As the modern workplace continues to evolve, the tools that propel its efficiency and collaboration must keep pace. Gone are the days when the water cooler was the prime meeting spot for brainstorming sessions; today’s professionals are leveraging the power of technology to connect, create, and collaborate in groundbreaking ways.
As we stand on the cusp of a new era of work culture, it’s paramount for businesses and individuals alike to familiarize themselves with the latest digital aids.
Enter the world of social productivity tools: ingenious platforms and applications that combine the best of social networking and task management to supercharge the contemporary workspace.
In this article, we’ll delve into six cutting-edge social productivity tools that are reshaping the dynamics of team collaboration and project management, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the future of work.
1. Slack
Slack is a great (freemium) tool that streamlines business communication.
Best Features:
- Hashtags. The hashtag screams social, so I love how each “room” is a different hashtag. You can notify a specific channel and also a specific room. By typing @channel, you are only pinging people on the channel, but if you need your whole team, you can do @everyone to get everyone’s attention.
- File sharing is simple. You can upload files and it tracks a history of all files shared making it easy to find.
- The mobile app rocks. The free mobile app is simple to use, so you can be pinged on the go if your team needs you.
More importantly, it keeps internal communication and file-sharing secure. I’ve been burnt before, so cybersecurity is something I am taking very seriously. If you don’t trust me, listen to Hari Ravichandran’s podcast.
2. Text Optimizer
At its core, Text Optimizer is a semantic analysis tool. It scans your content and suggests ways to improve it, ensuring your message is clear, relevant, and appealing to your target audience. This is invaluable for crafting social media captions that not only grab attention but also maintain it.
By understanding and optimizing the semantics of your content, TextOptimizer ensures you’re speaking your audience’s language. Whether you’re targeting millennials, Gen Z, professionals, or hobbyists, fine-tuning your message to their preferences can dramatically increase engagement.
3. Yesware
Yesware is an outreach and marketing automation software. I am in love with Yesware for two reasons. The first, is it it shows me when people open my emails, and although that sounds mildly stalk-esque, it’s actually quite useful. But from a workplace standpoint, there is snazzy integration with Salesforce.
If your company is already using Salesforce to manage your leads and internal communications, Yesware has a neat check box that automatically sends the email into the CRM system.
Best Features:
- Salesforce integration. Easily see the email chain of any lead you are working no matter who on the team sends it.
- Team reports. Yesware does a great job letting you work as a team and showing you stats on each team member including how many sends and opens.
4. DrumUp
DrumUp allows you to easily take content that you create, and it downstream with the rest of your team so they are always topped up with shareable content.
Best Features:
- Suggested Scheduled Time. The content creator can set a time that the rest of the team should share it, so when they press “schedule” it’s already pre-filled, making it super easy.
- Analytics. The content creator can go into each message and quickly see who has seen the shareable as well as who has shared it.
5. Vcita
If you’re looking to book time to chat with your customer base, look no further than Vcita. This robust scheduling platform leverages social media to fill your pipeline with calls. We use it for the booking of all of our one-on-one coaching sessions.
Best Features:
- Recommend. Vcita has a really good “recommend” function so anyone who lands on your scheduling page can easily tell their fans and followers that they should book an appointment with you too. (This of course can be turned off if you want more private meetings).
- Follow-up Reminders. Vcita has some nifty reminders you can set to chase people up after you’ve had a call with them, so you won’t let the lead go cold.
- It integrates well with just about any ecommerce website builder out there and also has a site builder of its own.
- Optimo’s Content Calendar
A completely free tool from Optimo, this Content Calendar allows you to plan out a month’s worth of social media content in one go.
Using the power of AI, Optimo’s Content Calendar handles social post ideation for you, letting you focus on the actual content creation.
Ideation can be difficult, especially when sustaining it over a long content calendar. Sure, it can be easy to brainstorm a couple of creative ideas for your clients, but the creative flow can soon ebb.
The free Content Calendar plans out 4 weeks’ worth of post ideas, Monday through Sunday, to give you perfect coverage for your own socials, or your clients.
You can also pair this with their other free social media tools to handle the content creation for you as well if you want to supercharge your social media output truly.
Time is Money
You know the expression, and those of us who run businesses feel it acutely – there’s not always enough time to get it all done! I hope these tools will help the social and collaborative part of your day, at least, be more productive.