It was over coffee that my friend asked me why I carried the black rechargeable battery with my everywhere I went. “Would it hurt you to disconnect, just for a little bit?”

It would. The brick of a rechargeable battery (which is amazing by the way — purchase one, here) I carry around is a saving grace. My phone is consistently by my side ringing and beeping and lighting up. This is the nature of my work — to stay connected. To ensure the conversations I’m responsible for leading and the relationships I’m responsible for establishing are all fluidly and seamlessly occurring.

I’m sure there’s a whole conversation about the importance of periodic digital detox, but I love what I do and don’t mind it one bit.

I’m leading with this to share the list of tools that make sense of the constant stream of communication that bombards us minute by minute. If I my role requires this, why not make an efficient use of my time by using tools to streamline the process? It is through the use of these tools and the fact that many of the tools I use synchronize across platforms and mobile devices that make for efficient use of my time on daily basis.

So that’s what I’ve done, created a list of most of the tools that I use on a daily basis that can help anyone improve their integrated communications efforts. I hope these help you as much as they’ve helped me.

General Content & File Management

• Dropbox — Dropbox is a home for all your photos, docs, videos, and files. Anything you add to Dropbox will automatically show up on all your computers, phones, and even the Dropbox website — so you can access your stuff from anywhere.
• Evernote — Evernote is a cross-platform, freemium app designed for note taking, organizing, and archiving.
• Google Drive — Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service created by Google. It allows users to store files in the cloud, share files, and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with collaborators.

Social Media Management & Monitoring

• Buffer — Buffer is a smarter way to share what you want to share on Social Media. People have called it great names before, like your Social Media Assistant or the Siri of Social Media.
• CoSchedule — CoSchedule is an easy drag-and-drop content marketing calendar that allows you to plan, create, and promote your content all in one place. It saves you time and helps you grow your audience through smart marketing plans and efficient team collaboration.
• Bitly — Bitly is a URL shortening service that allows you to easily save and share your favorite links from around the web.
• Iconosquare — Iconosquare is a website that provides Instagram users with metrics about their following for free
• WooBox – Engaging social media promotions that turn your Facebook Page into your most powerful business tool with Woobox’s App Suite.
• Unfollowers.com – Unfollowers (previously Unfollowers.me) is an application to track manage your twitter and Instagram community.
• Klout – Klout is a website and mobile app that uses social media analytics to rank its users according to online social influence via the “Klout Score”, which is a numerical value between 1 and 100

Copy Editing

• Grammarly (free — paid option) — Grammarly is the world’s leading automated proofreader. It checks for more than. 250 types of spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors, enhances vocabulary usage, and suggests citations.
• AP Lingofy (paid) — AP Lingofy proofs content you create in Web browsers, helping find errors in spelling, usage, and AP style as you post to WordPress, Blogger, Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and more. Lingofy is a browser plug-in powered by Tansa Systems’s advanced proofing engine, providing style checking directly in Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, Apple’s Safari and Google Chrome

• AP Styleguard (paid) — AP StyleGuard, powered by Equiom Linguistic Labs, provides automatic checking for AP style in Microsoft Word and Outlook using defined structure and rules similar to Word’s spelling and grammar checking. AP StyleGuard helps ensure the consistency of your writing style.

Effective Email Marketing

• Sidekick by Hubspot — Be In Control! Know Who Opens Your Emails, When, How Many Times And From Where. Always Be In The Know And Communicate The Smart Way, By Having Data At Your Side.
• Crystal — Crystal creates unique personality profiles for people with an online presence, preparing you to speak or write in someone else’s natural communication style.

Networking & Researching Leads

• LinkedIn Premium — A subscription to Premium also allows the user to see more results per search — 300 for Premium Business, 500 for Business Plus, compared with 100 for free LinkedIn users.

Chrome Extensions that Make My Life Easier

• Bitly — Save, share, and brand your links
• Buffer — Buffer is the best way to share great content to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn from anywhere on the web, with just one click.
• Bulk URL Opener — Open multiple URLs at once
• Crystal — Communicate with anyone based on their unique personality.
• Evernote Web Clipper — Use the Evernote extension to save things you see on the web into your Evernote account.
• Grammarly — Spell-checker and grammar check as you type online. Boost your credibility everywhere you write!
• Link Klipper — Extract all links on a web page and export them to a file.
• Pablo by Buffer — Create Social Media Images in 30 seconds flat
• PinIt — Pin the things you find on the web
• Lingofy — Proof your content like the pros — against the AP Stylebook or your own custom-made dictionary! Put an end to embarrassing mistakes.
• Sidekick by Hubspot — Sidekick by HubSpot is the easiest way to get powerful contact insight right in your inbox.

Photo Subscription for Content Creation

• Death to the Stock Photo – Photos for all your creative needs. For commercial use, your blog posts, social accounts, and mock-ups. We aim to be just like coffee for the modern creative.

I am planning to create a separate list of tools I use for social media content creation for another, future, post. In the meantime, I hope these help you. Let’s do more and start a conversation – are there tools among these that you swear by that I didn’t include? Comment below!

A thought to remember: “The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself.” Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing – you have it in you to become the successful professional you dream to be. Let’s go – let’s get it done!

xoxo – kpl