Content Matters! Top 5 apps for content creation
Content is everywhere on the web, from company websites to social media. Without it the online world couldn’t function — it would just be empty.
So why does it matter so much? Content is what your customers or consumers engage with and quite often it is the first insight they get into you and your business. The content that you display could make or break you. If you’re not producing content then your website will just be a blank space and your social media feeds will remain empty. If the content that you are producing is of a low quality then, ok it’ll be out there, but nobody’s really going to want to read it or take any notice. High quality content is rewarded by Google through its search engine optimisation (SEO) rankings, and we all know that the higher up you appear in a Google search, the better.
Coming up with ideas for content, or keeping on top of maintaining various different social media platforms, isn’t always easy. Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there to help you do this. Here are my top 5:
Lumi
Coming up with ideas for topics is essential in order to be able to create content, but sometimes this is the difficult bit and creates a stumbling block before you’ve even got started. Lumi is a free content recommendation plugin for your web browser. Using your browsing history the app pulls together content that it thinks you might be interested in, based on what you’ve been looking at previously. It provides you with a selection of inspiration that is relevant to you.
Evernote
Ideas are things that tend to come to you when you’re least expecting them to, not just when you want them to. Evernote is a free app that allows you to capture your ideas and more on any device, so you can access them in or out of working hours. A new introduction is Evernote Business. For a fee Evernote for business allows you to share what you’ve captured with everyone while still having your private space on the app.
Quip
You’ve got a bit of spare time, maybe you’re on the train, and now would be a good time to carry on writing up that content you started earlier. Only problem is you’ve been word processing it so it would mean having to retype it all again later. Well that’s where Quip comes in. It’s free and allows you to word process on any device easily, so you can start on your desktop and carry on writing on your phone without losing the formatting. Quip lets you access your documents offline so you can edit now and synchronise your changes later when you can get back online. There’s just no excuse now
QuickCast
It can get a bit tedious sometimes, creating the same kind of content over and over, and every now and again we want to try something new. QuickCast lets you create screencast videos of up to 3 minutes in length, and again, it’s free. Screencasts record what is on your screen so it can be you via webcam, a presentation, a visual demonstration of a piece of software. Quip enables you to manipulate what is on the screen and record audio by providing a voiceover while recording. Your video is then ready to go , no editing needed!
Hootsuite
Then there’s managing your content. On your To Do list you’ve got 5 tweets, 2 status updates and a blog post that need posting, and that’s on top of all the other work you’ve got to do. You can’t just post everything at once as that’s not very effective, but it’s a pain having to keep logging in to your different social media accounts. Let Hootsuite do it for you. Amongst it’s many features, it allows you to schedule tweets and such like so you can write them all out at once but it will post them for you when you want. It’s like having a social media manager, but you’re still the one in control.
