Your Personal Branding Toolkit

February 21, 2021

Chapter 10

Without the right tools, your best intentions fail. Creating the perfect brand becomes an arduous, time-consuming task. But with the right tools on hand, you can efficiently build a magnetic brand that becomes the talk of the town in no time.

You now have all the puzzle pieces to build a brand that attracts customers like moths drawn to the fire on a dark night.

Only one thing left.

Execution.

You must go out there and do it. Act on all the strategies and build your dream brand with loyal customers who delight in your brand and rave about it to all their friends.

To do that, you need the right tools.

Let’s unpack your branding toolbox.

5 Social Media Management Tools

Since social media marketing plays a pivotal role in the growth of your brand, you must monitor what people are saying about your company there, so you respond accordingly.

For monitoring brand sentiment, here are the tools you need.

1. Mention

Features

Alerts: get notified whenever someone mentions your company on social media and anywhere online.
Monitor: effortlessly over 1 billion sources across the web daily so you never miss a single mention.
Listen: learn from rich data and analyze posts from several sources to improve your strategy.
Publish: share relevant content with your audience and grow your social media presence.

Mention Pricing

They have four monthly plans you can choose from.

2. Brandwatch

Features

Sentiment Scoring: see whether mentions of your brand are positive, negative, or neutral.
Social Measurement: measure campaigns, brands, and products for quantitative metrics such as your brand's share of voice.
Influencer Identification: pinpoint who is talking about your brand along with their influence over social communities.
Competitor Analysis: gather social data from competitors to help keep tabs on competition and benchmark progress in the social sphere.

Brandwatch Pricing

3. Hootsuite

Features

Multi Channel: engage customers across public and private social channels from one dashboard.
Content Library: respond faster and save time through a rich library of on-brand content.
Plan Future Campaigns: see upcoming scheduled content, plan campaigns, spot content gaps, and collaborate in real time.
Analyze Results: gauge your performance across all your social networks and get custom reports to see the impact of your brand.

Hootsuite Pricing

4. Buffer

Features

Social Listening: watch people’s feedback, questions, conversations, or comments about your brand across channels.
Custom Dashboard: build a custom dashboard where you target specific brand phrases or words.
Multi-Account Management: manage all your social accounts from one place.
Post Scheduling: plan your social media content calendar months ahead and auto-publish the scheduled posts.

Buffer Pricing

5. Sprout Social

Features

Social Listening: get to understand the conversations taking place on social media about your brand.
Social Engagement: remove engagement roadblocks and strengthen your connections with your audience.
Social Automation: improve efficiency, optimize and personalize all your social interactions through automation.
Social Publishing: automate publishing and save yourself from the hassle of logging in and out to manually schedule posts.

Sprout Social Pricing

They have three plans

Collaboration Tools

Contemporary brands have workers scattered all over the country/world so online collaboration tools are a must. Here are the top picks for business collaboration tools to stay in touch with your team and partners.

1. Slack

Features

Dedicated Channels: follow along with everything related to individual topics, projects, or teams in their dedicated channels.
Auto-Save & History: don’t crack your head trying to remember things because Slack saves everything and makes it easy for you to find it.
Partner More Efficiently: keep partners, clients, or vendors in the loop by sharing a channel.
Integrations: connect smoothly with your favorite tools like Google Drive or Office 365 and many more.

Slack Pricing

2. Trello

Features

Always In Sync: collaborate with your team across all devices from anywhere.
Integrations: integrate the apps your team already uses directly into your workflow.
Intuitive: intuitively simple boards, lists, and cards help you go from idea to action in seconds.
Workflow Automation: save your energy and let the robots do all the work through rule-based triggers, custom cards, and calendar commands.

Trello Pricing

3. Asana

Features

Project Management: manage all your projects with one tool without having to shuffle between email, spreadsheets, and other tools to stay on track.
Agile Management: empower your team to plan, move, and organize faster through the flexible Scrum Sprints feature.
Task Management: keep track of individual and team tasks and get them done faster through delegation and setting deadlines.
Team Goals: connect your company goals, track progress, reduce conflict, and help your team move in one direction.

