to subscribe.

Although the template isn’t very enticing, it does the job well. What’s fun is that the form is easy to embed and integrate with your website. 

Multiple Campaign Options

You can choose between regular, automated, plain-text and A/B testing campaigns. All these campaigns are designed to keep marketers’ goals in mind. 

For instance, while regular campaigns help you create customized emails with a scheduling option, the A/B testing would allow you to send multiple versions of one campaign to see which one works best for you.

Landing Page Builder

Another important feature is MailChimp’s landing page builder.  It does not matter which Mailchimp version you use, the software enables you to create as many landing pages as you like. 

Precisely, you can create two kinds of landing pages using this tool. One for email lists and another for product promotion.

Email Builder

From templates to design options, you get to choose from an array of options. Either start working with the existing templates or customize those to your needs. The process is intuitive and easy to follow.

Basic Automation 

Yes, it’s true! Of all the limitations, this may feel like really pilling up with time. For starters, basic automation might not be a thing to worry about. However, as you grow, scaling becomes a challenge.

Setup Auto Response

If you want to stay quick in responding to your customers or new subscribers, this feature will come in handy. 

Reporting and Analysis

This is where Mailchimp comes back as a strong candidate. You get almost everything you will ever need as a marketer. From Google Analytics integration to social media and to whatnot. 

Quick Integration

Enjoy more than 800 integrations that Mailchimp supports. Whether you want eCommerce or website integrations, the software will help you make that possible. Recently, they have also introduced integration with Shopify. 

Should You Choose Mailchimp Newsletter Service?

Yes, if:

  • you require to integrate newsletter service with other solutions
  • An All-in-one solution is what you are looking for including a CRM
  • Wish to automate the service booking with online payment options
  • You want native commerce features in your email marketing tool

No, if:

  • You are engaged in affiliate marketing. Mailchimp restricts it.
  • You have a free version as it comes with limited features with no support option
  • You love complete email automation

The Conclusion

Users who use emails less frequently will find Mailchimp as their best resort. With basic features under a free plan, there is a lot one can accomplish. However, when it comes to high-end automation or email segmentation, the marketing software lags behind its competition. 

Hence, if you have already read this Mailchimp review, try out the free plan before deciding what it’s worth. You never know in what ways the tool can surprise you. After all, it boasts so many users around the globe. 

Joomla Review: Is This CMS For You?

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In this Joomla Review, we will discuss the various aspects of this content management system to find out if it fits your needs. 

Working with Joomla is a completely unique experience. If you have used WordPress or Wix, you would easily realize the difference. A little less intuitive, Joomla continues to feel a little dated. 

On the brighter side though, the websites on this CMS are neat and clean. The question remains: Is this content management system (CMS) suitable for you?

So, let’s find out the answer already!

What is Joomla?

Joomla is a content management system that is completely open source. Users can create dynamic websites along with powerful applications using this CMS. Alongside a feature-rich solution, it flaunts a user-friendly interface that enables users to make the most of it.

The CMS uses PHP as its core language along with MySQL database to offer robust website development solutions to the users. What’s interesting is that the CMS requires just a click for installation. 

On top of that, you can refer to various articles online to learn how to set up Joomla. In addition, Joomla boasts multiple hosting services, offering users flexible choices. 

Based on the MVC (Model View Controller) architecture, the CMS processes requests after analyzing the URL. In other words, Joomla evaluates and decides between the components to process first and executes those, one by one.

Note: Content Management System (CMS) is a solution enabling the creation and management of digital content with ease. Simply put, users can create websites using CMS without involving themselves in the complex coding. 

Joomla Review – Pros and Cons

A free CMS for users, Joomla packs a variety of tools, extensions, and more to offer amazing flexibility when designing websites. Although difficult for beginners with its steep learning curve, the CMS is popular among all levels of users. 

Pros

  • The CMS is completely free to use 
  • Being popular and around for many years, Joomla has a huge community of supporters. Hence, it’s easy to find answers when starting to work out with this CMS
  • Customizable designs offer great flexibility to developers

Cons

  • The backend is complex, especially for beginners
  • Lack of direct one to one support from either phone or email. One must depend on the online knowledge base

Features

I won’t exaggerate. Joomla comes with basic features with not much room for optimization. And the website templates are limited too. 

However, it sure boasts some of the exciting features that have helped keep developers’ interest intact in Joomla.

Free Extensions

Unlike WordPress which offers integrated support for plugins, Joomla works with extensions. The platform itself is very basic. Therefore, you must work with extensions to avail the benefits of extra features. 

Extensions allow you to enable reviews, SEO, and a lot of other features. What’s interesting is that these extensions are free to use. 

If you wish to use these extensions, you must download these manually. Later, upload these to a specific section on the platforms to make them available for your website. 

Alternatively, you can also design extensions as per your need. Thanks to the platform being open source.

Website Templates

Once again, there isn’t an official website from Joomla to download templates. However, there are many third-party websites that host hundreds of templates for Joomla. 

Just note that on Joomla, you can use different templates for different pages. Hence, one website can use multiple templates. Well, this feature is not available with the most popular WordPress as well. 

