5 Marketing Apps Every Startup Business Should Use

I live and die by my phone from calendar events, tasks, social media, and content creation. It’s crazy to think that it wasn’t long ago that data plans were limited, apps only worked on certain phones, and phones were mostly operated by analog buttons. Now that smartphones are pretty much the only phone you have, even when you’re just starting out your bootstrap business, there are some apps you need to make sure you’re either utilizing better or you need to download immediately to stay in the game. These are apps I find myself using on a daily basis and that have upped my social media game for sure.

Facebook Page Manager

Every business should be using Facebook and Instagram for promotion and engagement, no exceptions. These two tools go hand in hand when launching sales offers, brand awareness, or just simple engagement. Page Manager will allow you to see comments, reviews, analytics, and more all from one app. If you’ve used Facebook Ad Manager on the desktop, then you’ll understand how complex and overwhelming that can be. Page Manager reduces the headache of managing duplicate accounts so you can increase your social media productivity all from your phone.

Google Snapseed

You’ve probably seen amazing photos on Instagram and wonder how people “take” amazing magazine-quality photos. This, however, is not necessarily the case. You, too, can take amazing photos. Although the phone’s camera can be quite limiting while also being the best camera we may own, Google’s Snapseed app will take your photography to the next level. Snapseed has a large array of photo editing tools that are intuitive to understand and easy to adjust. You can easily—over the course of a few photos—discover and dial into your own style of photo editing. This app will for sure up your Instagram game.

Wordswag

We all have a quote or saying that motivates us to do things we know we need to do, but we still drag our feet doing it. Well, that same quote or saying may resonate with your audience and other people—you just need to share. And when I say “share” I don’t mean just write it on your facebook wall and call it good, use Wordswag to dress it up a bit and make it look like you put some time and energy into it.

Wordswag costs just a couple of bucks, but it can take your social media game to another level. People love sharing images or tagging friends to images that “speak” to them—thus increasing engagement. Use Wordswag to write anything you want with amazing typography and beautiful images. If you don’t have anything right now to share, download the app and use some of the ready-made quotes and images to try it out yourself. Wordswag will not disappoint.

Evernote

Evernote has to be, hands down, my most favorite app for social media. It’s my brain, if you will, when it comes to managing ideas, incomplete thoughts, and swipe file throughout the day. I dump anything and everything into Evernote so I don’t use most of my mental capacity trying to remember everything. If I have an idea that I’d like to explore, I put it down for later. And with swiping, from the book “Steal Like An Artist”, I add images and links to great content I see to replicate or curate later.

I consider Evernote a must-have marketing app because you can gather most, if not all, your marketing content into one location that’s easy to use. Unlike Google Drive, you can add images, files, and even create & edit documents offline. Evernote definitely carries its own weight in file management, and I’d even say better, on mobile devices.

Contacts App

Ok, before you skip this, please hear me out. Your contacts app will probably be one of the best apps you use especially when starting your business. Also, it will save you from purchasing an excessive amount of business cards you’ll either rarely use or people will throw away. Your contacts app is great to pass your information on to other people.

First, you’ll want delete any contact cards of yourself; don’t be shocked if you have 3-5 iterations of yourself. I don’t know how that happens, but it does and it’s annoying. Then you’ll create one card that has as many of the fields filled out including how to pronounce your name. This should take no more than 5 minutes to do. Now you’re ready for networking and generating leads with everyone you speak to.

How? Easy. When you chat with someone and they ask for a card, you can say that you ran out, but you have an ecard you can send them. Get your card pulled up on your phone and “share”, then ask your prospect for their phone number where you can text it to. They’ll give you their personal cell and in your text when sharing your card, you put their name thanking them for their time and maybe a quick blurb about what you talked about and “send”. This gives you the opportunity to share numbers and get each other’s contact info into your personal phones immediately. You’re welcome.

Conclusion

These apps are not the only apps you should have nor are they the best, these are the ones I find myself using more often than most apps on my phone and when I’m on the go. If there are some that you frequently find yourself using that helps you engage better with your clients, I’d love to hear what else people are using and why.