Written by MycroBurst.com’s Marketing Coordinator, Jessica Kornfeind
Starting and maintaining a business, no matter the size, is a lot of work and can be quite expensive and finding the right tools and processes that are both cost and time effective can be challenging. Through careful research, I’ve found a few online tools along the way that are easy to use, quick and produce great results. Here are my five favorite online tools, and best of all, most are free!
LogoSnap.com
Your business is invisible if it isn’t represented by a great design. LogoSnap is the sister site of MycroBurst, and it offers DIY logo design for a fraction of the cost. Aside from a logo design, you can create a business card, flyer and more. LogoSnap’s design software is easy and completely free. If you love your design, it’s only $29 to download.
One of the keys to running a successful business is having satisfied customers. One way I try and track this is to survey my clients. I can identify their needs and how happy, or unhappy, they truly may be. I’ve used a lot of survey creation services, but none measure up to SurveyCrest.com. It’s completely free, and it even includes easy-to-understand analysis and reports.
To piggyback off the survey idea, sometimes I need a form that goes a step further. For that, I use Wufoo.com, which is a free online form builder. I use it for guest posts, as it’s any easy way for other bloggers to submit their ideas for our blog. There are free and paid registration accounts. I opted for the free version, but with a paid version you can eliminate ads, upload more file attachments, redirect after the form is filled out and more.
TweetDeck is my lifesaver. Without TweetDeck, the ability to keep my social media platforms for MycroBurst in order would be near impossible. This platform allows me to maintain multiple accounts. I can tweet, retweet, post and respond directly from the desktop utility. I plan out all of our social media posts, and my favorite part is the ability to schedule a multitude of posts days in advance.
We’re all knee-deep in the social media world; the only way we can be sure our plans are working is to measure the data. SocialDon.com is a free service that not only measures your social media platforms but it compares yours to your competition. It’s free to use, and it was even featured on MSNBC in a segment regarding the best ways to measure Facebook data.
There are many others, including Visual.ly, CrowdBooster.com and all of the Google applications, but the above are my favorite. These DIY tools manage my day and help each one go by smoothly.
What tools are your favorites? Tweet them to us @MycroBurst!
Jessica Kornfeind is the Marketing Coordinator at MycroBurst/Logo Design Guru. MycroBurst is based in Langhorne, PA and is an online marketplace for graphic design. MycroBurst provides custom designs through crowdsourcing. Follow Jessica & MycroBurst on Twitter, @JesKorn & @MycroBurst.