The holy grail of small business marketing is building a strong customer base. Then, engaging with them to drive brand loyalty and sales. The best way to do that? Create. Content. Constantly. The right way to do it – using content creation tools.
We know not every business has a content marketer at hand, far from it. But that shouldn’t scare you; with so many new and innovative content solutions for businesses, finding your voice online has never been more reachable. That’s why we’re going to cover a list of tools that will make content creation more accessible to you than ever before.
Content creation can take a lot out of us, but it’s not something a business that wants to sustain itself can sweep under the rug. Yes, it demands time, money, and effort – but today there are some amazing shortcuts that you can use. In recent years, there has been a drastic increase in online tools to make this maintenance more attainable.
The content creation tools at hand are endless and choosing the right ones can be overwhelming. Don’t sweat it – we’ve done the research for you and put together a list of content creation tools that will help you effectively and efficiently maximize your content marketing efforts.
Without further ado, here are 15 awesome content creation tools; why we love them and why you need them.
Research and planning. There are some who love it and some who hate it – but either way, when it comes to content creation, you’ve gotta have it. Sometimes, inspiration for content creation is hard to find. You want to develop a unique, fresh idea, but you’re short on time and resources, and the content train waits for no one. These content research and planning tools are precisely what you need to spark ideas.
Why we love it: SparkToro is a market research tool that gives you insights into your audience’s behavior, interests, and demographics. It enables you to learn them better; who they follow on social media, what websites they visit, what they’re talking about, and what sparks their attention. SparkToro is an excellent researching tool; it will give you an insider perspective on what kind of content your social media and website visitors are interested in.
Why you have to have it: Who doesn’t want to know their customers and prospects better? It’s like a small business superpower! As a business owner, you can stay ahead of the game, creating content you know will cater to your audiences and saving time doing it!
Why we love it: Promo’s Social Media Calendar may be one of the most essential tools in your social media marketing toolbox. The calendar ensures you don’t miss a single opportunity to create content that engages, while giving you a greater picture about what should and needs to be published, when. The wonderful thing about the social media calendar is it also offers ready-made templates for those special events ensuring no occasion goes left unposted. 365 days of constant video content and inspiration.
Why you have to have it: Remember earlier, when we were talking about posting content regularly? Need we say more?! But seriously, Promo’s Social Media Calendar allows you to plan ahead, ensuring you build an active and engaging presence on social media.
Search engine optimization (SEO) will have a direct link to your online visibility on the search engine result pages. For businesses that rely on website traffic, SEO is key to the success of their business. Content SEO refers to creating content that helps your websites rank in search engine results. The more you invest in your SEO, the better chance you have at reaching potential new website visitors, and in turn, potentially converting them into customers. Strong SEO results are something to always keep in mind when creating content be it video content, social media content or content for your company website and blog. Here are our best SEO tools picks!
Why we love it: Semrush is one of the leading online visibility management platforms. They offer more than 50 products, tools, and add-ons to help boost online visibility. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform provides tools for SEO, content, social media, data, and easy integration with Google and other task management platforms.
Why you have to have it: If you’re serious about your online presence, Semrush is the platform for you. It’s the all-in-one tool you’ll want for improving online visibility and discovering marketing insights.
Why we love it: Bing Webmaster Tools enables you to manage your site’s appearance on multiple search engines. Bing offers insight on your site, including a summary of how well your site is doing while raising awareness on areas you need to improve. Bing helps you learn how visitors find your site and provides the information you need to prioritize improvements.
Why you have to have it: Bing Webmaster Tools offers an SEO analysis tool that gives you excellent feedback for understanding SEO issues and opportunities. As a small business trying to understand your way in the SEO world, using Bing’s tools can help you make adjustments and improvements to help boost your performance across all search engines.
Why we love it: Surfer is an SEO tool designed to help write optimized content. It analyzes the content of a page and has a built-in keyword research tool.
Why you have to have it: Surfer SEO enables you to generate an entire content strategy in a few clicks. It’s focused on data-driven content that leaves an impression on both people and search engines.
Just because you’re creating content doesn’t mean you’re a fan of writing. We know. Words, sentences, trying to communicate what you want to say while trying to enhance your SEO isn’t for everyone. Lucky for you, there are quite a few content tools that can help you express yourself. Here are our favorites.
Why we love it: CopyAI is the most advanced AI copywriter. Yes, you read that right. It helps brands create engaging ad copy. All you have to do is describe your product, and CopyAI will handle the rest. It will help you with relevant messaging, creative concepts and truly understand your customers’ desires.
