Productivity Hack for Social Entrepreneurs: 5 Online Tools You NEED for Impact

Using Automated Online Tools to Help You Reach Your Most Important People

On my Live today I discussed what happens when you can't show up. Let's be honest, you can't be in all the places doing all the things.

If you're working to make an impact, likely you have way too many commitments and roles to do everything yourself. One of the hacks I shared is to use automations and digital tools to help you show up online when you can't or just don't want to.

More than that, these tools can save you a lot of time and effort if you use them as part of a strategy or plan to grow your reach and serve more through your business or nonprofit.

I recently shared a blog post where I explain how you can use these same tools to help you grow your reach online and connect with your most important audiences.

Top 5 Productivity Tools for Social Impact Businesses and Nonprofit Organizations

As promised, here is the list of the top 5 productivity tools you need right now to hack your social business or nonprofit organization’s reach.?

These tools are some of my favorite platforms that I use daily, so this is an honest review of each of them. Although, full disclosure- these may be affiliate links. (Gotta get those 7 streams of income y’all!)

#1- Trello- Productivity Powerhouse?

Trello is a God-send of an app. I’ve used Trello to organize my entire life since I discovered it in 2015. I organize the recipes I want to cook, my dog’s health, and my business with Trello.?

Trello is a board-based organization and productivity tool that allows you to keep track of details on “cards”. A card can include notes, attachments, links, due dates, and other features they call “boosts”.?

As a social entrepreneur, you can use Trello to organize your entire strategy for your business or nonprofit. I teach my clients how to use Trello to stay on task with 12-week planning based on the Brian Moran book. This system helps them complete all the basic tasks a social entrepreneur needs to do to grow.?

Bottom Line-?If you are disorganized, have a ton of post-its everywhere, or you frequently lose things… this is the tool for you. Start with a template or blank board. Either way, you can develop your own system to stay organized and on task.?

Why You Want this: Trello is team-based. You can invite your business partners, staff, or others to your board to keep them on task too.

This Will Cost You:?Trello is FREE! You can get the pro version for one of your workspaces, it will cost you $120 per year.?

I subscribe to pro because it gives me the ability to share cool templates like this one with you guys.

#2- Metricool- Social Media Super Dash

Metricool is my latest subscription and I’m glad I made the investment. Features are being added to the platform and app continuously making it a great replacement for your current social media scheduler.?

Metricool will let you plan and schedule posts to most of the major social media platforms, including Google My Business. That’s how many options there are. It allows you to see a day, week, or month’s worth of scheduled posts. You can duplicate posts and share them on other social media platforms easily. You can also schedule an RSS feed or upload a .CSV file of multiple posts to schedule in a batch.?

The thing that sets Metricool apart from other scheduling platforms is their analytics dashboard. You can track all your analytics from your social media platforms and your website on one dashboard. It’s pretty accurate but there is a drawback. You can’t track an individual LinkedIn account, only a business page. Which makes no sense but maybe they’ll change that in the future.

Bottom Line-?Metricool will help you 10X your reach by scheduling regular social media posts so you can worry about engagement and other more important things. It will also help you make data-informed decisions about where to spend your time and advertising money.

Why You Want this:?The investment in Metricool is worth the money. For all the features you need in one place this powerful tool is worth the pro version.?

This Will Cost You:?Metricool has a free version with 1 account linked to most major platforms. The paid accounts you can link between 5 - 50 accounts. This is great if you manage social media for other people or multiple teams/brands. You'll invest about $144 per year for?Metricool

#3- Calendly- Autobot for Your Calendar

You might already be using Calendly, but I’m here to tell you that you’re probably not taking full advantage of the tool’s offerings. Calendly can make you a follow-up automated machine.?

Calendly allows you to completely brand your organization’s page and set details for individual events. You can create calendars specific for a program or client or a reoccurring group meeting. There is also a polling feature where you can find the best time for a group to meet.?

There are two features in Calendly you might not be familiar with but they add mad juice to your follow-up game. The first is called __. This allows you to give a set of questions to your contacts and book on a specific calendar depending on how they answer the questions. This is fantastic for volunteers or partners that you want to collaborate with but have two different options for when you want to connect with whom.?

The second feature is in the __ menu and it allows you to set a series of automated follow-up emails that will be sent before or after your meeting. You can set a tailored welcome or reminder email before your meeting or a thank you and follow-up sequence after. This feature helps you dominate your follow-up goals because you can set it and forget it. This means you can maximize your efficiency and your effectiveness, yes! Finally!?

Bottom Line-?Calendly will deduplicate your appointments on your Google calendar while booking new appointments for your clients, donors, volunteers, or staff. You can keep all your calendars in one place and connect your Zoom account so recipients get the info directly from you booking page.

Why You Want this:?This is one of the more cost-effective tools considering this is how your leads will find you. This is a direct money-making client-serving tool that every social entrepreneur should invest in. Plus you look more professional when you’re trying to scale.

This Will Cost You:?Calendly Professional is worth the investment currently at $112/year.

#4- Flodesk- Good Lookin’ Emails

People ask me all the time what email service I use. I tried several and have looked at many over the years. I chose Flodesk because of how easy to use their interface is. They are continually updating their platform and the investment is reasonable for the features.?

I do wish they had a better way to keep your segments organized, individualized confirmation pages for lead magnet delivery, and more flexibility within their templates. But they do make some great-looking emails.?

If you’re just starting out building your email list, Flodesk is easy to use and you can import your existing list directly to the platform using a .CSV file. Their landing pages, forms, and workflows are easy to set-up. That makes this platform extremely beginner-friendly.

