46 Comms tools that get the job done
Every job is made easier with the right tools, so here is a list of the 46 tools that my team and I use every week to get the Comms job done: software, apps, extensions and plugins.
These focus on OSX, iOS and Chrome, as those are the vehicles we use, but most of these also have other options available on Android, PC, Safari and Firefox.
It’s not a definitive list and some of these are a personal choice from a range of wonderful options, but we hope this might introduce you to a new workflow or some options to improve your communications work, so you can spend more time working and less time researching products and apps.
Let’s dive in…
Video editing
Premiere Rush is a slimmed-down version of the more powerful version of Premiere Pro, made by Adobe. It’s free and ideal for those simple video edits, without needing to lose yourself in endless tutorials. Available for mobile or desktop.
If you need something with a more powerful punch, but which is still free, try Davinci Resolve, made by the incredible team at Blackmagic. This is a more comprehensive video editing package but will give you improved results. Also, check out the hardware from Blackmagic for video tools that will blow your mind.
YouTube management
Ever wondered how to help your videos get more traction on YouTube (a search engine in its own right). Use vidIQ and follow their tips on tags, end screens, title lengths, subscribe buttons and much more. The free version should get you started and help you reach a bigger audience.
To-Do lists
Things is a simple to-do list, with projects and area, so you can drag items into other lists or see progress on an entire project. The only downside is the lack of shared lists, but it also means no one else can drop anything else into your perfectly manicured and ordered lists. Comes with a price tag, but is worth every penny.
Screen recording
Explaining how to do something over the phone can be painful and takes valuable time. Writing it down is even harder, by the time you’ve taken screenshots and annotated them, you’ve lost an hour. Instead, use Loom to record your screen and a small thumbnail of yourself, then hit record, capture a quick demo of you explaining something on your screen. Then share the link it creates, so the person you’re training can watch it whenever they want and as many times as they want. A definite timesaver.
Team interaction
Quick messages, updates, file sharing, collaboration, gifs, emojis and the ability to stay connected without living on a messenger tool can only mean one thing. Slack is the industry leader and with good reason. Integrate it with Google Drive, Dropbox and a number of other popular tools, for a more seamless sharing and working experience. We have channels for every project or team area, allowing conversations to stay focussed, team to stay on track and with employees around the UK and Ireland we can stay in touch just as easily as if we were in the next room.
Email management
Manage multiple accounts, change signatures, have canned responses, create your own shortcuts, tag, label and much more. Spark is the best email tool I’ve found for this and I’ve tried most of them.
Sending to an email list? Look no further than Mailchimp, which now includes a survey tool. Make good use of the tags and groups feature to categorise people and reach them with news that impacts them. Groups for options they choose, tags for marketing insights.
Design
The industry-standard packages remain in our docks for good reason, they’re the best. Photoshop for editing images. Illustrator for graphics and vectors, InDesign for layout and publication. Bundle them together as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite and get a better price (if you plan on using all three) and get access to their entire suite of software.
But maybe you have an eye for design, but find the high-end packages overwhelming? Try Canva, a staple in our arsenal to quickly create high-quality designs, especially where you’re working from often-used templates. Now packing a punch with basic video as well.
Canva gives you templates and dimensions for every use you might use. Upload your own colour palette and keep your designs on-brand every time you post.
Social Media
At some stage, you will find leaping between Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to post your updates tiring, even with scheduling tools available within them. The good news is there are easy ways to schedule all of them from a single location. We’ve trialled most of the popular names and have landed on CoSchedule for planning, scheduling and metrics.
Tweetdeck helps us monitor lists and keywords on Twitter.
Then on Instagram, you’ll want to create a Linktree account, which is a single link for Instagram bios, allowing you to update it with as many links as you need to keep your bio link relevant for your latest posts.
Podcasts
Create a free account with Anchor.fm to record and distribute your podcast to every podcast platform you’ll ever need. Owned by Spotify, this simple looking platform does all the heavy lifting for you and without charge. Easily switch from other more complicated services using their switching tool.
Video captions
Any new video needs subtitles. Upload your video to YouTube or Vimeo, then link your accounts to rev.com, pay a few dollars and they’ll automatically add captions for you…pay a bit more and choose from a range of languages.
File Management
Dropbox and Google Drive, not much more needed to be said here. Google for collaboration, Dropbox for sharing.
