Content creation tools are a necessity for any serious content marketer. Having the right tools for the job makes achieving results much easier and efficient. As a marketer, you want your efforts to pay off. These useful content creation tools can help you with just that. But how do these content creation tools work? Where on the Internet can you use them? How many of these popular free content creation tools exist? What exactly are they used for? What is their purpose? Let’s find out in this article.
Content creation tools, for the most part, are either free or relatively cheap. You simply can’t beat the price or ease of use when considering the value these tools can provide a business. Whether you are a novice blogger or an experienced content creator you need to find the right tools for the job. Professionals use a wide range of content creation tools and free resources to create better content which converts into more traffic, leads and sales.
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Content creation is the lifeblood of a website, blog, or any kind of business. If you’re serious about it, you need useful content creation tools. But which ones should you use? And what’s so useful about these tools that makes them so valuable to you? This article reviews the best free content creation tools available to you today and why they are so important for your small business.
CONTENT IDEATION TOOLS
Every great piece of content starts with a great idea. If you’re struggling to come up with creative content ideas, it’s going to feel pretty much impossible to write or produce engaging content.
At the same time, you also need to ensure that you are producing relevant content for your audience. If you’re writing or talking about a topic that your audience doesn’t care about, they’re not going to take the time to listen to what you have to say.
The following content ideation tools could help you revamp your content research and come up with content ideas that are timely, interesting, and relevant for your target audience.
VismeChart
Need to create charts that will rock your data and statistical contents? VismeChart is what you’re looking for. By adding customly designed chart visuals to your blog posts, social media posts, or other content, you can drive backlinks and credibility. Charts are a perfect way to visualize complicated and boring data.
Designing them on Visme is incredibly easy for anyone. You can create charts, infographics, short videos, and presentations on Visme’s intuitive, drag-and-drop designer. The best part is its free plan covers a lot of features.
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $25/mo with monthly payment.
Unsplash
Stock photos come in handy every now and then. Unsplash provides a rich stock library of high quality images and photos free to use and shared under the Unsplash license. The platform has over 207,000 contributing photographers and generates 17 billion photo impressions per month.
Audacity
Ready to record your first podcast but not sure what tools you need to capture and edit your audio?
Audacity is an easy-to-use multitrack audio recording and editing platform that’s far easier than it looks to get to grips with.
In no time at all, you’ll be ready to hit record on your first podcast episode, and with the right software at your disposal, you’ll be able to edit out and little blips and background noises before exporting straight in your required format.
Cost: FREE
Alitu
You will undoubtedly want to spend your time creating podcast content and promoting it, not on editing.
But there as a clear need for your podcast to be the very best quality and edited in a professional way. At the end of the day, your audience will be used to pristine quality ‘casts and quite rightly so.
You can use Alitu to make better sounding podcasts without needing audio editing skills and experience. Simply load in your raw recordings, and the tool will help you to do the rest.
Cost: $28/month
Buzzsprout
Once you have recorded your podcast, you need to host it somewhere. And Buzzsprout is a solid option to help you to manage and share your show with your listeners.
You will also gain insights into each episode’s performance, as well as the devices that they are using and where about in the world they are located — data that can help you to tailor your show’s content (and promotion strategy) to continue to grow.
Cost: FREE and Paid Versions
Scribie
While podcasts are booming in popularity, they are not for everyone, and only creating an audio version of your content could mean that you are missing out on engagement from your audience.
And for that reason alone, it is recommended that you transcribe your podcast episodes and offer a text-alternative. But doing this yourself is time-consuming.
Use Scribie as a cost-effective way to transcribe your podcasts quickly and efficiently, and spend your time creating content, leaving transcription to the pros.
Cost: From $0.10/min
Webinar Ninja
Touted as “The Best All-In-One Webinar Software,” the reason why Webinar Ninja has become so popular is due to it’s simplicity.
Want to launch your own webinar? You can literally be ready to go live in minutes, and the platform now powers millions of webinars from companies like Podio, Baremetrics, and AppSumo, so you are in good company.
But one of the main reasons why it comes recommended is the extensive template library that it comes with, helping you to launch professional-looking sign-up pages without needing a designer and developer’s resources.
Cost: From $39 per month
Zoom Webinars
Find us someone who isn’t familiar with Zoom by now. And while many of us have spent much of the last few months speaking with friends, family, and colleagues over the platform, there is no denying that it is one of the most popular options for hosting a webinar.
This is partly due to its sudden familiarity amongst pretty much everyone’s audience, but also the fact that it has a solid offering that comes with a cost-effective price tag.
