As a content creator, your main job is to create content (well, duh). But what exactly does that mean?
In general, it means you have to create infographics, blogs, videos, animations, flyers, etc. which will then be used to represent the company you work for. You need to manage accounts on almost every possible social media channel that there is. Meaning, you have to think of the best strategy how, what and when to post, come up with the idea, design and copy for each post and make it all look the best that can be – visually and content-wise.
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And sometimes you get stuck with creating content. You can’t find inspiration, you’re not satisfied with how your posts visually look, you don’t have time to manually post on social media, etc.
Luckily, there are many different tools to help you overcome the challenges of content creation. Below, I listed some of the best free tools for content creators.
Bitly – URL Shortening
Let’s start with one of the basic rules of posting on social media – always shorten your links. Leaving full URLs in your copy looks messy and takes up too much space (and characters on Twitter!). That’s why, before posting any link, shorten it on Bitly, a free URL shortening service.
Buffer – Scheduling Posts
Buffer is the perfect tool for scheduling posts. It’s easy to use and its free plan lets you connect your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram account to schedule up to 10 posts per each account at a time. That way, you spare yourself the time you would spend on manually posting on all of your channels.
Visme – Designs
This presentation and design tool is great for content creators since it helps in designing presentations, documents, social media graphics, and more. Whether you need to make a social media header, a professional infographic or a wonderful blog header, Visme’s got it all. Whatever it is that you want to create, you can use Visme’s templates, adapt them or make your own, completely new designs and graphics.
Determ – Inspiration and More
As all content creators know, lack of inspiration sometimes causes desperation (rhymed this one accidentally). We’ve all been there – you’re looking at the social media schedule you need to make for the next month and nothing (good enough) comes to your mind. What to write about in your next blog and what to post on social media are just some of the questions that pop up in your mind but you just can’t think of anything.
This is where Determ comes to the rescue. This freemium media monitoring tool gives you valuable insight into what the Internet is buzzing about and much more. It’s perfect for identifying popular topics in your niche which you can then use as inspiration for new content that your followers will engage with. But, finding inspiration is just one of the things Determ can provide content creators with. You can also use it to track what kind of content your competition posts, find influencers to collaborate with to create great new content, see what type of content your followers engage with the most, etc.
Headliner – Videos
Lastly, we come to another great free tool – Headliner.
You don’t want your content to be based only on pictures or animations as your followers might get tired of seeing the same kind of content over and over again. Spice things up with creating cool videos in which you can, for example, explain your company’s culture or their business. Headliner is the tool to use to create videos. Using its free plan, you can create up to 10 high-quality videos that you can then share directly to your social media accounts or download via e-mail.