I have been wanting to write this post for months but I wanted to make sure I had all the information before sharing it with you all! When it comes to blogging, sometimes it can be difficult to stay motivated to come up with new ideas and staying organised is what I really struggle with. If I don't stay organised with lists and having things planned out, I just can't seem to write so these are my blogging must haves.
Must Have Apps
I will be the first one to admit that I suck at spelling and grammar and I have actually been called up on it a few times. I really don't like when people moan about bloggers using the wrong spellings of words or making sentences too long because for me personally, I had no clue what I was doing wrong! Which is where Grammarly comes in, this is the most helpful plug in I have ever used in the four years that I have been blogging. I have this installed in Safari and Google Chrome and it will highlight any spelling mistakes, correct your grammar use and even tell you if you have used the wrong spelling of a word. It's free to download and I highly recommend it, I have used it so many times for this blog post alone and I never have to worry about where to put my commas now!
Scheduling tweets is the one thing I don't enjoy about blogging as it is just so boring to do. I like to schedule all of my tweets for the week on Sunday so I don't have to worry about doing them every day but it does take me a few hours to do. I have tried a few different apps and websites to schedule my tweets but Tweetdeck is the best one I have used. It doesn't have a limit on how many tweets you can schedule at a time and it is completely free to use. I use it on my iMac and I love to also use it take part in Twitter Chats as you can set up different columns to follow your favourite hashtags as well as being able to see your regular timeline and notifications.
To edit photos, everyone loves photoshop but I like to do as much as I can for free. If you have an iMac or Macbook, I highly recommend PhotoScape X, this is free on the App Store, you can buy the premium version but I haven't needed of these extras. I have been using PhotoScape X for a little over a year to edit my photos now and it is great to white balance and brighten if you would like a full post on how I edit my photos please let me know! To edit my Instagram photos or anything on the go, my favourite is Photoshop Express, again this is free. This has filters you can use as well as the standard editing option you need, I like to use this to brighten my photos and enhance the colours.
If you want to keep track if your social media followers, unfollowers and inactive following the two apps I use are Crowdfire and Followers+. Crowdfire is just for Twitter and Followers+ is for Instagram and I mainly use these to keep track of those annoying accounts that like to follow and unfollow and to make sure I am not following any accounts that are now inactive. With both apps you are also able to see how much your accounts have grown and how many followers you have lost but I don't like to stress over these too much. To keep track of my stats, Google Analytics is my best friend and I love the iPhone app as you can see whos on your blog in real time. Google Analytics is the most reliable tracking source and you can see everything from your daily page views to the countries your blog is being read in.
Staying Organised and Motivated
Having a monthly blog post planner is the main reason how I manage to blog every day and have been for years. You could just use the calendar app on your laptop or phone but I like to keep mine in a sperate document. I just make a table in word document and add the days of the week at the top with each day of the month in each box, this way you can pop down any ideas for posts on the days you would like to post them and because it's all digital, you can switch it up if you need too. I have created a pretty basic document which will take you up to the end of the year - HERE.
I am very lucky enough that I receive PR samples to review but sometimes it can be difficult to keep track of them and to make sure that they haven't got missing in the post. I keep a notebook at my desk and pop down a list of all PR samples that should be coming by way and tick them off as they arrive and I have emailed the PR to thank them. You could even do this in the spreadsheet to keep track of PR samples with the date they have arrived and the date you have posted so you can let the PR know.
Bloggers block is the worst and sometimes I just run out of ideas! So as and when ideas pop into my head for blog posts, usually right before I am going to bed, I keep a running list in my notes section so that I never forget any of my ideas and I always have something to look back on for ideas. I am so forgetful so if I didn't keep a list, I would never know what to post! Even though it is Summer, I already have lists of post ideas for Autumn and Christmas posts. If you are stuck on what to blog, I have done a few posts on ideas that could help you out:
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