Asana Pricing

4. Zoho Connect

Features

Business Communication: encourage multi-directional communication and level up your business.
Track & Manage Work Plans: assign tasks, set priority levels, trigger reminders, and keep track of the entire plan.
Custom Forms: build simple, intelligent forms that gather data from your team and save time with workflows.
Company Forum: let ideas flow freely amongst your team members through your company wall.

Zoho Connect Pricing

5. Basecamp

Features

Docs & Files: share docs, files, images, or spreadsheets and organize them in files so they are easy to find.
To-do Lists: draw up lists of upcoming projects, assign tasks, and set deadlines.
Automatic Check-ins: create recurring questions so you don’t have to bother your team to get you up to speed.
Schedule: set important dates on a shared schedule so everyone keeps their eyes on the ball.

Basecamp Pricing

Social Media Promotion Tools

No matter how useful your content is, it won’t help you or your audience if nobody sees it. That’s why you must promote it aggressively using any of these choice tools.

1. Quuu Promote

Features

Interest Categories: they categorize posts so users easily find and share content that interests them.
Real People: all users manually subscribe to categories that matter to them and their audience.
SEO Social Signals: make waves on social and increase SEO social signals so your content ranks better.
Sustainable: keep promoting your added content again and again as long as you stay subscribed.

Quuu Promote Pricing

2. Viral Content Bee

Features

Generate Quality Traffic: increase your traffic by putting your content in front of eager social media influencers.
Network: build relationships with niche influencers for more shares and more buzz.
Free: use the tool for free by earning credits whenever you share other people’s content.
Easy Engagement: see mentions come in real time and engage by liking, commenting, and retweeting your promoters immediately.

Viral Content Bee Pricing

3. Triberr

Features

Promote: promote your content by levering other people’s social audiences for maximum reach.
Tribes: build a powerful network of powerful content creators to cross-promote each other's content.
Queue: line up, schedule, and view hundreds of posts in one merged queue.
Analytics: measure content performance to optimize for results.

Triberr Pricing

4. Tailwind

Features

Schedule Photos & Videos: save time with auto-post.
Tailwind Create: design stunning pins fast and create dozens of personalized pins for more shares.
Communities: join forces with content creators in 20k+ niches for greater reach.
Hashtag Finder: quickly discover hot hashtags and increase your content’s reach with hashtag suggestions.
Smart Loop: maximize seasonal and evergreen content by resharing your best Pinterest Pins at the best times for engagement.

Tailwind Pricing

5. Meet Edgar

Features

Automation: automate your recurring tasks, so you can kiss your to-do list goodbye.
Scheduling: plan and publish your social campaigns from one tidy user-friendly dashboard and post updates where you want, when you want.
Content Library: save your updates to a limitless library of evergreen content, so you never run out of stuff to share.
Sharing Variations: auto-generate variations on every update with the click of a button for 5X the social content.

Meet Edgar Pricing

5 Must-Try Scheduling Tools

Running a profitable online brand involves having endless meetings with your staff, partners, and vendors. Here are the tools to help you manage your calendar.

1. Calendly

Features

Merge Calendars: combine up to six of your calendars to check availability automatically and connect with your best contacts and clients.
Time-Zone Detection: display availability in your invitee's time zone with intelligent time zone detection.
Customizable: remove the Calendly logo and customize your profile to suit your brand identity.
Team Pages: offer a single view of varying event types, allowing invitees to schedule with the relevant person, topic, or event.

Calendly Pricing

2. Acuity Scheduling

Features

Sync Calendars: sync all your calendars and get notified about new bookings.
Reduce No-shows: send customized reminder emails and text to your clients or team members so they show up for your meetings.
Share Your Calendar: easily share your calendar via email, website, and social channels like Facebook and Instagram.
More Than A Calendar: offer more than just appointments—take payments, do group classes, offer gift certificates or pages, and more.

