5 Online Tools I Use Every Day for Business
/There are SO many tools available to help with your business from project management to social posting...you name it. While I use different tools for different tasks, there are some I use day in and day out to manage my business overall. Here's a quick breakdown of what I use every day:
Toggl
Toggl is a free project and time tracker. You can organize your clients and projects by color, see visual graphs, and even add team members.
I love this tool for the simplicity. I color code my clients and use it for the basic time tracking and reporting.
A lot of my projects are still service-based, hours-for-dollars type of work. So to accurately track my time, I use Toggl. It's also a great reference if any questions come up from clients.
I'm also horrible at estimating, so this gives me a good idea of how long certain projects take.
Asana
If you have multiple clients at one time, Asana is an excellent project management solution. As with many online tools, there is a free version and then tiered pricing depending on your needs.
This tool is a bit more robust than Toggl for managing your projects. You can organize from client to project to individual tasks required to complete the project, along with setting deadlines and communicating with team members.
I'm a Type-A List Maker, so I love Asana.
If you have a VA or other people on your team, it's a good way to share notes and communicate about projects and deadlines.
I currently use Asana for my clients, but I also have a separate account for a large company I contract with (below).
Picmonkey
I inevitably end up needing to edit graphics at some point most days, whether for my blog, a client's blog, or quick edits for social media.
I've used Photoshop in the past (and failed at mastering it), so Picmonkey has been an amazing alternative. There's a free version and a Pro version (called Royale), which gives you access to more graphics and tools.
My favorite aspect is the ability to load in your own fonts so you can keep branding consistent.
My least favorite aspect is that you can't go back in and edit individual layers once you've closed out of it. But despite this, it's still a very handy tool.
Buffer
Buffer is a social media management and scheduling tool with built in analytics to help you see how your posts are performing.
I currently use the $10/month subscription which allows 1o social profiles (including Pinterest) with 100 scheduled posts per profile, with 30 days of analytics history.
The analytics are my favorite part because you can easily go back and rebuffer (reschedule) your most popular posts.
You can also attach photos to your scheduled Twitter posts and they will show up in the Twitter feed, whereas with some other tools, the photo only shows up as a link when pre-scheduled (such as Hootsuite).
WordPress
I run my own blog using WordPress (self-hosted through BlueHost), along with assisting many of my clients with WordPress blogs.
There are some great alternatives out there such as Wix and SquareSpace, but for now I like the customization available through WordPress. There are endless plugins available so you don't need to know a lot of code and can still make it do nearly anything you'd like.
If you haven't chosen a blogging platform, I suggest reading through my post on creating a WordPress blog in 5 minutes.
In the Comments:
Which ONE online tool could you not live without?