Cost: From $40 per month, per license
Streamyard
While we have all recently come to love webinars, there has also been a huge surge in interest in live streams, and Streamyard is perhaps the top tool that is out there to help you to go live across Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other platforms.
Keep your audience engaged across any of the platforms that they follow you on, and benefit from a simple and straightforward solution that doesn’t need a complex tech set up for you to stream.
Cost: FREE and Paid Plans
Biteable
The one problem that most marketers have with video content is the resources that are needed to produce something that looks professional, and that stands out. It is a format that an increasing number of us want to use but aren’t able to due to a lack of available resources.
And this means we are missing out on the engagement that it can bring.
But Biteable is one solid solution to help you to overcome this problem, providing you with a huge amount of templates that you can use to create powerful videos with, just like companies such as Airbus, Panasonic, and Virgin. In fact, it has now been used by more than 7 million people.
Cost: FREE and Paid Plans
Animoto
If you are looking for an easy-to-use drag-and-drop video maker, you could do far worse than check out Animoto.
Start with one of the many available templates or upload your own photos and videos, and you will have an awesome video asset in no time at all, all without the help of a videographer or editor.
Cost: FREE and Paid Plans
Pixlr
When it comes to online photo editing tools, Pixlr would probably be one of the top three content creation tools that springs to most marketers’ minds.
Pixlr helps you quickly crop an image, apply filters and add elements to your image to make it more visually inviting for your audience.
Its basic image editing features make it convenient when you have limited time for your content creation.
What’s even better?
This content creation tool comes in three types of formats: mobile app, web-based, and desktop tool version that aims to let you edit images seamlessly wherever you go.
Fotor
Another photo editing tool that’s also easy-to-use is Fotor. Fotor focuses on three things: photo editing, design creation, and collage presentation.
Like Pixlr, it also offers an app version that lets you edit images on the go.
Many marketers tend to use both Pixlr and Fotor to compensate for missing features or filters to make their digital content stand out among other competitors.
Fotor also offers free downloads for Windows, Mac, and Webapps. In terms of pricing, Fotor costs less than Canva, which for most small businesses or individuals is a fairly reasonable investment to have if the paid version is considered.
iMovie
iMovie is a built-in video editing software for Mac and it’s perhaps one of the most commonly known video editing tools for marketers worldwide.
The editing process in iMovie is a linear format, meaning you can insert music, image, or subtitles at any point of the timeline. You simply add another element on top of the other.
For videos that don’t require too many animation effects, iMovie is an accessible and simple software to use if you want to create video content for your online content marketing campaigns.
One thing to note is that iMovie allows only up to three layers of content accumulation.
That means if you want to add another element layer without changing any video editing software, you will need to export your current content into a video, open another project, and then add that fourth layer on top of the video you just exported – this could be a hassle for some.
Alternatively, you may consider the paid version: Final Cut Pro or other video editing software if you are looking to achieve more advanced effects in your videos.
Boomerang
On the other hand, Boomerang by Instagram is another rising video creation tool among digital marketers. It lets users record a series of images and play them in a loop.
The new form of digital content has helped many brands generate more engagement.
Some even use these boomerang real-time videos as their social media content with fantastic results.
How To Use These Tools In Your Content Strategy
All the above-mentioned content creation tools all come in FREE versions. Some even offer chrome extensions, web apps, and plugins.
While these free content creation tools already offer plenty of resources and editing options, if you’d like to access more quality stock photos or other advanced features, paid versions are also available.
The best suggestion would be to try the free version of these tools first, evaluate each tool’s functionality, and then based on your content marketing strategy select one or a few of the tools that best suit your requirements.
Here are two extra tips to keep in mind when creating your content.
- First, always make sure the font on your images or videos are visible and distinctive, while Grammarly and Hemingway App are tools that can help you with spelling.
- Secondly, always aim to generate unique content. Plagiarism is highly undesirable and could cause a PR disaster or worse revenue loss if your business is accused of violation of copyrights.
Conclusion
Content creation tools helps you to save more time and work more efficiently. You can also spend less money when you know the easiest way to create remarkable content. There are many free content creation tools available online,and some of them are useful for any writer.
Use content creation tools to write better marketing and sales letters. There are many free content creation tools you can use to help you. In fact, the best paid content creation tools are worthless if you don’t know how to use them. When it comes to free content creation tools there is a huge selection, but having good quality content is of the utmost importance so even if you are using the best free content creation tools for the job, your work will be useless if your writing skills stink.