It’s always a stern challenge to start up and run a small business. However, the plethora of free online tools and apps available on the internet means that the switched on entrepreneur can make the “e” part of their business run with humming efficiency. Below, we expose some of the most useful free tools for entrepreneurs and SME managers to use for their businesses. Stand up and give some APPlause then for the below bits of kit:
1. RockThePost – Throughout the ages, good business has always been about networking and the efficient leveraging of resources. RockThePost is a new business oriented social site that taps into both of these concepts. Business owners can effectively swap resources, get funding and showcase their company in front of thousands of influential eyes.
2. Create Unique, Content Rich Sites Quickly With Weebly – You may be aware of WordPress which remains one of the best free Content Management System tools around. An interesting site that can be just as useful in order to create unique, content rich sites is Weebly. This CMS offers mobile compatible themes and allows the user to blog easily from anywhere. It also links automatically to all your social media sites – easy to setup and understand for technophobes.
3. Hootsuite Lets You Manage Your Social Media Presence From One Place. As business owners, we have a plethora of social sites to stalk – this can get time consuming in terms of logistics. Fortunately, the marvel that is Hootsuite allows you to manage and schedule all your posts over many networks from one area. Insightful analytics are also available, allowing the user to see just how well their campaigns are performing.
4. Never Lose Another Brilliant Idea Again – Evernote Lets You Remember Everything, Everywhere. As business owners, great new ideas are liable to hit anywhere and everywhere. You could get a new product idea while browsing the web at a café. You could get some cool ad slogan ideas while at the airport, killing time on your ipad. With Evernote, you can capture all your ideas and research and access them from anywhere – using practically any device. It synchronizes automatically, which means you kick off from exactly where you left off, whether you’re logging in from your iphone, ipad, laptop or practically any other device.
5. Collaborate With Ease Using Asana. This free online collaboration tool allows you entire workforce to collaborate on projects from various locations. You can specify individual projects and task lists, and organize your workforce between them.
6. Remember To Follow Up With Leads Using Boomerang. Those promising leads you’ve been collecting over the days and weeks aren’t going to chase themselves you know. That’s where Boomerang can help – it’s a free Gmail plugin that enables you to send yourself email reminders on key leads. You can set the amount of time you want to leave between reminders, which means no lead need ever fall by the wayside again.
7. For Password Dolts, Dashlane Is Here To Help. Many business leaders are surprisingly useless with passwords. We live in a password protected online society, and most people are savvy enough to use different passwords for the hundreds of different sites they are members of. The problem comes in remembering passwords – fortunately, Dashlane can help. It’s an easy to use password manager and eWallet all rolled into one. Free too.