5 Must Have Apps for Small Business Owners
- Laraun and Sherunda
- Nov 7, 2022
- 4 min read
As entrepreneurs we are always looking for ways to make running our business easier and more automated.
Here are 5 of of our current favorites to help us run our business more efficiently and effectively.
Drop a comment below if you have any of your own favorites.
Years ago we began using Canva for their easy to use, eye catching, plug and customize templates. Perfect for visual marketing. Canva has ready to use templates for social media posts, product drops, promotional emails, newsletters, youtube intro and outros, YouTube thumbnails, content calendars, to-do-lists and so much more!
If you are not using Canva…why not?
Canva is also our go to for scheduling static posts on Facebook and Instagram. Meaning, if you have a still shot or a post without video, then you can create your posts easily in Canva and then schedule them to post.
This becomes very helpful when you are batch preparing your content. Batch preparing your content is a major time saving approach! Batch preparing means you take a segment of time and create more than 1 piece of content - so that you are not always having to create in the moment or daily posts for your business or emails.
Remember the goal is to have your business running even when you are living your life or focused on other money making activities.
We have the paid version - which is worth the investment as you can see below. Still, the free version has lots if you are just starting out, or if you want to test to see if Canva is for you.
Another feature that we like to use on Canva is the Brand Kit. In short, this Canva Pro feature allows you to create a special set of fonts, colors, logos and other visual branding groupings for your business. This is great to have all your marketing consistent and to help your visual presence to look more professional.
Finally, on Canva Pro there is the option to use an actual content planner. So you can see monthly details about your posts, and other notations/reminders regarding your business. It is truly a great tool to stay organized!
The downside to using Canva for posting and scheduling is that they do not yet have the integration for reels or video format.
An upside of using Canva whether pro or free, is the fact that there is a very user friendly mobile app so you can create and post on the go.
Need help branding your small business?
Download this FREE Small business branding roadmap
Facebook Meta Business Suite is extremely helpful for analytics and in-depth details about your audience and potential audience. As you probably already know, Facebook collects information about all of their users. Which can be helpful for you and your business growth goals. Facebook Meta Business is totally free (at the time this blog is posted) and it provides analytics to help you understand your audience behaviors, interests. Additionally, Facebook Meta Business Suite gives recommendations for target audiences in the event that you want to run an ad on Facebook or Instagram.
Facebook Meta Business Suite is also where we set and schedule ads for our small business. Facebook Meta Business Suite gives very detailed information regarding target audience - age, gender, location, interests and length of time you want your ad to run; you can also set the dollar amount you want to spend on the ads.
As you can see, we like to use apps and programs that allow for multi purpose processes.
There are many website hosting options out there. I have used a few, and I find that Wix offers a great website hosting option. Especially if you are looking for easy drag and drop website creating. There are free and paid options for Wix websites. Over the years, Wix has added many apps to help with e-commerce, blogging, online programs, paid subscriptions and much more. Frankly, I am constantly in awe of the many widgets and apps that are available now vs years before. For more access, I have the paid Wix Premium plan.
Having a professional email makes your business appear more trustworthy to your clients and potential clients. We can all attest to the fact that when we receive an email from an unknown sender, we immediately look at the email account from which the email was sent. If there is a string of numbers coupled with a ‘@gmail.com’ we get suspicious. Very suspicious.
Can you say D-E-L-E-T-E -- PRONTO!
For that reason, one investment I have made in my business is to get customized email addresses for business purposes.
I opted to have my email addresses separate from my wix website account, simply because I did not want to have all my business in one basket. Can’t be too careful and you never know what the future holds. It should be noted that Wix does offer customized email addresses.
Are there any other apps that you recommend? Have you used any of these apps for your business? Which features do you enjoy the most? Comment and let us know.
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