The AskDotty Podcast – where you can get your questions answered about websites, social media, and doing business Online.
Episode 7 is all about Online Tools.
Let’s define what I mean by Online Tools – this can be anything that makes your life easier. If there is something you do on a regular basis that drives you NUTS -there is likely an Online Tools that will make that task easier.
Online tool called Small Thanks from Google
This tool is connected to your Google My Business page and your Google Reviews. When you go to the page you enter in your business name exactly as you have it in your Google My Business page. It will generate a cute little video you can use in your social media or on your website. It also generates so great graphics from actual phrases out of your Google reviews. It attached the persons name that left the review as well. You can download these and use them in social media or on your website as well. You can also get a high res version and get the actually printed to display at your business. Here is the link.
This is a tool that allows me to post to Instagram from my computer instead of my phone. It allows me to schedule my posts as well. This is a great tool for anyone that wants to use Instagram but does not want to be forced to use just your phone for posting.
Have you ever wanted to download a video from YouTube and upload it to your own YouTube account? Now you can. Here is a great Online Tool that allows you to download any YouTube video for your use. This link allows you to safely download YouTube videos. Just enter the url for the specific video and it will show on the page for you to download in a few different versions. There are a few other websites that do the same thing but they seem to be riddled with malware. I have not had that problem with this site. Here is the link.
This is a free tool from Google that allows you to compare up to 5 key word phrases. It gets its data from Google Adwords. It will tell you which keyword (from the ones you enter) gets the most searches. For example I was wondering the other day – as I was creating a website for someone in the healthcare industry – which got more searches – Health Care or Healthcare. By using Google Trends I can now say the Healthcare is the right keyword to use.
Is there a way to schedule my Social Media posts? This question was asked by Jodi Blackwood.
Dotty – which platforms are you using?
Jodi – Facebook and Twitter mostly.
Dotty – Facebook has its own scheduling tool that works really well. When you are creating a post there is a small arrow next to the blue post button that will allow you to schedule the post for some time in the future. It is best to use the tools provided by the platform because they will not “ding” you for using an outside tool. Facebook used to not give posts created by tools as much reach as ones created on the actual platform.
Some other tools are available. One is called Buffer – it is a browser addon for Chrome. It works really well and both Twitter and Facebook are in Buffer. There is another one called HootSuite. This was the first tool in this vertical – they no longer have a free version. I think the plans start at 19 per month.
Are you an Instagram user Jodi?
Jodi – No, but I probably should get into it – so tell me about it.
Dotty – I currently use Later.com which allows you to post to Instagram from our desktop. It allows us to schedule the posts. It will also do Twitter, Facebook Pages, and Pinterest. It has a free version and a paid version.
Online Tool: Linktr.ee
Instagram only allows you to put 1 active link in your profile. If you want to promote more than 1 thing you have to change the link regularly. There is a tool called Linktr.ee that allows you to have more than 1 link at all times. It will also tell you how many people have clicked on your links.
Where can I get good images for using on my website and in social media? Question submitted by Melissa of Credible Witness
I use some free websites for high resolution images. These images can be used on your website and in social media.
This is a cool tool that will allow you to create great graphics and short videos for use anywhere Online. It pulls from the 3 websites listed above for the image. You can layer graphics and text – create the whole image and download to use in social media or your website. The free version has their logo for 10 per month you can have your own branding on the graphics.
You can also create short videos you can download and upload to your own YouTube account. It will also create Landing Pages for you.
This is a cool tool by Techsmith that does screen capture. It takes it one step further by allowing you to annotate your screen captures. You can draw arrows, add text boxes, etc. Great to explain something for support, create a step by step process etc.
Online Tool question by Mary – How do I change the font in Adobe Spark?
There is a couple of cool things that Spark does with fonts. There is a green circle called Style that you can click and drag. As you move that green circle the program will pick different fonts and backgrounds for the fonts. You can just drag until you find something you like. The other way is to go into the Text section and pick from about 30 different fonts that they provide.
Let’s Enhance
Have you ever been given an image that you wanted to use for something, but it was too small or too low resolution? Let’s Enhance will fix this for you. Just upload the photo and the program will use its magic to create a higher resolution image that you can use. The free version limits you to a few photos.
File changing format program -ZamZar.com
There is one thing that drives me nuts – that is when I get a file from a customer and it is in the wrong format to use. It could be a video, images, or audio. There is a website that will convert just about anything to the format you want. This conversion tool all will allow you to convert a file without damaging the original file.
This tool allows you to upload any photo and it will tell you the hex codes for the colors in that photo. You can even select a specific part of the photo and get a wider breakdown of the colors in the photo. A very fun and useful tool.
Online Tool question by Caitlin at Inlight Hyperbarics – What webinar platform is the best?
How long will the webinars be – 30-40 minutes.
How many presenters will there be – 2-3
How many participants will there be – 50-100
There are many different webinar platforms out there – the big guys like Gotowebinar are anywhere from 89-500+ per month and they do everything you would need for a webinar. This is great for large companies. I am assuming you are a small company – yes that is true.
There are a few different options for small businesses. The one I am most familiar with is Zoom. It provides the basic websinar functions for free. The limits on the free account is the length of the websira and the number of participants. Less than 40 minutes and less than 100 people for free. It does allow for screen sharing, whiteboard, annotations, and private and group chat rooms. It also will record the webinar for future playback.
Google Hangouts – great for smaller webinars. Have up to 30 attendees. It records directly to Youtube – live streaming to Youtube. The drawback is that it is not private. Anyone on Google + at the time can see the webinar. This might not be a drawback depending on what you are promoting in the webinar. This tool is free to use and can be found when you are signed into your Google account in the block of dots.
Webinar Jam – The one thing this does that the others do not do – it allows for purchases during the webinar via pop-up tools. It also allows for 6 presenters on any given webinar. They say you can push it to YouTube Live and Facebook Live. This will increase the reach for each webinar. It does record and replay. Starts at 39.95 per month.
Everwebinar is a paid addon to Webinar Jam – it allows for a webinar to be replayed as if it was live. Saving you time. You can either replay it completely or do a hybrid where the chat section is live and the webinar itself it recorded.
Google Drive
This is a platform where you can store anything only. They now have file stream which allows me to store everything in the cloud and sync to any device and not use up the pace on the device. It will pull down just the file I want to use. This was the answer to running out of space on my laptop. It is also a great way to backup my files off-site. If I need to replace any of my devices all the data is stored elsewhere so nothing gets lost. I do have my Google Drive backed up as well so I am covered for data loss.
Additionally, Dotty has over 200 clients and maintains well over a 90% retention rate.Her customers love the work she produces and appreciate her ability to help them with online marketing.
Dotty is a sought-after speaker regionally. Small business owners especially benefit from her Social Media and Blogging presentations. They gain valuable knowledge of otherwise complex or confusing technical strategies in just a short time, because she makes the information easy to understand.Dotty is well educated but does not speak in “Techie” terms… she makes complicated topics understandable for everyone.
Dotty believes in treating every customer as an individual, believing that there are no “cookie cutter” answers or “generic” websites created at Premium Websites, LLC. She goes the extra mile to make sure every client is happy with the custom websites she designs. She treats everyone with respect and honors their knowledge base. She loves to teach small business owners how to get from where they are to where they want to be.
- The Perfect Home Office - September 10, 2019
- AskDotty Episode 7 Online Tools - May 23, 2018
- PRP Podcast CoOp AskDotty Episode 6 Video Marketing - April 16, 2018
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