Password management
Everyone needs a password manager, so you can create highly-secure and unmemorable passwords like EVvTxBvG⁰³fW%7kQ#5Xxk⁶^kdDYC. Then save it securely so no one will ever guess it and if a website is hacked you’ll have a different password for each website. We use 1Password for this.
Online Meetings
Meeting online? Zoom (obviously) is our go-to. Then because we use Google’s Suite of products, we sometimes lean on Google hangouts (although Zoom is our go-to, it’s always good to have a back-up, and this is mine.)
Messaging
Texting back and forth but don’t trust the Facebook or Apple empires? Try Signal for encrypted messaging. Especially helpful if you communicate with people in countries where sensitive information might be best done inside a secure product.
Simple Tools
Ever get frustrated with copying something from one document or website, then pasted it into your new document only to find the text is in different sizes and colours? Use Get Plain Text, which gives you a single shortcut that removes all formatting from any text when you copy and paste, then when you paste it in will match the document you’re pasting it in to. A real time-saver.
Taking a photo on your iPhone, then transferred it to your computer only to see it’s in a weird HEIC format? Download iMazing HEIC Convertor to change those iPhone photos to JPEG.
Got a word document and need it as a PDF, or an old unusable format and need it in something editable? Get The document convertor, which changes most documents to any another document type. Image convertor OSX does the same with images.
We’ve all needed a video off YouTube or wanted to strip the audio out of something we’ve filmed ourselves. Use Video Converter Pro to grab any public-domain video or convert audio/video. It’s also helpful if you have filmed content and need the audio for your podcast. Leave it running in the background to create an mp3 file from a video file, ready for uploading to Anchor.
Command E is a well-kept secret, download it to search your computer, dropbox, google drive and many more cloud platforms with one single search. Especially useful when you can’t remember where you saved that file you were working on.
Download mp3TrueEdit for quick and easy edits on any audio file, including boosting audio, trimming, taking out pauses and removing sections no longer needed.
Sometimes you might want a short URL for a presentation or social media post, but want something more customisable than bitly. Sign-up to Rebrandly to create your own shortened URLs and track the metrics for each link.
Use FlipSnack to publish digital booklets which are easy to read online.
Mac users who often want to see two windows next to each other, add WindowTidy to resize OSX windows to fit certain sizes by dragging and dropping.
For those instances when you need to split a PDF into multiple pages or merge individual PDFs into one large PDF, download PDF Toolkit to create new PDFs. It also compresses the files, so you can make your next attachment smaller.
iOS apps
Google Authenticator works with your Google account to provide 2-step verification when signing into a range of applications. Super secure and easy.
Add StreamDeck to your phone to create shortcuts for often-used programmes, like Zoom, eg. tap a button for mute, without needing to use your mouse to find your mute button. Also available as a physical product.
So many articles, so little time. Create a Pocket account and sync it so you can read your twitter bookmarks at a later, also add a Pocket plugin to Chrome and save useful articles to read in full later, not when you’re in the middle of a piece of work. Allocate a timeslot to read through them and spend less time browsing and more time working.
Chrome Extensions
ColorZilla pick colours off any webpage, save them to your clipboard and then recreate them in any design or video package where you need a specific colour.
Reduce the time you spend proofing documents, by installing Grammarly to pick up on your grammar mistakes.
I don’t care about Cookies is a helpful extension which removes those annoying Cookie notifications that appear on every website. With this extension you don’t need to manually close it to see what you really need, it automatically gets rid of it for you.
AdBlock blocks ads, so you can get to the content faster and be less distracted. Especially useful on those websites that crowd out anything useful, so the can monetise as many pixels as possible.
A bit geekier, but check out this script from TamperMonkey and TweetDeck.clear which runs a script that helps Tweetdeck work more efficiently, by clearing all columns with a single click.
TrafficLight lets you know that websites are safe and not about to install anything naughty on your computer. Peace of mind to protect you from antiphishing and antimalware.
Ever wondered what a URL preview will look like when shared on social media? Use SocialShare Preview for this.
Quickly measure any element of a website using Measure Dimensions.
Save to Pocket any articles and videos for reading or watching later when you have more time. Syncs from your browser to your iOS app, so you can be more productive.
My book
If you liked these tips, you might also like my book, which helps unpack how churches can communicate more effectively in this digital culture. Available from Amazon and all the usual places.