Why you have to have it: Writer’s block no more. It’s that simple. Generate unique ideas and copy for social media, blog content, website copy, and more.
Why we love it: INK is a content technology company that focuses on content performance optimization.
Why you have to have it: INK is an AI co-writing system and SEO assistant, which means it essentially does everything. From advertising tools to creating killer AI-generated call to actions (CTA’s), INK has everything you’d ever want and need when it comes to optimizing your content creation.
The wonderful thing about creating content is, you can ride that trend wave. Understanding and engaging with trends is essential when it comes to content creation. These tools will have you trend-surfing before you know it.
Why we love it: GoogleTrends analyzes the popularity of the top searches in Google search around the globe. It turns data into graphs to compare the search results and volume of different search queries.
Why you have to have it: GoogleTrends is easy to use. Plug in your keyword and see how trending (or untrending) it is. This tool easily allows you to understand what content you should be covering and what should be left behind.
Why we love it: Promo’s editorial footage is a collection of popular media that is updated regularly. It stays on top of trends and real-time events, so you’ll never run out of content. Small businesses can benefit from a world that was up until now, primarily off-limits for them.
Why you have to have it: Engage with your audiences using real-time footage featuring celebrities, sporting events, trending topics, and more. This content for non-commercial use only allows you to maximize your content creation while staying relevant.
Why we love it: Exploding Topics is a tool that allows users access to new market opportunities, emerging technology, and most importantly, trending topics. The company analyzes searches, conversations, and mentions all over the internet to bring together all the information you need to create viral content.
Why you have to have it: First of all, what a name! Who wouldn’t want to work with a tool called “Exploding Topics”? But seriously, this awesome tool helps small businesses and entrepreneurs find trends before they take off.
Content creation is the ultimate way to build brand awareness and connect with your audience – this is a given. It helps you tell your story while building hype around your products or services. Content creation also takes a lot of time. Thankfully, there are time-saving tools that can increase your impact in half the time. Check them out!
Why we love it: Contently allows users to manage and optimize their content lifecycle. They built content strategy, planning, creation, activation, optimization, and performance evaluation tools.
Why you have to have it: Contently is a great place to summarize what you can do and show off your best content. It gives you strategic insights to create content that engages audiences and drives results.
Why we love it: From holidays to sale announcements, Promo’s creative team has got your content covered. Save time with easily customizable video templates created by a team of professionals. New templates are updated weekly for all of your content creation needs.
Why you have to have it: With over 5,000 ready-made, industry-specific templates, you’ll never run out of content. Learn how to add text to a video and easily match each project to fit your brand’s vision by adding your logo, colors, fonts, and text.
Social media content is one of the most important things to invest in to increase brand awareness and engage customers. Though you may not have a social media manager to optimize your content creation, there are plenty of tools that can help you.
Why we love it: Later.com is a social media management tool that enables you to schedule posts across all platforms (Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook). One of its greatest features when it comes to content creation is its hashtag tool. It lets you organize hashtags by different categories and has Instagram hashtag analytics that let you know which hashtags are sparking the most engagement.
Why you have to have it: Later is appropriately priced and has many features other social media tools don’t. Another perk is that it allows you to schedule Instagram stories which has become a vital aspect of social media marketing!
Why we love it: Flick is an Instagram hashtag and analytics tool. Using Flick, you can search for hashtags, understand how well they perform, look through hashtag collections, and have all the analytics you need to improve your hashtag strategy.
Why you have to have it: Flick is one of the best tools for improving your hashtag strategy; it’s accurate and saves time. It allows you to drive more impressions and reach untapped markets.
Why we love it: Hootsuite is a social media management platform that covers almost every part of a social media manager’s role. This platform enables users to do small things, like curate content all the way to managing team members.
Why you have to have it: For those of us who wish we had the resources to hire a social media manager, Hootsuite is precisely what you need. It allows you to post content that reaches more people and find out what your customers think.
Remember – a solid social media presence will instill a sense of connection with your audiences, ensure you establish yourself as an expert in your field, and gain exposure for your products or services. That’s a lot of wins.
Whether you’re boosting your SEO, looking for inspiration for your next post, or just doing your job as a content creator – we’re sure these tools will help you move forward on your content-creating journey! While the market is ever-changing, we’re always here for you and will continue to update this list every time a new noteworthy tool comes around.
Is there a content creation tool you love that we forgot to mention? Let us know!