The struggle to juggle tasks, deadlines, and socials can be tiring, and only the thought of all that needs to be done, can reduce one’s productivity. This is often the situation for entrepreneurs (small business owners) who mostly find themselves working in several roles and always multitasking.
Thankfully, there are now digital tools and apps that can help one boost creativity. There are tools to assist with literally everything – from scheduling meetings and tasks to time management, payments and others. The better part of it is that these apps will make your work more accessible and ensure that you don’t leave anything out.
While none of these tools can be able to do everything for you, each one has specific needs it can meet with its features. You just have to know what they do and how they work, and then pick out the ones that best suit you.
Buffer: for social media management
Buffer is one inexpensive social media management device for small business owners. It allows you to manage a couple of social media accounts, have a lineup of your activities while reaching your community, and draft and schedule your post at your will. When you plan your content on the app, it automatically sends, and you don’t need to worry if you forget, as it does the job for you by setting it properly. Social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accepts the buffer app’s usage; it can also work on your android, ios, and laptop.
In a nutshell, Buffer helps you manage your social media presence from one app. From planning and scheduling posts, to engaging your audience, and then analysing your posts. There are explainer videos to guide you around this tool. With a tool like this, you can save lots of work hours and get more productive in handling your content creation and social media management.
Pocket: save what you need for later
Pocket is a social platform that allows you to save, share and discover content like images, videos, articles, audio e.,t. c. for later purposes. As a business owner, you may often stumble across things you like and can relate with. Some of them are materials you think would be helpful to your business, maybe for content creation, marketing or promotions. The easy thing to do is save it to the Pocket app and access them later. This app automatically syncs to your cloud, which can help you save enough space on your device. The caveat though is that when using the Pocket app on free mode, you will regularly come across ads.
Square: For payments and finance related tasks
Square helps with payment processing, and it is built was for small business owners. It enables you to accept debit and credit card payments without having to carry jotters around. And you’d still have your payment records up-to-date. You can also get an amount anywhere without cash or cash transactions. It is well maintained and secured and protects your account from hackers; this app makes it incredibly easy for payments. It helps you collates your monthly bill and shows you insight into what you are spending money on. With a tool like Square, some of the little mundane money tasks can be taken care of.
Xero: your Accounting helper
With the help of Xero, you can simplify tasks like bank reconciliation, inventory control, cost reporting, and bookkeeping. Its dashboard comprehensively offers a business financial position, including the bank balance, unpaid invoices, upcoming payments, and expense reports. All bank and credit card transactions automatically log in to Xero. Businesses can reduce hidden costs like expense duplication by using account reconciliation. Xero guarantees that you can explain all fees.
Trello: Workflow MANAGEMENT
Trello is a project management tool that helps with your tasks. It enables you to manage and track your work, workflow and project. You will have to customise it to suit the processes that get your job done and delivered. You can also set a reminder that helps you remember and stick to the deadline. It adds files, automation or a checklist to understand what needs to get achieved. It is fun, flexible, and easier to use.
Asana: Project management
Asana is one out of many tools you can use to help stay on track, see projects progress, set reminders and deadlines, combine other tools, and achieve successful launches. It begins from the small to the big picture. If you have team members, it will help you assign tasks, follow up and remind team members daily about the uncompleted project. It shows the duration of work to be delivered. So whether you are there or not, you get to find out if the projects are progressing as planned. You can use it on all devices (iPhone, Android.iPad, e.t.c)
Dropbox; for saving files
Think about wanting to save a file forever? Well, dropbox helps you access your files in your comfort and anytime. You can edit, create, view and send all sorts of documents. One benefit of this app is that it has cloud storage with a sync feature and operates on all devices.
Other notable apps you can check out are…
Hootsuite – a social media/marketing tool that schedules posts on social media pages. It has a free and paid plan.
Facebook ads manager: In this app, you control your campaigns, schedules and ads. It is also free.
Mailchimp: It allows you to send emails to about 2000 contacts and about 10,000 in a month on the free trial plan. Meanwhile, the paid program allows for more.
Bulk SMS: One of the top android apps in Nigeria to send many SMS at once. It is easy to use but not free.
Google Drive: Helps you save anything and everything, with easy accessibility to files.
Bottomline
The world is evolving; technology is getting better, and so should you. Today, every business owners need more than an app to carry out their jobs. All of these categories are essential to a business owner’s daily work. So, take up the bait! And become better. Use these apps and make your business run smoothly.