Built-In SEO (Search engine optimization)

There is no point in having a website or an e-commerce site that does not rank on the first page of Google. 

Thankfully, Joomla has built-in SEO that packs powerful tools to get you what you need. From SEO-friendly URLs to menu items with their meta description, title tags, keywords and much more, Joomla is a complete package.

Multi-Users Platform

Joomla is a very robust CMS offering multiple users’ functionalities. You can add permission settings that might or might not differ for every user, depending on your need. 

In other words, users on Joomla can enjoy full access or can be limited to a few editing permissions. With easy to manage user list, you can simply delete those that are not in use. 

Pricing

The most interesting deal with Joomla is that it is completely open-source. This means you do not have to pay for anything. You own your website and manage it as you like. 

From modification to adding extensions, you can do anything without worrying about expensive licenses or fees.

The Conclusion

Frankly speaking, working with Joomla was neither too great nor too bad. The experience was rather mixed. 

With no-cost benefits, the platform comes with its own set of challenges. Lacking simple customization and a complex dashboard could make it too intimidating at some points. 

Especially when there are so many options in today’s time. Back in 2001, Joomla did not have much competition. But things change. However, Joomla sticks to the old ways yet. 

For instance, lack of navigation makes it frustrating to circle back to where we started every time. The complexity makes this CMS time consuming to deal with.

Surprisingly, it still is one of the most popular solutions out there for building websites. So, if you are interested in learning about this CMS, just go for it. It won’t cost you any penny, just the extra time and effort.

Best Content Management Tools – Which One You Must Pick?

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Websites aren’t about just beautiful designs and simple navigation anymore. Users expect more from what they see online. And everything boils down to the content and its visualization. Therefore, picking up the best content management tools matter so much.

I am Chandni, a blogger who prefers nothing less than perfection when it comes to content generation. Writing for more than 7 years now, it aches when to see my write-ups suffer just because the tool is missing a common feature. 

Thankfully, there are several wonderful content management tools that pack amazing and valuable features. So, you are not left with a few handful functions that just nudge the surface a little.

In this article, I will list those popular solutions that stand out from the many choices available for users today. From a simple management interface to tons of amazing tools, these recommendations would certainly up your content creation game. 

How to Choose Best Content Management Tools?

You must know how crucial these applications are in affecting the success of marketers. That said, there is no way you can go wrong with the selection of these tools. 

Here are some of the things you must look for when choosing the right content management tool:

Platform’s Flexibility

Professionals always look for solutions that can ease their efforts and quickly complete the job at hand. From landing pages to testimonial pages, these must not take a lifetime to design. 

The editor must be flexible and easy to understand. Typically, a great editor will offer simple pick and drop tools, easy to choose templates options and similar features. 

Basically, what you see during the editing process is what you see once the content is online. 

If your content software can match that, you have got the right tool there!

Offers Collaboration

No wonder why we need it. We often work in a team. And even if not, who knows what the future entails. 

Therefore, it is imperative that the content management software meets this requirement – a platform for collaboration.

But the demand does not end there. Apart from collaboration, the platform must allow the admin to set permissions. This way, no user will be able to override one another work. At the same time, it will set the right expectations among the team members.

For instance, if I am the editor, I must possess the right to change the content of all the writers in the team. However, being a writer, I must not come in the way of other writers’ work.

Easy to Integrate

No software can offer everything. And there will be times when you want to integrate other tools to complete your work with perfection. Such as mailing or newsletters, forms, databases and more. 

Typically, you are looking for an open-source platform or one that provides an all-in-one solution. 

Test the Changes

What if you do not want to implement the changes, not just before testing it? And that’s pretty much an obvious demand to ask for. 

Therefore, the application must allow you to preview changes before you can allow them in real-time. 

List of Best Content Management Tools

Please note that these are some of the recommendations based on my personal experience. And the perceptions may differ for others. Also, the list is not based on priority. 

WordPress

Who does not know about WordPress? One of the most popular content management solutions, WordPress brings together a huge community of designers and developers. 

Although the tool is free, it charges for hosting though. And, if you choose to go with the paid template or plugins, it will add to the budget. 

With a simple interface and as easy as no-code design, anyone can become familiar with this platform in no time. However, if you are good at coding, you can build templates and pages from scratch. 

Joomla

Like WordPress, Joomla is also an open-source tool that allows users to collaborate and design webpages, eCommerce websites and more. 

However, unlike WordPress, it isn’t that simple to understand. That is why the platform is mostly preferred by developers. On the brighter side, the content management tool offers great flexibility and enjoys a huge community. 

HubSpot CMS Hub

A lot more than a content management tool, HubSpot Hub is a complete solution for marketers and entrepreneurs. 

Being created on top of HubSpot’s CRM, the solution brings with it an array of marketing automation features, operations tools, and more. 

If you are in the phase where your business growth comes before any other mission, you cannot miss trying CMS Hub. It features A/B testing, personalized and smart content management, integration with forms, databases, email lists and more.

The Conclusion

Content management is a very hectic job. You cannot expect to click a few buttons and make your content look impressive. It requires research, patience, and a lot of effort to get things right.

And the best content management tools would certainly ease your job. Therefore, you must pick the one that aligns with your needs.