10 content marketing tools to boost your productivity

Content marketing includes so many tasks and processes that it can be very overwhelming. You need a solid toolset to keep it well organized.

Productivity is among the most important elements of my working life. Juggling multiple projects on top of family and life tasks means I spend a great deal of effort managing my time as well as possible.

With content marketing making up the bulk of my promotional work, I have had to find ways to shave off time spent doing the marketing part. That way I can focus more energy on the content itself, which is tantamount to my brand strategies… which is why I love having a set of solid tools at my disposal.

These are the ten that I have tried and loved, many of which I still use to this day. Others I have given up, but still highly recommend.

Content brainstorming & creation tools

MindMeister

Some content projects require a longer bout of brainstorming than others. That can get confusing, when dealing with an entire team of people, or even just more than one.

MindMeister is a brain mapping tool letting you to visualize concepts and their relations. It is perhaps the most productive way to organize your ideas and create an article structure.

Google Drive

With a ton of collaboration tools and additional productivity apps you can install for free, Google Drive has been my favorite writing tool for years.

Write, share, export, communicate with the team, co-edit in real time – the best part of the toolset is that it’s free and very reliable!

Hemingway App

Ernest Hemingway once memorably said that you should write drunk, edit sober. The Hemingway app works on the same principle, minus the booze (unless you want them).

You write everything in one go, without any editing. Then you go back and edit later. It also promotes concentration by offering a clean, easy to use workspace that limits distractions. You would be amazed by how much you get done using this app.

The app will also mark your text based on usability score and give suggestions how your content can be simplified to be more readable.

Content marketing tools

GetResponse

GetResponse is an advanced platform that handles lots of aspects of content marketing including:

• Email marketing
• Web forms creation
• Lead management
• Landing page building
• A/B Testing
• Advanced workflow automation
• Traffic analytics

DrumUp

This one is actually a social marketing tool. But social and content go hand in hand, and this is definitely a productivity (and visibility) booster.

It empowers publishers and editors with social media access to increase brand awareness across all networks. It lets you productively share (and schedule shares of) your content throughout multiple social media networks.

WME’s Nick Bell suggests other social sharing alternatives which you may want to check out.

Content analytics tools

Parse.ly

Don’t want to go through all of your data manually to figure out how your content is being received? I don’t blame you, no one wants to do that which is why you need a tool that does it for you. Parse.ly handles and organizes all of your analytics, based entirely around your content rather that wider traffic.

They aim their product at editors, product teams, data analysts, and sponsored content. All insights are thorough and easy to track and understand, so you can make more informed decisions about your content moving forward.

The Telegraph has used the service themselves to great effect, and you can see their case study on the site.

Cyfe

Cyfe can be used for lots of purposes. I use it to get a bird’s eye view of my stats. You can create a single dashboard to see all types of traffic and social media reports you can imagine: from Google Analytics numbers to daily progress of your social media following growth.

On top of that, you can integrate your Google Docs, add notes (I am using the notes widget to maintain my daily to-do list) and much more!

Editorial management tools

Trello

Trello is a highly adaptable project management platform that can be used for pretty much anything you could want, as far as organization goes.

Brainstorming, managing writing tasks, to-do lists, team assignments, personal projects, product mapping, feedback forms… your limit is your imagination. It is among one of my most used platforms, personally, and I recommend it to my clients all the time.

Advanced tip: If you are using Zapier, look at all other apps Trello can be combined with for more content marketing fun.

Wrike

Wrike is a team management and assignment monitoring system that I have only just started using. It allows you to assign tasks and due dates, details, and communicate in much the same way as Trello. Only it has categories and assignments, unlike Trello’s box system.

While it is less versatile, I like it a lot. It works well for bigger teams and projects, and is perfect if you have a ton of people and elements to manage.

You may also want to check out these writing productivity tools which are free.

Coschedule

I personally hate building and keeping track of editorial calendars. Don’t get me wrong, you need them. They are one of the most important tools of the trade. They are just such a pain to monitor and update. Unless you have Coschedule, and then it is way easier.

Connecting to your WordPress Dashboard, it creates a customizable calendar where you can schedule, plan and create posts. You can even prepare social media updates. All right there in the same place.

Have a tool to add? Let us know in the comments!

from Content – Search Engine Watch http://ift.tt/29PM5so
via SEW ref=da&site=blogger">IFTTT