Widget Wednesday Five Fabulous Productivity Apps for E-Entrepreneurs
Updated 10/19/16
Time is a precious gem. It seems, the older I get the faster time goes. Seriously, I think the time gremlins keep stealing an hour out of each day and enchanting us, so we don’t realize they’re doing so. Okay, the fantasy writer in me is having fun today.
Life throws so many tasks and jobs and obligations our way everyday that it’s easy to get caught up in the melee and to lose track of what needs to get done and when.
Enter the Smartphone/tablet/phablet. There are tons of names for portable/hand-held gadgets these days, so just pick one and roll with it. I own the Galaxy Note 4, so I’m definitely the proud owner of a phablet. (Yes, people still stare at me when I’m talking on it.)
Nevertheless, these little babies allow us to use apps, some of the best inventions since chocolate glazed donut coffee! But wait! You’re probably saying something like this: “There are so many apps. I just don’t have the time for learning how to use all of them.” Don’t worry, I feel the same way. And I consider myself a tech-savvy person.
App hunting can be downright overwhelming. To offer my two-cents toward easing the pain for us, I’ve decided to dedicate at least one or two Wednesdays in each month to widgets/apps/sanity checks. I’ll be highlighting the apps I’m using and rounding up a few experts when necessary. How does that sound?
This week I’m focusing on five productivity apps I use. Since most of my online businesses involve spending no less than 10-hours a day on marketing and social networking, I’m going to give a brief overview of the ones I use to aid me in those areas.
1. Pocket – This is a fantastic way to save the webpages you don’t have time to read. You can even create a feed of content similar to the one Flipboard uses. I’ve synced my laptop with my Note 4, giving me more flexibility for usage.
Cons: The Interface is a bit clunky. It took a long time to figure out how to organize my feed.
2. Buffer – This baby gives you the power of using its feed to post your content across several platforms such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter. You can generate karma by placing the work of other websites in your queue, which gives other authors extra visibility, while your social networks’ readers get fresh content to enjoy.
Cons: the free version only allows 10 articles at a time in your queue.
3. Hootsuite – At first, it was a love-hate relationship with the owl and me. Their software was buggy. The verification process was downright infuriating, but it did work. It worked so good, even I couldn’t get back into my account. And then, I tried Tweetcaster for about a year. I found myself confused, yet again.
Recently, I went back to Hootsuite (they’ve paired up with Buffer, anyway). I heard the developers had truly gotten their crap together. Well… it’s too early to tell, since I’ve only been using the app for about a month now.
So far, I’ve found most of the issues have been corrected. The app allows me to post to ALL my Facebook pages and not just the main one. And I can easily add pictures (this takes some skill on the first few times, but it’s doable). I think the owl and me have finally made peace.
4. WordPress App – The most powerful blogging software out there, hands down. I create all of my posts in this little app. That way, I keep all of my ideas in one place and with me. I can upload pictures, keep up with my comments, catch new posts from my favorite blogs right away. It’s a fantastic little app.
My only complaint is that sometimes the reader doesn’t update the posts of the blogs I follow on a consistent basis. And not all freshly pressed articles show up, either. For reliability purposes, you should use the full website to read those.
5. Pinterest – Last on this list of goodies, but in no way the least (not for me, anyway) is the almighty Pinterest app. A couple months ago, I created a Pinterest for business account for Live Well Be Fabulous. Since then, my view count has steadily increased.
The main difference between the personal and the business accounts is the addition of analytics in the latter type. The analytics are useful for breaking down my readership by gender/location, highlighting my most viewed pins and displaying engagement statistics.
Cons: None for me. However, I have read reviews from users complaining about freezing screens and software crashes. This happens to me more on my personal account than my business one. Hmm. Download these apps from Google Play for free!
Update for 10/19/16 Honorable mention goes to Evernote as well (the unofficial app #6). I know that they recently downsized your ability to streamline your work across more than 2 devices at a time. You must now pay extra for the ability to use the app on more than 2 devices at a time. However, this hasn’t been a problem for me. I do a large portion of non computer work on my S7 Edge and iPad Mini. Both of these have the Evernote app. Most times, I use my computer for updating LiWBF. At that point, I simply log into the Evernote app from my browser and use the articles I wrote. It all works like a dream!
Which productivity apps do you use?
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**Photos by Viktor Hanacek of picjumbo.com**
