The Essential Blogging Tools (That Cost You Next To Nothing)
As wildly popular as blogging is these days, there’s undoubtedly a certain air of commercialism that has become the norm. It’s pretty amazing that people have been able to make careers for themselves online. But with that comes ever-increasing expectations to put out fresh, new professional-quality content continuously. And if you’re new to the blogging world, it can be pretty intimidating and seemingly impossible to keep up, not to mention expensive. Luckily, there are literally hundreds of tools out there to streamline your blogging routine and help you create the best content you can. Let me narrow it down for you and share my essential blogging tools for starting out, most of which are completely free!
The Essential Apps
A Color Story: You have probably heard the importance of a building a color palette or theme for your Instagram account, and while it’s definitely not worth loosing sleep over, it is actually important to creating a cohesive look. There are many ways to go about this, most of which involve only wearing 3 colors and redecorating your whole house. The way I like to achieve grid cohesion is by using a select few filters. And my absolute favorite app for this, and really the only one I use, is A Color Story which is free to download and has a lot of free features and filter packs to choose from. I bought the San Francisco filter pack for $3 or $4 and that has 12 filters, 3 of which I use the most.
Storyluxe: This is my favorite app to design really interesting Instagram Stories. I don’t usually use this for day to day snaps but I do love using it when I want to promote a new blog post or if I’m doing something super fun (like traveling) and want to tell more of a story. Storyluxe is free and has tons of layouts and backgrounds for your Insta Stories.
Unfold: This is really similar to Storyluxe, but the layouts are a bit more minimal and sleek looking. This one also gives you the option of adding text into the design, and has some really cool fonts to choose from. I usually prefer to add the text once I’m about to post the photo in the Instagram app. Unfold is free and, combined with Storyluxe, will give you endless possibilities to spruce up those Stories.
Filmm: This is a new one for me but it comes from the creators of A Color Story, so I’m already sold. Use this app if you want add interest to your Instagram videos, such as dreamy light leak effects and analogue recording looks. While A Color Story does allow you to add filters to videos in the app, this new app has its own set of effects. Filmm is free to download and has a bunch of free video filters to choose from.
Snapseed: This is my go-to app for making basic adjustments to all my photos, because good lighting doesn’t just happen. It does have some filters, but I stick to the Tools section, specifically ‘Tune Image’ and Crop. It takes a bit of getting good with, so I suggest playing around with it to figure out what all the tools actually do. Snapseed is free and literally life changing so just download it already!
Lightroom: If you’re looking to have a bit more control with your editing, I suggest this app. I have Lightroom on my computer, which I pay a subscription for, and which is great but I find myself using it on my phone more often. It allows a ton of the functionality of the software and it’s completely free. Lightroom also takes some playing around to get familiar with but this will take your phone pics to the next level!
ReTouch: This app is great if you shoot outside a lot and there are pesky little details in the shot that you want to remove, such as trash on the street. This is a bit tedious for me so I don’t use this very often but it is handy to have in the arsenal just in case. ReTouch costs $1.99 and is surprisingly effective to achieve Photoshop-level retouching skills on your phone. Just please, please don’t use it on your face!
The Bare Bones of Editing Video
iMovie: When it comes to editing videos, if you use a Mac or iPhone then you can take advantage of this free program. It is pretty intuitive and easy to learn so perfect for those who are just starting out with video editing. I am a complete novice and learned everything through YouTube tutorials and trial and error and I still use iMovie to edit all of my YouTube videos. And don’t worry if you don’t own a Mac because there are lots of resources online about good video editing softwares for PC’s. If you’re looking for more control with your editing and are ready to invest in a beefier software, try Adobe Premiere Pro or Final Cut Pro.
Epidemic Sound: One thing I’ve recently done to up my video editing game is to purchase a $15/mo subscription to Epidemic Sound, a robust royalty-free music library. Finding music to use on YouTube that didn’t get the video flagged was so tricky and one of my least favorite parts of editing. Epidemic Sound is a favorite of many YouTubers and I totally understand why. Their selection is great and you never have to worry about whether it’s alright to use the songs. If you’re not quite ready to commit to a subscription, try searching for royalty free music for videos on Soundcloud or the Free Music Library.
Scheduling & Tracking, So You Never Miss a Post
Tailwind: I’ve raved about this handy tool before and I’m not done talking about it yet! Tailwind is what I use to schedule my Pinterest posts. I love this because it allows me to share photos that are linked back to my blog posts. This is just another way to promote content across multiple platforms. There is a monthly subscription fee but in my opinion it was a worthy investment because it has really helped me increase traffic on my Pinterest account.
UNUM: This is technically another one of my essential apps but I wanted to include it here because it is what I use to plan out my Instagram feed in advance. I am able to move photos around on a grid and even plan out captions and hashtags that I want to use. One of my favorite features is Phantom Mode which allows you to hide and unhide photos to play around with different layouts. The only thing you can’t do is completely automate your posts so that the app posts them for you, as this is something Instagram no longer allows. UNUM is a free app and you can also use it on your desktop too.
Bloglovin: This is a website where you can follow different blogs and see all of their new posts in one place. I really love Bloglovin because it helps me keep track of all of the blogs I love reading, without visiting them all separately and even allows me to ‘Like’ my favorite posts. But it can also be used as a tool in your own blogging, if you link it to your website it will generate a preview of each new blog post you create, and share it with your following. Such a great tool for bloggers and blog readers alike. And hey, if you want you can follow me on Bloglovin too!
Linktree: I use this in my Instagram bio, in the section where you put your URL. Because I have under 10K followers, I am not able to embed links in my stories to use the ‘Swipe Up’ feature. So I rely heavily on the ‘Link in Bio’ to drive traffic from my Instagram to my Blog or YouTube channel. And there is usually several links I want to share at a time, such as the weekly blog posts and my most recent video upload. Thats’s where the free website Linktree comes in handy, because it basically allows you to have several links in one place, in a sort of drop down list so people can choose what they want.
Bitly: This free tool is a handy little URL shortener. It’s important to know what your audience is interested in specifically in the posts you create. This is why I use Bitly to track any link clicks through their website. I honestly don’t do very much with that information other than just look at it from time to time but I feel like it’s best practice and one day if I want to sit down and get into the weeds of my analytics, then this will come in handy.
