Resources You Need for Content Creation, Social Media, and Managing Your Content Business
Bookmark this page as we will update and add things we've tested or added to our process regularly!
Want to know how you score as a Content Creator? Take our Content Creator Report Card and understand exactly where you are right now and where you should focus next.
Tools We Use Every Day!
If you don't want to go through each section - these are the tools our team uses every day and highly recommends. We have still used the other tools referenced on this page with our various clients.
- thrivethemes.com - Our preferred web building and marketing set of tools. Completely worth the money for the diversity and flexibility of tools it offers. Don't buy this when you're working with us. It comes with our team!
- siteground.com - The fastest and most affordable webhost available for Wordpress sites right now. Believe me, we've tested!
- canva.com - This free, easy to use photo and graphic design software allows you to create anything from flyers to book covers to stylish social images with thousands of templates to easily plug and play.
- Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) - The ultimate live-streaming and recording software to create professional and high-quality video for any use.
- thrivecart.com - A fantastic eCommerce/shopping cart solution that is currently offering a lifetime deal for fully customizable shopping, affiliate tracking, partner management, and much much more.
- sendinblue.com - Free up to 1,000 contacts and 200 emails per day, a far better alternative to other free email solutions like Mailchimp.
- Discord - We use Discord not only as a messaging app, but also as a hub for managing our many different communities. It is extremely customizable and has many tools that can expand it to host everything you do.
Content Creation Resources
- canva.com - This free, easy to use photo and graphic design software allows you to create anything from flyers to book covers to stylish social images with thousands of templates to easily plug and play.
- o-dan.net - The ultimate free image marketplace that pulls images from all of the free online directories.
- Zoom - The most popular webinar and virtual event software. Great for many different uses but beware - the quality of recordings and broadcast from Zoom is highly compressed and will not look good compared to other sources.
- snaptik.app - Download TikTok videos without the watermark to reuse on Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, or other social media/video platforms. You don't need this if you're using repurpose.
- Tango (Chrome Extension or Website) - Create amazing, step-by-step workflow training documents that you can use and repurpose for programs or internal training.
- infogram.com - Create amazing and compelling reports or infographics for Pinterest/Instagram.
- streamladder.com - Convert Twitch or other horizontal (16:9) video sources into vertical video (9:16) for TikTok and stories.
- Landscape by Sprout Social - A free image resizer for social media to make evertyhing fit every platform.
- piar.io - Customize and fix your social media link previews to make everything look super professional.
- Loom - Easily create screen capture videos with no additional software from wherever you are that are automatically stored in the cloud to share or edit.
- fiverr.com - The marketplace to get affordable help for almost anything you need.
Video and Audio Resources
- Descript - Edit videos as easily as editing a document as Descript transcribes your text, allows you to add stock footage, and easily put together videos to use on any platform in any format.
- DaVinci Resolve - Incredibly powerful free video editor (with a premium option) that will allow you to edit video and create content from your home computer.
- pictory.ai - Auto generates compelling videos for use on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram or any other video site based off your own text or audio. No filming required!
- invideo.io - Similar to Pictory, this also auto generates videos based on the content you input.
- Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) - The ultimate live-streaming and recording software to create professional and high-quality video for any use.
- Streamlabs OBS (SLOBS) - A derivative of OBS that comes with many pre-built templates that can immediately get you up and running. The downsides are that it takes a bit more powerful computer and doesn't support many plugins that can up your streaming/recording game.
- Audacity - An excellent free audio editing/creation tool that you can use for your audio.
Website and Web-Hosting Resources
- Wordpress (hosted, not wordpress.com) - The go-to website builder for both new and experienced businesses. We recommend it because of its massive community, extensive plugins, and flexibility to build almost anything you need.
- siteground.com - The fastest and most affordable webhost available for Wordpress sites right now. Believe me, we've tested!The fastest and most affordable webhost available for Wordpress sites right now. Believe me, we've tested!
- bluehost.com - An affordable, flexible webhost to host your website.
- hostgator.com - Another affordable, flexible webhost you can use to host your website.
- squarespace.com - A great introductory web builder that has many intro tools that you can use to build a website. Not quite as customizable or monetizable as Wordpress in the long term.
- wix.com - Same as Squarespace.
Social Media and Community Management Resources
- repurpose.io - The ultimate tool for distributing your content between multiple platforms, particularly video like TikToks.
- Marco Polo - Create individual or group video messages that you can respond to on-demand or when you have time. A great free addition to community management.
- skedsocial.com - A social media scheduler for the biggest platforms that is much more affordable than many other auto-schedulers.
- hootsuite.com - Another, more popular choise for social media management and scheduling.
- sproutsocial.com - The industry standard for social media management. Use this when you're big enough!
- namecheckr.com - Tool to check username and domain availability across all social media platforms.
Email Marketing and Tech Resources
- keap.com - The best "all in one" automation solution to manage email marketing and eCommerce. This is still the only solution that covers its very specific set of small business automation needs.
- thrivecart.com - A fantastic eCommerce/shopping cart solution that is currently offering a lifetime deal for fully customizable shopping, affiliate tracking, partner management, and much much more.
- thrivethemes.com - Our preferred web building and marketing set of tools. Completely worth the money for the diversity and flexibility of tools it offers.
- Mailchimp, AWeber, Constant Contact, Get Response, and a million other email solutions - Most of these will do the job. There are upsides and downsides to each that you can ask us about directly!
- Mautic (for techies) - A completely free, hostable email marketing and automated solution you can install on your own website to scale your emails.
- sendinblue.com - Free up to 1,000 contacts and 200 emails per day, a far better alternative to other free email solutions like Mailchimp.
Recommended Hardware or Software Purchases
- Logitech C920 - The best bang-for-your-buck webcam that can be used in almost any situation. If you're ready to graduate from this, move up to a Logitech Brio or more complicated solutions we'll discuss in other training.
- Samson Go Mic - This tiny little condenser offers fantastic quality at a small price and size. Great for beginners!
- Blue Audio Yeti Mic - There are many microphones you can choose at the "higher range" of USB mics but the Yeti is super flexible and can be used for great solo recordings or even podcast interviews in the same room.
- Reaper - If you're getting into more complex audio editing, or even basic music production, Reaper is our daily driver Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) of choice.
What's Your Score?
Want to know how you score as a Content Creator? Take our Content Creator Report Card and understand exactly where you are right now and where you should focus next.
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