8 essential apps for bloggers

Over the years as a blogger, and the years of having a smartphone, I've honed down to just 8 apps which I use on a daily basis to promote my blog (and YouTube), none of which are a big surprise, but if you're just starting out you might not realise just how helpful some of these apps can be.  At the end, I'll give a special mention to a couple of other platforms that could really help you too.

BLOGLOVIN'

As much as I really recommend it as a great way to other blogs, it's a great reader and attributes the views to the blog (unlike the old She Said Beauty platform).  I actually prefer the app and the layout to browsing the desktop version - it makes keeping up with blogs and following them really easy.

You can find me on Bloglovin' here.

MOLDIV

This is a great way to 'square up' your rectangular images and create other assortments of images and collages.  I used to use Diptic, but on my old Android it'd crash ALL the time, making it really annoying - I switched to Moldiv and never had that problem again, plus they do some more interesting arrangements of pics and a proper collage.  This is great for creating images to accompany your tweets, or upload to Instagram.

DROPBOX

I'll tell you why this is SO useful.  I take my blog pics with my DSLR, it's not easy getting these pics onto my phone to upload to Instagram.  What I realised recently is that I could create stunning high quality images using my DSLR, and when in Instagram I can select to upload from Dropbox.  So I'd plug the camera into the computer, create folders in Dropbox for those pics, then via Instagram I'd access Dropbox and my high quality images, if that makes sense?  It's not as easy with the iPhone, I still have the Dropbox app but I simply open the images in there, screenshot them and upload that, as in the Instagram iPhone app I can't access my Dropbox directly.

INSTAGRAM

In my opinion, this really is essential.  Yeah ok I share a lot of baby pics on there like any new and proud mummy would, but this is where I share those lovely makeup pics too - pics that are on my blog posts each day and directing traffic to my blog.  What's more, when I share those beauty pics, I tag the brands that are relevant, and if they like the pic (which they often do) it sends a lot more 'likers' my way and increases my following, which in turn sends more people to my blog :)  Plus I like that Instragram (if you use it like this) is a bit of a picture vlog of people's day.

You can find me on Instagram here.

TWITTER

Possibly your biggest asset if you're a blogger is your Twitter account.  Apart from SEO which is where most of my traffic comes from, the next biggest driver of traffic to my blog is Twitter.  Yes you have to be active on there as the half life of a tweet is crazy short, but it really is essential.  Back when I started this blog, it took me 6 months to reach 50 followers on GFC.  Then I discovered Twitter and Twitter chats and hashtags... lets just say that was really when this blog took off.

You can find me on Twitter here.

PINTEREST

Another amazing driver of blog traffic is Pinterest.  I had some great tips recently from Miss Makeup Magpie that I've been following (and slacking on!), but before I slacked on them, I saw real and very quick results.  It was about 2 months ago, I had about 350 followers and asked Gemma for help.  She said what she found to work was pinning regularly every day after about 8pm and then on weekends. Have a look to see what topics are trending and create boards around those, and always pin images from each of your blog posts.  I followed these simple rules and after just a couple of weeks, I had over 1,000 followers.  I still pin regularly, but more like weekly - but pinning daily makes a massive difference and it really does drive traffic to my blog.

You can find me on Pinterest here.

FACEBOOK

Yes Facebook might be massively flawed for promoting your blog, thanks to them throttling how many people will see your posts dramatically, but it's still good to have a presence on there and keep it regularly updated.  The Facebook pages app helps you to update when you're on the move and share instant updates to your likers.  I update mine at least once a day, I try to update it more but it's hard staying on top of all this when you have a 5 month old baby :)  I'd also recommend, sharing your blog posts in different Facebook blogging groups :)
You can find my Facebook page here.

YOUTUBE

Ok so this one is really for people who have a YouTube channel as well but the app is great at quickly being able to check views, get URLs of your vids to share, and if you have some down time, catch up on other people's videos :)

You can find me on YouTube here.

They're my top 8 apps for managing your blog and promoting it - there's a couple of other tools that I use day in day out that I just had to mention. As much as I have Photoshop and I'm more than competant in using it, I tend to use PicMonkey as it's quicker and simpler to use - almost all my image editing is done on that.  I also schedule tweets using Hootsuite if I know I'm going to have a busy day or I'm feeling productive - I'll also schedule Facebook posts on there too :)

Are there any other sites or apps you use to manage your blog?

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