Resources for Bloggers
Since I published this post on Blogging (a guide to blogging for beginners) I have had such a wonderful response from readers, and so I wanted to carry on with the theme of blogging tips and tricks (and as is the case with this post...resources) for all of you.
Here are some of my favourite blogging resources (and a few new ones that I have recently started using) that help save time as well as those that I use on a daily basis. I hope you find this list helpful, and if you have any others you would recommend, please do comment below <3
A way to stay up to date with all your favourite blogs, and what most people are using when they say they are 'following a blog'. It's a free service, and although I was a bit skeptical at first, the layout of the site is super easy to use and navigate around, and you are able to 'like' posts in an easy way, as well as being able to share posts that you like on all the various social media platforms.
Another super great way to stay connected with your favourite blogs. I have just found stumbled onto this site, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it.
ABeautifulMess iPhone & Android app
This is by far one of my favourite apps for my phone, I use it all the time to beautify my photographs for Facebook and for my blog. It is similar to Picmonkey in that you are editing photographs and adding text, but it's just so much better. The founder, Elsie & Emma run the wonderful blog A Beautiful Mess Blog and have just launched an update for the app as well as launching it for Android phones...its amazing! I use it to create my photographs and graphics for Instagram too. {CLICK HERE to see what else you can do with the app}. Download it from Itunes for 99c here.
I haven't officially started using this email campaign site yet, but it is very powerful and I can see just how awesome is is going to be to communicate with my readers once I have it set up and running. The founder of our current blog series, Caitlyn de Beer, where nine of us South African ladies have been contributing over the past two weeks on Starting your own {Creative Business} *CLICK HERE to read more* has been using MailChimp to communicate with all of us. The site allows you to schedule emails ahead of time, so you can write them all up and get the ready (there is so much that can be done with customizing them too!) and then you can set up a date and time for the emails to go out. You can also create beautiful newsletters to send to readers (and family too!). I am looking forward to sinking my teeth into this site more soon.
A free online photo editor, that allows you to edit photographs and add text, create collages and generally 'prettyify' your photographs for your blog.
HootSuite is a social media management system for businesses and organizations. You are able to see all of your social media platforms on one dashboard, and post onto each one from one place. Its saves me time, and with their new auto scheduling option, HootSuite will publish your Twitter & Facebook posts at the optimum times for increased exposure based on a whole lot of numbers and other fancy maths things they have done. Super cool!
Happy blogging everyone!
x