A Content Marketing Blogger’s Review of Airstory
Why Airstory Isn’t Worth the Trouble
While searching for tools to help expedite the blogging content creation process, I came across Airstory. I was intrigued and looked into it a little more before deciding to take the plunge.
The biggest draw for me was the claim that Airstory would expedite the process, especially the research portion. I found that the longest portion of the process was the research itself, so this definitely piqued my interest. As I read through the glowing reviews, my desire for the tool grew. I had to have this — it would save me time, make the process easier, and I could use the leftover time for other projects!
So I signed up for the 14-day free trial, and here’s what I found.
You can check out Airstory’s home page here.
ABOUT AIRSTORY
Airstory is a content creation tool made by the Copy Hackers team. If you’re not familiar with Copy Hackers — and you’re a blogger — I highly suggest you check out their website. It’s filled with great articles on marketing, editing, blogging, copy writing, and more. A lot of it is written in a conversational style (literally — they include back and forth conversations in their posts), so it’s easy to understand and fun to read.
But back to the point of this post: Airstory.
So the Copy Hackers team created Airstory. All the templates included within it have been vetted by Joanna Wiebe, the founder of Copy Hackers and co-founder of Airstory. Joanna is an extremely talented copywriter with lots of great tips and tricks to share. If you’re not following her on Twitter, you should be!
The page is littered with trust symbols, smooth design and images, testimonials, and short quips meant to entice:
“Never again waste time staring at a blank page.”
Airstory makes a promise to content creators, saying the tool will:
- Reduce the number of tools you use when creating content
- Keep everything organized
- Allow you to easily save research from anywhere online
- Annotate other people’s content easily
- Access templates to help you create better outlines
- Save writers time and make the process much faster and easier.
“Put us to the test, and see how much time you’ll save.”
But does it deliver? Let’s take a look and delve into the review.
PRICING & VALUE
- Airstory: $59/month + $2.99 each for extra projects (over 10)
Airstory starts at $59 per month. This includes 10 projects and 10GB of storage. If you need more projects than that, you can add on extras for $2.99/month each. If you’re a freelancer or work for a large marketing agency with a ton of clients, this tool may not be for you.
When compared to the other content management systems out there, how does it stack up?
In all reality, I didn’t find it to be any better than the content management systems within WordPress and HubSpot.
And honestly, why pay for another tool if you don’t have to? Everything in WordPress and HubSpot is included — not just blogging.
Meanwhile, Airstory only covers one part of the package: creating blogs. And unfortunately, I just wasn’t impressed with it.
USER EXPERIENCE & SUPPORT
- Airstory: Very user-friendly, instant support
The great thing about Airstory is the fact that you can access support inside the tool instantly. There’s an instant chat bubble on the right side of the screen, down at the bottom.
WordPress offers live chat support to those with a WordPress.com plan. Their 24/7 support allows users to answer their burning questions or solve troubleshooting issues anytime, anywhere.
HubSpot Support consists of a few things: submit a ticket via email, ask the community, Twitter, searchable learning resources, and a number you can call. Unfortunately, none of these offer the instantaneous communication that instant chat does. Twitter comes close, but your response may not be instant.
Airstory can be accessed on your smartphone, too, but it does not have a dedicated app for their tool — not yet anyway.
Yet again, I am left confused as to why this makes things easier.
I can access both HubSpot and WordPress via their mobile apps — not just in my mobile browser (which honestly isn’t as user friendly or responsive as an app).
Airstory is not making it easier for me here, but harder!
THE VERDICT: NOT WORTH IT
- Helped me start writing
- Initial value lost over time
- No SEO feature comparable to WordPress Yoast SEO plug-in
- Fewer features than other CMS
- Nothing really new
When it was all said and done, I had to ask myself one question:
What can Airstory do that I can’t already do?
And the answer was nothing.
I do concede that Airstory did help me START writing with their great templates. However, the value didn’t stick. The initial value of the templates was enticing, but once they were all downloaded and saved, I could use them forever. There was no new value coming in — just the same templates.
Evernote and Pocket have the exact same “clip for later” function as Airstory does, and if all else fails, use your bookmarks or keep a bunch of tabs open.
The card library functions the same way as Evernote and Google Keep. Heck, you can even keep this stuff in a Word document or Google Docs to have the same effect. While, yes, it’s easy to import cards into content in Airstory, literally all you have to do is copy & paste into whatever CMS you’re working in.
Though I could export my blogs into WordPress, the lack of SEO feature in Airstory meant I’d have to spend time working on that within WordPress anyway once exported.
As I mentioned previously, Airstory only added a step to my content creation process. It didn’t make it easier or faster — in fact, it slowed me down!
My advice? Stick with what you’ve got.
CONCLUSION
If you’re looking for a change to a new tool that can help you keep everything in one place, Airstory is a good fit.
But if you’re looking for a tool to integrate with tools you already use — this may not be the best fit.
I found that Airstory simply added another step to the process of content creation, forcing me to move the content over to WordPress once done so I could check the SEO and do various adjustments once it was in the CMS. It was not a “one-stop shop” for me.
How do you feel about Airstory? Have you had any experience with it? Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Originally published on www.ewebresults.com.
