Keep Learning

This world is one crazy place, a techno-mania to say the least.

Since the birth of the internet, the digital landscape has grown into an organic thriving world. It’s become part of life – Even when we finally take that holiday, most of us find it difficult to detach from our phones or the internet.

For the youth, it’s almost as though the world around us is incomplete without Wifi, and an Instagram account to share the experience on.

Credit: What is a Holiday without Wifi?

I’m a Content Marketing Manager, so I get to experience the madness of the digital age in my own way. Marketing has evolved so much over the last few years, and it’s doing so rapidly.

Time waits for no one.

Credit: Content Marketing Tools – Seriously?

I recently started working at a supercool startup Rebrandly.

There are many URL Shorteners out there, but this one is striving to be so much more. Link shortening is old news, now it’s all about Branding and Tracking those links to increase engagement and ultimately make sharing content online meaningful again.

Credit: Branded Links Are Rad

Long story short, I started working here a few weeks ago.

This is my first time working at a real Startup. Startups are new businesses essentially. But real startups, the ones at San Francisco level, are on a whole different playing field. Taken seriously: being a new business, in order to survive and thrive, it’s all about Traction, Growth, and Optimizing everything you do so that you can move fast.

It’s a way of thinking.

Those are just some of the main concepts around Startups.  It’s wild, thinking quickly, moving fast, and all with focus.

Well described by Eric Ries on Quora:

“The goal of the startup is to figure out the right thing to build (as quickly as possible) which customers want and are willing to pay for.”

Being at this startup, as part of their Growth Marketing Team, it is incredible how much I’ve learnt in such a small space of time. Sure, I came in with a lot of knowledge and value to add, but it blows my mind how much more there is to learn.

Being a startup, all marketing efforts are focused on Growth. Growth Growth Growth. And, everything needs to be fast and efficient. You need to optimise everything you do, so that no seconds are wasted.

For this reason, I’d needed to learn a lot of different tools over the last few weeks. Luckily, having started out in the industry by studying Design, and all it’s programs, I am very comfortable learning new programs. I actually enjoy it.

Being in tool-mode at work, I’ve now naturally started using other tools for my personal use too.

Even though I do believe that people need to spend more time away from technology and especially social media… Technology is here to stay, so why not make use of the best of these tools, and optimise!

Time is so precious, and these fantastic tools give you insights, save you time, and just help you out in so many different ways.

And so, I wanted to share some of my new and favourite tools I now work with every day.
Some I used before, but now working with them a lot more frequently.

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~~ Trello ~~

Oh Trello, where oh where have you been all my life?

Trello is one of the coolest planning tools I’ve ever had the pleasure of using.

You can plan anything with it, from small personal tasks, to PR plans. Whether you just want somewhere to plan your recipes, events, personal goals, it’ll work wonders.

It’s made up of boards, and within those boards are lists and cards. It’s visual and very easy to use, making planning fluid and inspiring.

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~~ Buffer ~~

Most of you who are avid social butterflies are already using Buffer. I used to use it every now and again, but I wasn’t using it regularly.

Since putting some extra time into my personal Instagram feed, and through scheduling multiple channels for work, I’ve formed a new bond with this wonderful tool.

If you want to take your social media seriously, and make it count, start planning your channels and use Buffer to keep you going.

Other cool tools I’ve discovered for Instagram: HashMe (for finding relevant Hashtags) and IconSquare (not free, but the trial is rad to use to learn a whole lot about your account).

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~~ Google Drive ~~

This has been quite a change for me.

Rebrandly is a remote-working startup, so team members are all over the world, from Dublin, to San Diego, to Italy. For this reason, we work completely online, with tools that allow us to work together seamlessly wherever anyone is at the time.

Some of our biggest friends include: Skype, Google Drive, Dropbox, Trello and Slack.

No more Microsoft Office on my computer, just Google Drive. Whether I’m creating a word doc, an excel spreadsheet, an image folder – Everything is done online, and shared, reviewed and edited across teams and continents hassle-free.

At Rebrandly, when I got my first article to write, I automatically wanted to create a word doc draft on my laptop. Then, my boss asked me to just work in Google Docs in the company’s Article folder, so that he could see my draft. Instead of endless drafts, saved all over my laptop, a few days later I had one final document, already reviewed and published.

I feel like, by using Google Docs, it cleans out the clutter, improves efficiency, and ultimately strengthens teamwork.

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~~ Haro ~~

PR sits in the crazy world of Content Marketing.

How to stand out in the maddening crowd, so much media to potentially pitch to, so many topics trending and dating in seconds, so much competition, so many options.

In this crazy space, tools can ease the load.

I’ve discovered a lot of different PR tools, but wanted to focus on one: HARO.

HARO – Help A Reporter – basically provides journalists with a database of sources for upcoming stories, and provides daily opportunities to sources to secure valuable media coverage. So, in my email everyday, I get a feed of opportunities, where Journalists are looking for content contributions.

This is such an awesome ‘tool’. And there are so many more similar ones. It’s one of hundreds of tools that those in PR use to get content out there.

From Haro, JournoRequests, BuzzStream, Trello, BuzzSumo and so many more. If you can find a couple tools that work for you, they can add a lot of value to your workday.

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~~ Social Listening & Engaging ~~

As Digital Marketers, we need to be connected to the online world. A network of places and conversations.

One of the biggest marketing nuggets I’ve come to realise, is the power of social listening.

The digital world is truly alive. It’s kicking off. Endless websites, platforms, social media channels, forums, chat rooms – People are conversing constantly, asking questions, providing valuable answers, consumers sharing insights, professionals unveiling hot info.

One of the most powerful things you can do as a Digital Marketer – whether you’re wanting to promote something big or small – is Social Listening & Engaging.

Go to forums and blogs, where people are talking about your industry. Listen, offer answers or info, engage. You’ll be surprised, you may just find more value than you think.

Start off by doing a Google Search: Pretend you are your ideal customer, what would you search for? Then visit those pages, forums, blog posts – Check out their comments and see what people are saying. Great insights!

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And so, the learning continues.

Be it Haro, JournoRequests, BuzzStream, Trello, BuzzSumo, Audiense, Flipboard, Buffer, Dropbox, Google Docs, Slack, Quora.

It’s so important to learn. To Grow. To push ourselves to our limits, and venture into the unknown. We get so used to our normal worlds, and forget how many other worlds there are all around us.

Right now, I’m in the tech startup world of Growth Marketing – Whoa!

And if you’re in this crazy-busy world, and wanting to get ahead… You may as well use a kit of great tools, and optimize. Spend your time on the important tasks that require your creative mind, and let these clever tools help you with the other stuff.

Then… you can spend a little more time playing outside.
I stumbled upon Jason Abbruzzese’s Twitter profile yesterday, and his main banner image sums it up so well:

P.S. Trello is for everyone, not just Marketers. So give it a go!

Here’s to learning more!
Grow Grow Grow
🙂

Do you have any tools you like to use to optimize your time?

I’d love to know!