Bottom Line-?Whether you’re growing an existing list or starting out, Flodesk will help you connect to your audience regularly. Online social media, you own your email list and you can reach out to them whenever you need to. Having a good email management system is important to grow your reach and stay consistent with your communications efforts.

Why You Want this:?Flodesk charges you a flat rate, no matter how large your email list grows. If you get a referral link from an awesome affiliate (like me!) you’ll get xx off your subscription. (Here’s your link BTW, you’re welcome)

This Will Cost You:?I locked in Flodesk at $209 per year at a 50% off discount during the beta. With?this coupon, you can lock in this amazing online gem at the same rate- 50% off.

#5- DeScript- Content Creation Level DEFCON 5?

This is the big daddy of online productivity tools that rocked my world in the past year. I thought I didn't need it. I tried buying a modestly-priced video editing software. Then I tried DeScript and I haven’t looked back.?

DeScript is more than a video and audio editing software. It turns your video or audio into a transcript that you can use to edit the video or audio. You can also add overlays and visuals to your file.?

This sounds simple, but I promise the opportunities are endless to increase your reach with less effort and much more badass content. Here are a few ways I use DeScript:?

• Turn my Clubhouse room audio into a podcast episode

• Turn my podcast episode into a blog post

• Turn my Clubhouse room audio into short videos with Canva graphics

• Turn my classes and workshops into short videos for Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok

Ok that’s just a few ways that I use DeScript but there are a ton more. This is where you go from novice to super duper pro status. You can turn virtually any content you create into a video and export a portion or all of your project into video, audio, or a text file.?

That means, you could even turn your live videos that you use to reach your audience into content that you can use on at least 5 other platforms. How cool is that? I mean really, that’s why this is DEFCON 5 level tip… you need this I promise.

Bottom Line-?DeScript saves you a ton of time and effort to get your message to more audiences on more platforms leveraging audio, video, and text formats. You can also assign speakers and share your project to the web so others can access it via a direct URL.

Why You Want this:?DeScript is a big investment. It will save you time and makes video editing easy for any beginner to pick up. Given more content on social media is video-based you will need to have video as part of your strategy. Bonus, if you’re leveraging social audio to increase your reach, you can use the same editor for both formats. It also has a screen record and a video capture feature that work really well so you can record course lessons and videos for your community.?

This Will Cost You: DeScript's?pro subscription currently costs $288 per year.

Using Tools to Help You Show Up When You Can't

Now that you've heard about the tools that I use to help me manage an online presence, let's talk about why this matters in context of building your legacy.

As you work to create social change, it's important to bring people on board with what you're creating. Especially if you're trying to change norms or policies.

Communicating with your audience about the new possible reality if social change occurs is vital to success. That way supporters, donors, and the people you serve can join your efforts.

Unfortunately, leveraging communications and marketing for social change is a very niche field with some amazing and talented people who do this all day every day. But the average social entrepreneur doesn't have access to information that tells them how to merge communication and impact for their benefit.

Especially if you are working solo or are part of a small organization, there is no secret treasure trove of information telling you how to use online tools to market so you can give your overworked selves a break.

So let me help you out...

5 Ways to Maximize Your Impact and Reach With Automated Tools

Here are some quick and easy things you can do right now with the tools in this article to save yourself time and energy in the future. Although these strategies might take some foresight, planning, and effort up front... they will ultimately help you be more efficient and effective at your work.

1. Stockpile content, information, and ideas! Keep a table or document that you can share with your team so you do not need to hunt for this information when you are in the creation phase.

1. Invite your audience to generate the content with you. This will allow you to simply use Metricool to post and tag the person who created the content. You can even do this in a batch so you know you have content pre-scheduled out that resonates with your audience. For example, you can ask viewers to submit videos around a theme like "show me a day in the life of a public health official" if you're a public health organization. Or you could ask people to "show me what prevention looks like" in their community. All these videos can be scheduled, posted, and tagged for release at any time (with permission of course!).

1. Use Trello to plan your quarter and Calendly to schedule it. Combining the apps in this article gives you the power to cover entire processes. If you want to create a webinar series with multiple speakers and multiple dates- no problem! Do the planning in Trello and transfer the details to separate Calendly one-off events that you can even charge to attend! Calendly uses a Stripe integration so your audience can pay for their seat when they book their ticket.

1. Create a whole video library in one GO! Descript is amazing at chopping up longer videos into shorter ones with ease. You can also overlay images and other videos into your original video or audio file. Descript is also releasing a new version with powerful new tools, I can't wait for this. You can easily tape a whole library of video content related a core topic area for your organization. This library can live on your website, be sent in email blasts, or simply help expand your reach on social media platforms.

1. Invite everyone to support your campaign and hop on board! Communicating with your audiences will require every avenue. Email marketing is a great way to help your core engaged audience members stay informed and on top the latest information. Flodesk helps you share information quickly by making it easy to set up multi-email campaigns with their Workflows. If you're a small business, they just release a suite of new template AND they added check-out pages too! That means people can pay through Flodesk for your services, courses, templates, etc. and they go directly on your email list. So excited about this one!

All the Tools You Need

There you have it, my top 5 productivity tools you need right now to grow your social business or nonprofit organization.?Every platform is continuing to grow and add features. No matter what you choose to use, these are just a few of thousands of options.

Savvy social entrepreneurs can invest just under $700 per year on all of these tools and have a complete productivity suite with a video/audio editor, calendar, project management, social media, analytics, and email marketing suite. That’s pretty cool in my book.?

Want to Know More?

This post is an excerpt from my blog- 5 Productivity Tools Your Social Business or Nonprofit Needs to Grow Your Reach Online.

You can?watch the video?about how to use and navigate through these tools. You can also watch the Live where I share more about how to show up when you can't or don't want to show up.

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