The top 5 tools every comms professional should know about
In any field, the same rules apply: you're only as good as the tools you have. In the field of comms, we'd argue, that our most useful tool is our brain. But even so, there are a whole slew of other tools in the box that make our work a lot easier and more efficient. When we have to worry less about our tools, we can fully focus on telling the stories of our clients!
So below, we've gathered a few of our favorite tools that we think you should know about.
1. The devil's in the commas—check your grammar
No one's beyond making mistakes, no matter how long you've been writing for, it’s always possible that you might mess up your grammar accidentally. The best you can do is weed out your mistakes, while double-checking your text. Tools that make the editing process faster and less tedious are grammar checking extensions such as LanguageTool or Grammarly. They automatically check your writing for spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and offer suggestions for synonyms if they detect a word being overused. The two options we've named are free and are great additions to our tool-kit. Obviously, not even applications such as these are better than a colleague checking a text. They're just meant to help a little bit. 😉
2. Planning is half the work
Whether you have to manage your own firm's social media accounts or those of a client, it can be challenging to keep track of all the different accounts and platforms where you share your content. To address this issue, we use account management tools like Publer to monitor these various accounts. For further clarity, we also use project managers like ClickUp to organize our content and individual teams. This approach makes it easier to keep on top of who is responsible for the task at hand, as well as keep track of deadlines and links. A well-organized team functions more efficiently when they’re not chasing each other around for information.
3. Surf The Web and know the size of the wave
When surfing The Web, it's very beneficial to know how many other users have visited the website you're currently on. Are you going to be hit with a Tsunami or only a little drop? This way, it's easier to gauge the size of a blog or outlet you're planning a collaboration with. For this, we use applications such as Similarweb.
4. Capture it, remember it
Another tool we frequently use is Canva, which allows us to edit our pictures and graphics for our social media accounts. In some cases, we even use Canva to enhance the images on our blog. Canva is a highly versatile tool that enables us to adjust the saturation of pictures, crop them, and create captivating graphics that make people take a second look at your LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter. We also use Canva to create engaging video content in the form of Instagram Reels, for example.
5. The one that knows everyone
We all have that one friend who seems to know everyone, right? Well, in our case, that friend is the communication cloud and PR-tool Cision. We use Cision to scout for new journalists we haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet. However, we cannot stress enough how important it is to sit down and look up journalists by yourself. Double-checking your contacts is still the only way to ensure your pitch lands with people who will actually care—but a little nudge never hurt anyone.
Now that we have compiled some of our favorite tools, which one do you think will be the most useful for you? At the end of the day, only one thing needs to be said; While our tools are there to help us, they don't define our abilities. They only help us focus on the thing that matters most, which is creatively telling a story!