5 Apps I Can’t Live Without As a Blogger

There’s many things that I can’t live without…coffee, chocolate, my cat, my phone, kolby (on some days).  Just like those, as a blogger there are so many apps I use, but there’s few that I can NOT live without. Now, this isn’t the basic wordpress, instagram, pinterest, facebook apps that we all obviously have, these are the apps that help me run my blog and make successful content.

one:

I’m going to start with my holy grail, the number one app that I use the most (next to pinterest and instagram)…CANVA.  As much as I LOVE photoshop, this helps me not spend 45039483 hours extra making my graphics, because trust me, I LOVE GRAPHIC DESIGNING and I can do it 24/7 and for some reason time stands still when I’m in photoshop and before I know it, 10 hours has gone by.  Canva is very user friendly.  I pay $12.95 a month for the business plan and I highly recommend, but there is also the free verison and you can try out the business plan for free for 30 days.  I can upload my own fonts, pictures, brushes, logos. You name it.  They even have literally what feels like a million templates to choose from.  I use this to make my media kit, instagram stories, pinterest pins, headers, and freebies.

Other: unfold app can be used for instagram stories as well.

two:

My next most used app is tailwind.  This one allows me to schedule all those cool pins I make in canva for pinterest without spamming all my group boards at once.  I currently pay $14.99 a month, which allows me to schedule 400 pins throughout the month which is plenty enough for me.  If you want to schedule even more, there is a yearly option, but the best part is that you can keep the free version which allows you to schedule 100 pins a month. You’d be surprised how much more exposure you get on pinterest with tailwind.

three:

Next up, lightroom.  This is what I use to edit all of my pictures.  I currently use Dani Austin’s preset’s but before I used this preset which I bought from etsy, which is just pre determined position of the editorial sliders.  Basically,  the same edit settings is applied to all of my pictures instead of having to edit them from the start over and over again. This saves an UNBELIEVABLE AMOUNT OF TIME and it gives all of your pictures the same look making for a cohesive feed.

four:

Mailchimp.  Helllur, HOW ELSE WOULD I MAKE MY NEWSLETTER AND KEEP YOU GUYS UPDATED?! Speaking of, you should subscribe to that —here— I mean, I only send out ONE newsletter a month, so I’m not eeeeeven annoying. But seriously, this is such a good starter for your email list.  It doesn’t cost until you have over 1,000 subscribers and it gets the job done.  Heard it through the grapevine that convertkit is the next step up once you hit 1,000 subscribers.

five:

Last but not least, unum! This is where I go to plan out my post for my instagram feed.  Sometimes I’m really good at it and have my feed planned out and sometimes I’m scrambling and you can really tell the difference (but that’s okay, because I’m not here to have the perfect instagram feed.)  It even gives you stats like your most liked photo and best times to post.  You can even set reminders to remind you when to post!  I used preview and every now and again, I still do, but the quality of the picture when I uploaded it was horrible.  Planoly is also another option for planning out your instagram feed, I have just never used it.

Other Apps:

Hootsuite allows you to schedule your instagram post so if you’re busy, you can still get the photo on your feed at the time that you want.  I’m not that strict about my planned feed, so I don’t usually do this.

People Map helps you grow your community on instagram authentically.  I did the free trial, which was really cool.  It’s $20 a month after the free trial, which I’m thinking about getting, I’ve just spent so much money on tools, I’m trying not to go broke! haha  This let me analyze other fashion bloggers followers that engage with them the most, giving me people to target in order to grow my brand. So basically instead of scrolling aimlessly to try to find new accounts to target, they sort out like minded accounts for you, which saves time and helps you strategically engage. The analyze feature is my FAVORITE. You know when you find an account and you think, “OMG, I love this account!”…then you scroll through their followers to look for more? The Analyze button is similar, but way faster.

When to Post literally tells you a few times each day that are good to post on your instagram so you have the best engagement.

Lapse It is what I use when I edit my videos.  It’s $2.99 in the app store to get the add music option.  Sometimes I’ll video my try ons and instead of talking, I do this because talking is awkward.  I can speed it up and throw music on it, I link it to my blog post.  Bam. WAY better than talking to my phone.

Do you guys have any favorite apps? Leave a comment so I can check them out!!

L O V E,