How I Use My Top 5 Favorite Apps in Business
There's a short list of super common apps that I use DAILY, for personal purposes, but also for business purposes. Having ones that are super versatile like these that I consider my current top 5, is awesome! Their versatility, their usability (is that a word??), their user-friendliness, the benefits of using them, and the fact that they are all freeeeee, are reasons why these below make out my top five favorite app list!
Let's break this down, shall we!?
1. INSTAGRAM
Isn't that one an obvious one!? But how could I create a list of my top favorite apps and not include IG!? That'd be a crime. It shocks me sometimes, to think about how long Instagram has been around.... and then I inevitably panic a little, at the thought of it completely going away. First world problems. My favorite thing about Instagram is just that it is all about images and captions, videos, and real life. I use it the most for my business, a close second to my website/blog. I try to post daily - mixing things up between work stuff, personal stuff, tips for photographers, tips for brides and more. It's a well rounded app, and the ways you can use it keep you and your business well rounded! It's great to keep up with fellow people in the industry, with clients, and with potentially NEW clients. There is a whole lot to say about how you and your work can be found via Instagram. Being active on such a popular platform is a very good thing!
2. EVERNOTE
I've mentioned this before but I use Evernote as a note-keeping app for endless things. Christmas gift ideas, pending inquiries, shopping lists, decorating ideas, a list of music I want to buy on iTunes, quick reminders, etc etc. And as previously mentioned in my post about my most visited sites and apps - Evernote can be accessed in app form via your phone, anddd web form via a computer. And they sync automatically! It's basically amazing. For business purposes, my favorite way to use Evernote is to keep a record of pending inquiries. Each new inquiry that comes in, I note it in one of my Evernote "notebooks" for ELP. Things like, the brides name, wedding date, venue, inquiry date, and when I responded are all recorded. This helps me keep track of where I am with all leads!
3. LATER
This is an app that I love to use, but that I honestly don't use as much as I should! For business purposes, I keep A LOT of images stored in my Later account for using over on Instagram. Having that feature alone is pretty dang awesome for me. I love not having to sift through endless photos when I can instead, just go to my Later app and sort by predetermined tags. When I'm feeling really ambitious, I'll plan out weeks and weeks worth of Instagram content via the Later app - choose images, write captions, and schedule the posts themselves. With Later, the day of a scheduled post, I get a handy notification on my phone and all I gotta do is open it, and secure the posting of said post over on IG. It's super helpful and seamless! Oh anddd, they just recently released Auto-Publishing! Which, I haven’t dove into yet, but if you really want things to be hands off and taken care of for you, this might be an added bonus! Nonetheless, if you’re looking to up your game on Instagram, I would highly recommend checking out Later!
4. TRELLO
Trello for me, is a lot like Evernote - an app I use for many purposes, business and personal. But for business purposes, I think I really use Trello, A: heavily, and B: much like a full on client management system. If you revisit my post - How I Use Trello to Organize My Business, you'll see a lot of what I mean by using it like a client management system. Since writing that, I've morphed into using Trello even more for my business, in the way of keeping a list of blogging ideas, creating my entire content calendar each month, tracking when I need to write what, when I need to schedule things and more. Basically, Trello is the bees knees. (and just like all these apps, FREE! hulllooo!)
5. LIGHTROOM
I can't even count how many apps I tried for editing mobile photos before I finally realized that Lightroom has a mobile version....And, finding that out was a game changer. I figured it'd be pretty limiting with being mobile, but it really isn't. The big diff of course, is the limitations you get from a photo taken on a phone VS a RAW file format photo from a big girl camera. Nonetheless, editing mobile photos on my phone with this version of LR is super dang helpful! You can sync your LR mobile with your presets made in Lightroom CC, and you can also create your own presets via the mobile version. All this to say that if you want consistent looking images - even when you're using phone-photos, I would highly suggest downloading the Lightroom app!
And that's all she wrote, folks! What are YOUR favorite apps for your business and how do you use them on the regular?? Comment below to tell me, I'd love to know!