Acuity Pricing

3. Calendar

Features

Time Zone Friendly: collaborate and connect with your global team and automatically handle availability across time zones.
Mobile App: access your calendar dashboard, view and connect other calendars, add and edit events, and share your schedule on the go.
Organize Teamwork: RSVP meeting invites to confirm meetings via gentle follow-ups.
Check Availability: check if the people you want to meet have open slots on their schedules.

Calendar Pricing

4. Front formerly Meetingbird

Features

Team Collaboration: work together with your team by sharing emails and meeting reminders in real time.
Universal Inbox: see your calendar, emails, team chats, and all your work in one view.
Multi-channel Communication: centralize all customer communication channels like email, SMS, or live chat into one platform.
Customer Experience: give your customers the sweet brand experience they deserve, no matter the channel they reach out from.

Front Pricing

5. Doodle

Features

Combine Calendars: schedule time with anyone on any calendar platform to avoid double bookings.
Time Zone Friendly: auto-identify guest time zones so there’s zero confusion.
Manage Reminders: set reminders on auto-send, or turn them off entirely—you decide.
Manage Schedule Changes: stop chasing people down or sending updates and let the software do it all for you.

Doodle Pricing

Logo Creation Tools

A clean logo is an integral part of your branding. It’s the face of your brand. For creating pro-looking logos, use the following logo makers.

1. Canva Logo Maker

Features

Niche-specific Layouts: make a logo that fits niche best practices by taking advantage of niche-specific outlines.
Drag-and-drop: design your logo easily through the effortless drag-and-drop feature.
Packed Images Library: create your dream logo by searching through millions of images, icons, stickers, and more.
File Formats: save your new logo as a JPEG, PNG, or PDF for printing and insertion in all your marketing and branding materials.

Canva Logo Maker

2. DesignHill

Features

100+ Templates: don’t create your logo from scratch, get started quickly with 100+ templates.
100% Customizable Designs: customize your logo and see the changes live.
24x7 Live support: customer support is always available for you round the clock to assist you when you get stuck.
Supports Multiple Devices: create fully responsive logos optimized for desktop, mobile, and tablet versions.

DesignHill Pricing

3. Adobe Illustrator

Features

Creative Assets Library: gain access to over 90 million images, graphics, videos, templates, and other creative assets.
Precise Design: manipulate and combine geometric shapes and make deft touches with precision using the Shape Builder tool.
Capture Every Idea: scan drawings and sketches using Adobe Capture to kick off your logo design.
Color Synchronization: design in Pantone or CMYK, so your color schemes stay true wherever you work, even with complex color separation.

Adobe Illustrator Pricing

4. Tailor Brands Logo Maker

Features

AI Technology: use AI magic to create a unique, high-quality, professional logo.
Industry-specific: type in your brand name, select an industry, pick a style, and you will have a logo in minutes.
On-brand Social Posts: impress people win on-brand social posts that match your logo and brand.
Free: create your logo for free and only pay if you absolutely love it.

Tailor Brands Pricing

5. Logo Maker Shop

Features

Logo Templates: design any logo that satisfies your aspirations using any of the 1000+ templates for inspiration.
Super Simple: whether you are creating your logo from scratch or tweaking a template, the user interface is a breeze.
Rich Visuals: make your logo exactly how you want it using 5000+ additional fonts, symbols, and backgrounds.
High-resolution: once you’ve finished, export your beautiful, high-resolution logo for digital and print uses.

Logo Maker Shop Pricing

5 Top Website Builders For Pro Business Websites

Because your website is your online home and the gateway to everything you do online, you must make sure it’s on point. For that, you need the best website builders on the market.

1. Wix

Features

500 Templates: build from scratch or pick from 500+ designer-made templates suitable for every business.
Drag and Drop: you have total design freedom to make your site look exactly how you want it to look.
Advanced Design: make your site stand out with animation, video backgrounds, and scroll effects.
SEO-ready: your website will run on an SEO-friendly infrastructure so you get found on Google.

