My Favorite Digital Platforms
Working with my clients and through my own entrepreneur journey I have experimented and worked with multiple digital platforms. These platforms support everything from website hosting, email campaigns, landing pages, course sites, to document creation. Every business has different requirements and budgets so not all of these platforms will work for everyone. However, when I was getting started I found blog posts such as this to be incredibly helpful giving me a starting point. So this week I am going to share a few of my favorite digital platforms.
A one stop shop for project management, creating and signing contracts, time tracking, creating and sending invoices, and processing payments. Integrates with Quickbooks for more comprehensive financial management.
Your one shop stop for website, coaching programs, podcast hosting, blog, course purchase and hosting, landing pages, and email campaigns. This platform comes with a heftier price tag. However, it combines multiple platforms you would have to pay for individually and it makes connecting between the different items easy.
Fairly intuitive platform with a impressive degree of creative freedom in creating landing pages. Integrates well with a wide variety of sites.
When it comes to podcasting there are a wide variety of options. I personally like the free open software Audacity for recording and mixing audio and then exporting and uploading to my host site. So far I have been the post impressed with Anchor as a podcast host and distributer. A nice perk of this site is that it’s free and you can either create a new episode in the site or upload your own audio with a variety of editing options. Another note about Anchor is that it makes it incredibly easy to move a podcast over from a different host. Lastly, I use Headliner to create audio grams of podcast episodes for social media. I like this plat form due to its user friendliness, the option to create short or whole episode audiograms, and that with the free account you get 5 audiograms and a little less than 10 minutes of free captioning.
A great free option for sharing files and organizing documents.
I prefer this platform for communicating with clients when we are working on multiple projects. It integrates with several popular platforms and helps me not having to keep track of long email chains. You can have multiple workspaces for different clients and they make it easy to add in other collaborates.
As far as website hosts I have found that both Squarespace and Wix have their own pros and cons. They both have the ability to perform similar functions. However, I found that Squarspace have the more intuitive and user friendly interface while Wix gives the user more creative freedom. There is a bit of a price difference between the packages. For these platforms it really depends on your preference.
This site has been a game changes across the board. I love that you can import your branding kit and easily apply it to an incredible array of digital and paper product templates.
Again with so many options out there for social medial scheduling I have found that I like Loomly the best. You can create multiple calendars for a single clients or for multiple clients (including yourself) all in one place. I appreciate that this platform takes your base content and auto formats it for each social media while still giving you the ability to make adjustments. Another nifty feature is the tips it provides to help you craft and post the best and most efficient content to get the most out of your effort.
I don’t know about you but sometimes I find a video is so much more efficient in sharing information with clients. Whether it’s an update on a project or a screen recording of a workflow I have found both of these platforms to be helpful. Screencastify is a free plug in for Google Chrome that allows up to 5 minutes of free recording and final videos are stored on your google drive. Loomly is also an option with a few more bells and whistles but would be a better fit for group work.