Free Tools For A Better Online Presence

Free Tools For A Better Online Presence 8 Free Tools For  A Better Online Presence In order to create a better  online presence, one of the best things you can do is become more active on social media and create visually interesting updates. Ive compiled this list of tools I use (and recommend) to help you incorporate visuals into your social media updates to build  awareness of your online personal brand- all without spending an enormous amount of time. I spend about 20 minutes a day scheduling social media updates across different platforms. You can do this too! Heres what youll find [updated September 2019]: Tools To Schedule Social Media Updates Tool To Save Articles for Later Tools to Create Visuals for Social Media Places to Find Stock Photos Screenshot Tools Choosing the Correct Size Image to Share Guidelines for  How Often To Share On Social Media Dont Forget About Profile and Banner Images Social Media Stats Data But before I dive in, here are some marketing stats to convince you that you should embrace using visuals in your  social media  updates. Visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. (Source) Tweets with photos are retweeted 35% more than those without (Source) Facebook updates with visuals  get 2.3x more engagement (Source) Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than content without relevant images. (Source) And specifically for job seekers, heres why being active on social media can help your job search. You can read more about the data from CareerBuilders research here. Everything you  share on social media helps convey who you are and whats important to you. Sharing on-brand updates makes it easier for recruiters to find or discover you. It also provides recruiters with some insight as to whether you are a fit for their role/organization. Status Update Ideas If you are befuddled by what to share on social media, here are some ideas: Industry insights News about target companies (or people inside target companies) Job-related tips/hacks Ask questions Quotes Memes Infographics, photos,  videos Upcoming events you will be attending Live updates during an event Re-share updates posted by people in your network To get more details, read this post  10 LinkedIn Status Updates for Job Seekers. It is written to help you figure out what to share on LinkedIn, but the same ideas would work across all the other networks too! 8 Free Tools For  A Better Online Presence Tools To Schedule Social Media Updates When you post  on social media, you want to spread your updates  out over time. By dripping content out, you improve the chances that what you share  will be viewed by a wider audience. So rather than share something when you find it, spread your updates out over time.  I use both Buffer and Hootsuite from my desktop and mobile device. (FYI: I also use the free versions) Buffer You can share any page youre reading to almost any social network, either immediately or in the future. Step 1: sign up for free and link your social media accounts so you can share to them. Step 2: download the app to your phone/mobile device Step 3: download the extension to your web browser. Step 4: find an article, picture or anything on the web and click on the Buffer option (either from your browser or if the post has sharing icons, you can use the Buffer option). As a free user, you have a limited number of updates you can make. This is why I also use Hootsuite. If you want to dive in deeper and learn more about how to use Buffer, start with their Introduction to Buffer.  Hootsuite Hootsuite is a social media dashboard. From their dashboard, which you download to your computer, you can share status updates on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. In short, Hootsuite allows you to schedule when and where you want to share your updates on social media. Step 1: Create a free Hootsuite account. Step 2: Add social networks. Step 3: Download Hootlet for your Chrome browser    Hootsuite mobile app Step 4: Publish/share  updates To learn more about how to use Hootsuite, you can start by reading their Quick Start Guide. Tool To Save Articles for Later Sometimes you just want to save an article. Maybe you want to read it  before you share it or maybe its too good to forget. You can use Pocket to easily save articles  and even better, easily find them  from any device. Bookmarking is so 1990s. Pocket Just click on the bookmarklet/extension from your desktop or from your phone, click on the three dots and select share and scroll down until you see Pocket. You can add a tag to help you categorize/file/search for the article. Tools to Create Visuals for Social Media  Canva If you want more design options, then check out this easy to use tool. Just pick the type of  image you want to create, add an image (or background) and text and download! For more help using Canva, you can view their Graphic Design Tutorials. Pablo  by Buffer Is also very simple. Type in text, use find an image from their library and share to your favorite social network! (Or you can download it to your computer). And yes, you can use Buffer to schedule it to post at another time!  This is probably the fastest tool for creating and sharing directly to social networks. It does have limitations. But if you are looking for fast and easy, Pablo is for you. To  learn more about using Pablo, read:  Engaging Social Media Images in 30 Seconds Flat: Introducing Pablo by Buffer  Adobe Spark Spark also makes creating images for social media pretty easy too. It also comes with free images you can use and various templates. If you want to change the size/dimensions of your image to share it on other social networks, Adobe Spark is probably the easiest tool to use. You can download the image or share it directly to your favorite social network. To learn more, read their See How You Can Create with  Adobe Spark Post. There are many mobile device options for creating memes and text over imagesbut thats another post. Places to Find Stock Photos (free/no attribution  required) If you are looking for stock photos and images you can modify and use without attribution, check out these free resources. Pixabay Pexels StockSnap Unsplash Gratisography Death to the Stock Photo Burst (by Shopify) Tools For Screenshots Dont forget about using screenshots! Using your phones camera or taking a screenshot with your phone works too. If you are looking for a tool to capture an image from your computer try these.  Evernotes Web Clipper It allows you to snip, add text, blur, and more. Plus, you can save your screenshot  to Evernote or your computer. Open Screen Shot Sometimes you want to capture an entire page and add text. This Chrome extension allows you to do both! Choosing the Correct Size Image to Share Every social network has a different size image that works best for a status update. It can be frustrating to keep track. (Ive put the image below on my bulletin board). Buffer keeps an up-to-date list of the image sizes to use for status updates across different social media. All the tools to create images (listed above) have  templates to help you get the right sized image. The Ideal Image Sizes for Your Social Media Posts: Guidelines for All Major Social Networks How Often To Share If you are someone who is ready to create a strong online presence, then these are my recommendations for how often to share status updates on the most popular social networks. Note: you may not be active on all of these social networks. Pick the top 2 and focus on those first. Twitter: 5-8 posts a day Facebook: 1-2  posts a day LinkedIn: 1  post a day Instagram: 1-2 posts a day Pinterest: 3-5  posts a day In order to do this, you are going to need to use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite and you will have to find good quality content to share. Read this to help:  Build Your Brand By Sharing Content Dont Forget About Your Profile and Banner Images You also want to make your social media profile images the right size. You can learn how to do that by reading this guest post by Venngage here: How to Create A Cohesive Social Branding Kit And creating infographics is another great visual content strategy.  Want to learn how to create an infographic resume? Check out my book: The Infographic Resume