25 Essential Tools for Content Creators
As creators, we’re always looking to do more, simplify workflows, and improve output. In this blog post, we’ll take a look at some great tools and resources to up our content creation game.
From AI writing tools to generate and improve writing to social scheduling platforms to image editing and more, these are tools every content creator should have in their kit.
Where Creators Get Paid
Take the guesswork out of influencer partnerships. The BENlabs AI matching program analyzes your content and audience, and suggests your profile to brands looking for the right creators to promote their products and stories.
Table of Contents
SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING & MANAGEMENT
MAX OUT YOUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
GRAPHIC DESIGN MADE EASY
CREATE SIMPLE VIDEOS
PODCASTING ESSENTIALS
SEO OPTIMIZATION TOOLS
CONTENT ORGANIZATION & WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT
RESEARCH TOOLS
VIDEO EDITING MADE SIMPLE
CONCLUSION
SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING AND MANAGEMENT
Automate social media posting so you can do something else. There’s no shortage of social media management tools. Many are aimed at enterprise users and are priced accordingly. We like Buffer and Tailwind.
BUFFER
Buffer lets content creators schedule posts on various social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Mastodon and more. With a simple interface and helpful analytics features, Buffer automates and simplifies post scheduling and performance tracking.
- Queue up content in advance.
- Customize posts by platforms.
- Analyze post performance.
- Affordable pricing plans.
TAILWIND
Tailwind is a cost-effective way to post across multiple platforms, and get a little AI help with post creation too. If Pinterest is your jam, Tailwind’s platform-specific features deserve a look.
- Schedule pins at optimal times based on user engagement patterns.
- Use Tailwind Create to create visually interesting Pins.
- Bulk upload and schedule.
- Monitor analytics and track the performance.
- Tailwind Tribes invites creators to collaborate within their niche.
Simplifying content creation and the posting process is the goal. Whether Buffer, Tailwind (or any of the other platforms — honorable mention to Loomly) is best is a matter of personal preference.
The point is, social media scheduling and cross-platform analytics and insights are key to success, and social media management tools can help.
Max Out Your youTube Channel
YouTube represents a huge opportunity for content creators with billions of active users and a well-established monetization plan for creators. Getting the YouTube algorithms to see and suggest your stuff is the key to building a successful channel.
TUBEBUDDY
TubeBuddy is a web app and browser extension that uses AI to optimize and simplify creating content on YouTube. It’s a one-stop shop for creators, helping with everything from A/B testing headlines, video, copy, and thumbnail optimization, content strategy, competitor research, analytics and much more.
For long-form video creators looking to make an impact with YouTube Shorts (now that Shorts are monetized for creators), the new Suggested Shorts feature in TubeBuddy can help.
TubeBuddy operates on a freemium model. At the free level, it’s a useful tool, at the Pro and Legend levels, it’s absolutely indispensable for any creator who’s serious about making an impact on YouTube.
Graphic Design Made Easy
Visuals make all the difference. Canva and Microsoft Designer (waitlist) can help with workspaces sized to popular social platforms and a huge library of templates, elements, and workflows to make creating graphics easy.
CANVA’S DRAG-AND-DROP INTERFACE SIMPLIFIES GRAPHIC DESIGN TASKS
Canva is well known for its user-friendly graphic design interface that helps content creators produce eye-catching visuals, perfectly formatted for social. Canva uses a simple drag-and-drop interface and a wide selection of pre-made templates (many behind a paywall) with customizable elements to quickly generate social media posts, blog images, infographics, presentations, and more.
MICROSOFT DESIGNER FOR AI-DRIVEN DESIGN
Microsoft Designer has a signup wait list but once you’re in, you’ll find a DALL-E2-like prompt field where you can say something like “an instagram post about a new blog post relating to using AI in content creation, abstract, retrofuturistic,” and get something like this.
You’ll also find pre-built layouts that save time, providing ready-to-use themes that can be easily customized.
THE NOUN PROJECT: A HUGE LIBRARY OF ICONS AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
The Noun Project offers a massive online repository of over 5 million icons created by designers worldwide and licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). A $3/mo. license removes the attribution requirements, allows remixing and includes some workflow benefits too.
Don’t underestimate the value of high-quality visuals, but with the right tools, you don’t need to be a designer or hire a designer to get decent results.
Create Simple Videos
Sharing video as a content creator doesn’t always mean standing in front of or behind the camera. With the right tools, content creators can make simple, engaging videos with ease.
ANIMOTO FOR ANIMATED VIDEOS
Animoto makes animated videos easy. The drag-and-drop interface simplifies the process of making engaging videos from images, text, music and other elements for social media or marketing campaigns. Creators will also find handy templates tailored by industry and purpose, making it easy to find one that fits your needs.
BITEABLE FOR EXPLAINER VIDEOS
Biteable unlocks animated videos and presentations, no design skills required. You’ll find a selection of pre-built layouts that help you easily assemble eye-catching visuals. With templates, graphics, stock video, and stock audio included, Biteable is uniquely well suited to creating engaging explainer videos.
LUMEN5 FOR QUICK SOCIAL VIDEOS
Lumen5 turns blog posts and articles into shareable social videos. This AI-powered tool creates visual content automatically based on text input and includes a library of stock video and stills. It also makes it easy to export optimized versions for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Podcasting Essentials
Podcasting can be simple if you have the right resources. From recording and editing audio to hosting and getting insight into each episode’s performance, these essential content creation tools will help make your podcasting journey smoother.
AUDACITY
Audacity is a free, open-source audio recording and editing software that offers an extensive range of features for both beginners and advanced users. With its user-friendly interface, Audacity makes it possible to record high-quality podcasts without breaking the bank.