Wix Pricing

2. Squarespace

Features

Mobile-friendly: all designs include a unique mobile experience that fits the overall style of your website.
Design Tools: get built-in photo editing, custom color palettes, flexible layouts, high-resolution Unsplash images, and Google and TypeKit fonts.
Starter Layouts: build your site pages faster through pre-designed layouts for About, Contact, Blog, Portfolio, and Products pages.
Podcast Support: get complete podcasting support, with Audio Blocks that include iTunes tagging and well as blog modules.

Squarespace Pricing

3. Shopify

Features

Blogging Platform: the builder includes a full blogging platform to enable you to build trust through content.
Online Store: design a beautiful store that gives your customers a delightful, secure shopping experience.
70+ Pro Themes: pick themes designed by world-acclaimed designers like Pixel Union and Clearleft.
Shopping Cart: accept credit cards with a secure Level 1 PCI-DSS compliant shopping cart.

Shopify Pricing

4. Weebly

Features

Ecommerce: complete eCommerce solution to enable you to sell your products and services online with confidence.
Mobile Apps: build, manage, and edit your website from your mobile devices.
Drag and Drop Editor: the smooth hassle-free drag-and-drop editor allows you to build a professional website even if you are a non-techie.
Video Backgrounds: make a lasting impression on visitors with high-quality video backgrounds.

Weebly Pricing

5. Thrive Theme Builder

Features

Conversion Friendly: build a professional conversion-focused website for more subscribers, leads, and sales.
Launch In Under 15 Minutes: use the Set-up Wizard to breeze through the site set up in under 15 minutes.
Hundreds Of Design Elements: build a remarkable website by fine-tuning icons, fonts, page blocks, conversion tools, content elements, and more.
Mobile Responsive: every aspect of your site from pages to elements looks beautiful on mobile straight out-of-the-box.

Thrive Theme Builder Pricing

5 Must-Try PR and Influencer Marketing Tools

Partnering with influencers is part of the modern marketing game plan. Below are some leading influencer marketing platforms and PR tools.

1. Grin

Features

Discover Influencers: search a network of 32M social media users across every platform to find the perfect influencer for your brand.
Manage Relationships: email influencers, repurpose content, and ship products easily.
Merge eCommerce & Influencer Marketing: ship products and track them, create and manage discount codes, and pay influencers commission on sales.
Report & Track ROI: see everything at a glance from individual metrics to ROI of your entire influencer program.

2. Upfluence

Features

Organic Influencers: find and activate influencers who already love your brand from your pool of customers, followers, and network.
Influencer Profiles: access 4 million influencers and their data.
Influencer Outreach: contact influencers at scale in minutes, save time, and scale fast.
Campaign Management: manage multiple campaigns and manage influencer relationships from start to finish.

3. CreatorIQ

Features

Discovery & Vetting: search and vet influencers at scale using Google AI image recognition for enriched creator data, including interest and brand affinities.
Campaign Management: collaborate efficiently with influencers through the customized private CRM.
Automate Recruitment: onboard creators easily a step-by-step process to join your private network and authenticate social accounts.
Global Payments: accept payments from 190 countries and 120 currencies, offer local currency support, and multiple payment methods.

4. PR Fire

Features

High Profile Links: get relevant authoritative links from trusted sites to improve your SEO.
Guest Posting: run customized niche-specific get post campaigns and get actual links from actual websites (Moz DA30 to DA60+).
Wide Distribution: distribute your content to thousands of journalists, publishers, and bloggers in your chosen audience category.
Reputation Management: clean up your online reputation and project a positive image of your brand.

5. Mynewsdesk

Features

Press Release Distribution: distribute your content to a global database of journalists, bloggers, and influencers.
List Segmentation: categorize contacts on your distribution list based on their specific actions.
Media Monitoring: monitor what is being said about your brand both positive and native.
Measure PR Results: track and analyze the performance of your stories.

6. Cision

Features

Distribution: send your release to 3,000 newsrooms, 170 countries, and 10,000 websites.
Monitoring: understand your brand’s reputation sifted from over 7 million sources.
Impact: integrate paid, owned, and earned media—align PR metrics to business KPIs.
Analytics: full-funnel measurement and metrics from interactive dashboards.