Personal branding can be time-consuming. It involves a long list of to-dos that can be difficult to accomplish without the proper tools and guidance if needed.
Fortunately, there are a plethora of tools for personal branding that will make the task a lot easier. From free tools to paid, you can find various apps and services that can help you stay on top of everything.
In this post, we rounded up the vital tools to start building your personal brand
What Makes for a Good Personal Branding Tool?
Before we delve into the list, let us first know why we picked our selection below. Here are the key benefits that make for a good personal branding tool.
1) It saves you time
We use personal branding tools to save time while providing the same results, or even better. That’s why tools like Buffer and Hootsuite are great because they automate your work, and they make sure they still follow the process correctly.
2) It keeps you organized
With a long list of to-dos, it’s easy to get caught up in the branding process. Good thing tools like Trello and Evernote help keep us organized, making us efficient at this personal branding endeavor.
3) It’s easy to use
The personal branding task is difficult enough. We wouldn’t want to use a service that would get us struggling. For this list, we only picked user-friendly tools that you can use even without much experience, such as the photo-editing platform Canva.
4) It’s affordable
A good branding tool shouldn’t break the bank. We know that building a personal brand is, well, a personal undertaking. Fortunately, a lot of branding tools out there offer free versions like Google Trends and Alerts. Or if not free, you can find budget-friendly services.
5) Content creation
Finally, the right tools can help you create content where many struggle. Like creating a compelling personal brand statement, bio, or blog post.
Free Personal Branding Tools
Google Alerts
Website: https://www.google.com/alerts
Price: Free
Do you want to monitor mentions of your personal brand in search engines? Or even your competition?
Google Alerts is a free notification service that allows you to monitor certain search activities on the web. This is great for tracking mentions of your name or business, which can open up opportunities for brand building.
Moreover, you can use it to keep an eye on the competition. This tool allows you to see where your competition is getting mentioned, or which platforms they are using to build their online presence.
Google Trends
Website: https://trends.google.com/trends/
Price: Free
If you’re struggling to come up with content to post for your blog and social media profiles, Google Trends can help with your problem.
Google Trends is a tool for finding topics that are trending across the globe. It can be used to discover hot topics that match your industry so you can decide on the approach you want to take.
This free service also lets you see if your target keywords are trending online. It provides information such as keyword volumes and their performance history throughout the past months and years. Using these insights, you can come up with a more informed strategy for your content and social media calendar.
Tools for Keeping You Organized
Evernote
Website: https://evernote.com/
Price: Free, or starts at $130/month
If you want to find content and save it quickly for later use, Evernote comes in handy.
Evernote is an organizing tool that lets you save curated content that you may want to use in the future. This tool features a smart search capability that lets you find saved stuff easily. Be it your blog post drafts, images, or ideas for future content, you don’t have to worry about losing it.
Curating content for your personal brand is much easier with a free organizing tool. Additionally, you can bring Evernote wherever you go thanks to its cloud-based service.
Trello
Website: https://trello.com/
Price: Free, or starts at $9.99/month
Accomplishing each step of your personal branding process is much easier when you can visualize them. Trello is a tool for this matter.
Trello is a visual project management tool that features a convenient boards-and-cards system. Here, you can manage boards, create cards, add labels, include checklists, and set deadlines that make it easy to visualize your process.
Trello is also great if you’re working with a team of personal branding experts as you can share your board for everyone to see.
Social Media Tools for Personal Branding
Octopus CRM
Website: https://octopuscrm.io/
Price: Starts at $6.99/month
When it comes to establishing your personal brand, LinkedIn is a platform that you wouldn’t be without. LinkedIn is by far the most important channel for professionals, and you would need help growing your presence here.
Octopus CRM is an automation software that you can use to simplify your lead generation process on LinkedIn. With this tool, you can send personalized connection requests to your prospects automatically. You can also send bulk messages to hundreds of connections easily, which is great for follow-ups.
These features allow you to build your connection that you can use to create your personal LinkedIn lead generation funnel. Aside from that, Octopus CRM also lets you track important metrics to measure the effectiveness of your campaign.
Buffer
Website: https://buffer.com/
Price: Starts at $15/month
If you’re looking to schedule posts on social media, Buffer is a popular tool that most marketers would recommend.
Buffer is a social media marketing tool that allows you to schedule your posts across any platform. All you need to do is to add content to your Buffer queue and designate a time you want the post to be published.
Aside from automating posts, Buffer also lets you curate content, track your progress, and analyze your campaigns. It’s a powerful tool to manage your campaign from one dashboard at an affordable price.
Hootsuite
Website: https://hootsuite.com/
Price: Starts at $19/month
For those who want to simplify their ad campaign process, Hootsuite got you covered.
Hootsuite is another social media platform that does the same functions as Buffer. It allows you to schedule posts, manage social media accounts, curate content, as well as measure ROI. But what makes Hootsuite stand out is its ability to create and manage ads.
This tool lets you create, launch, and manage ad campaigns across multiple channels, all in one place. If you want to save time running a paid promotional campaign, Hootsuite can help you with that.
IFTTT
Website: https://ifttt.com/
Price: Free, or starts at $3.99/month
If you’re looking for another automation tool that takes more advanced functions, IFFT is the app to go.
IFTTT stands for “if this, then that”. It’s a productivity tool that allows you to connect apps, devices, or web services. Here, you create a chain of conditional statements to perform certain actions.
For instance, you can set it to automatically tweet a native Twitter photo every time you post on Instagram. The logic may look like this: “If this (Instagram) posted a new image, then that (Twitter) will tweet the same image.” Simply put, IFTT allows you to automate your work processes, thus saving time on manual management tasks.
Other Helpful Tools for Branding
Canva
Website: https://www.canva.com/
Price: Free, or starts at $12.95/month
Want to create images to capture the attention of your audience? Canva offers plenty of design templates and layouts for all your branding needs.
Canva is a design platform that lets you create various graphics for your personal brand. Yes, even without artistic skills, you can create images for social media posts to website banners, presentations, book covers, and even logos and videos.
With its drag-and-drop feature and a massive library of graphic elements, you can design images that are unique to your branding. It’s a life-saver for those who want to create professional-looking graphics without a designer.
Mailchimp
Website: https://mailchimp.com/
Price: Free, or starts at $9/month
Email marketing is a crucial tactic to get the word about your brand out there. For a convenient way to send those emails, MailChimp got you covered.
MailChimp is a platform designed to allow users to create, manage, and automate email campaigns. This tool is an intelligent system that boasts of handy features, specifically the ability to personalize emails and target based on user behavior.
With MailChimp, you can send automated emails to a targeted audience easily. This gives you more time to spend on other important things aside from your outreach strategy.
WordPress
Website: https://wordpress.org/
Price: Free
Having a website is important in building your personal brand. When it comes to creating a website, WordPress is simply the best choice.
WordPress is a powerful website builder with plenty of convenient features perfect for busy individuals like you. The best thing about it is that you don’t have to learn coding to use this platform. That’s why it’s the top choice among website builders and content management systems out there.
WordPress is flexible, user-friendly, secured, and search engines like Google love it. The platform is great if you’re into SEO, which you should if you want to become visible online.
Wrapping Up
If you want to grow your brand, you’ll need tools to make the task a lot easier. The ones we listed above are affordable and easy to use, which will help you save time and keep you organized.
But not only these tools will lighten your load. They are also essential to the success of your branding endeavor. So, before you start your journey, be sure to check these tools out.