GARAGEBAND
GarageBand comes at no extra cost Apple’s suite of creative applications for Mac users. It provides an intuitive platform for creating music or podcasts by offering built-in instruments, sound effects, loops, and more. Its powerful editing capabilities allow you to produce professional-sounding episodes effortlessly.
BUZZSPROUT
Buzzsprout hosts your podcast online, making it available to listeners across platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Not only will Buzzsprout help distribute your show, but also provides valuable insights into listener demographics and engagement levels through their analytics dashboard.
RIVERSIDE.FM
Riverside.fm is a game-changer for recording remote interviews with one or multiple participants,. Riverside’s cool trick is that it records each participant’s audio and video locally on their own device, so you get the highest-quality their camera and mic allow. Not compressed, web-optimized video. A simple interface and helpful features like automatic post-production, Riverside.fm helps you create clean, professional-sounding audio or video podcasts and interviews without all the hassle.
Podcasting is key, and with the correct software and hosting service, adding podcasting to your creator bag of tricks is easier than you might thing.
SEO Optimization Tools
What good is great content if no one sees it? Search engine optimization (SEO) is key to getting your content found. optimization tools. SEO practices can help you identify popular search terms, and optimize written content to rank for those terms.
SEMRUSH FOR KEWORD RESEARCH & OPTIMIZATION
Semrush‘s Keyword Magic Tool is an essential resource for discovering high-performing keywords in your niche. Keyword Magic Tool tracks 20 billion keywords and phrases, so you’re sure to find the high-volume, low-competition phrases that are key to getting your content to rank. Also, Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant provides real-time suggestions on how to improve readability for both humans and machines.
COSCHEDULE HEADLINE STUDIO TO ENHANCE HEADLINE EFFECTIVENESS
CoSchedule‘s Headline Studio analyzes your proposed headlines using algorithms that consider factors like word balance, length analysis, sentiment analysis as well as Google search trends. The result? A score out of 100 points that indicates how effective a given headline will be at capturing attention while also providing actionable tips on improving it further.
Content Organization and Workflow Management
Keeping content organized is key to productivity. Getting workflows in check frees creators to spend more time on the creative side of content creation, and that’s a good thing.
GOOGLE DOCS & DRIVE FOR DOCUMENT CREATION & MANAGEMENT
Google Docs is an excellent tool for writing blog posts, articles, or any other type of written content. With its real-time collaboration features, you can easily work with team members on the same document without worrying about version control issues. Plus, all your documents are automatically saved in Google Drive, which offers ample storage space and easy organization options.
MIRO TO BRAINSTORM & PROCESS MAP
Miro is a visual collaboration platform. A digital whiteboard, basically, useful for brainstorming ideas, mapping out process or workflows, creating diagrams and the like. It’s a simple but powerful tool for team collaboration, providing shared workspaces for ideation and planning.
Trello is a kanban-style project management tool. Create boards with lists and subtasks, represented as cards that move from one list to another based on their progress status (e.g., “To Do,” “In Progress,” “Done”). Trello makes it easier to create and visualize a repeatable workflow.
Research Tools
Where does a creator turn when inspiration and ideas are thin on the ground? Research!
HUBSPOT BLOG TOPIC GENERATOR FOR FRESH TOPIC SUGGESTIONS
HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator can help if ever you need a post idea. You give it three keywords, it’ll give you five creative headlines related to your niche. These unique topics can provide potential subjects that can inspire great content, whether that’s a blog post, a social post, or a video.
ANSWER THE PUBLIC FOR UNLOCKING AUDIENCE INTENT
Answer the Public helps content creators find out what people are searching for around their chosen subject matter. Enter a keyword or phrase and you’ll see what questions people are turning to search to answer. This insight might prove to be just the content inspiration you need.
GOOGLE SCHOLAR FOR ACADEMIC RESEARCH
Google Scholar lets users search through a vast selection of peer-reviewed academic journals. If your content has a more informative or educational bent, you’ll find supporting research, or even just the insight you need to decide what content to create next.
Video Editing Made Simple
Editing video can be daunting, especially for content creators who are starting or branching out with video. Fortunately, there are a number of user-friendly tools that can help streamline the video editing process.
VEED.IO FOR SIMPLE VIDEO EDITING
Veed.io is an easy-to-use online video editor that allows you to trim clips, add text, insert subtitles, and even apply filters without any prior experience in video production. While experienced editors should look elsewhere, Veed.io (bonus points for the creative domain name) is perhaps the easiest way to get started with simple video editing.
ADOBE PREMIER RUSH FOR PRO VIDEO EDITING
Adobe Premiere Rush is about as simple as a powerful editing tool can be. It offers an easy edit interface for essential functions like trimming videos, adding a music bed, cutting between shots etc. and also offers some useful and professional transitions, effects, graphics, and audio tracks as well as color correction options.
LOOM FOR SCREEN RECORDING & SHARING
Loom makes professional screen recording simple. Perfect for instructional videos or demo videos, Loom lets you capture your entire desktop or specific windows while also recording yourself and your audio. You can share Looms with a shareable link or download the finished product to create a video on YouTube, for example.
DEMIO FOR SIMPLE WEBINARS
Demio is designed specifically for hosting webinars and live events. Interactive features include audience polls and Q&A sessions along with detailed analytics of attendee engagement during each event.
Conclusion
Making great content that engages audiences will never be easy. The goal is always to simplify the content creation process without compromising the content, freeing creators from the drudge work so they can focus on the creative work. These tools (and let’s be honest, a bunch of others we didn’t include) can help.
The world needs more art so as a creator, get the right tools for you and go create.
Where Creators Get Paid
Take the guesswork out of influencer partnerships. The BENlabs AI matching program analyzes your content and audience, and suggests your profile to brands looking for the right creators to promote their products and stories.
