There is so much involved in running a business, from assigning tasks to communicating with clients to sending and paying invoices, and much more. While it’s a lot to take care of, having the right tools and systems in place can help you run your business more effectively. At Healthy Dash of Social, we use a variety of tools to ensure everyone is on the same page and keep things running smoothly. Here’s a look at some of our favorites.

Trello

Trello is a great tool for project management. You start by creating a board for a specific project, then add lists to help create a workflow. You can then add cards to each list for specific tasks. Each card can include details such as a description, checklists, attachments and due dates. Team members can also add comments and tag each other. Cards can be moved from one list to another as projects progress, such as moving a card from a “To Do” list to a “Done” list.

As another example, at Healthy Dash of Social, one of the boards we use is a team board, where each team member has their own list.

As tasks are assigned, cards are added to each person’s list. When that team member completes the task and marks the card as complete, the card is moved to a “To Review” list, and then to “Completed” once the work has been reviewed and approved.

Later

With social media management being one of the services we offer clients, it’s important to have a tool that lets us easily create, schedule and post content to their pages. Later is a visual marketing platform that allows users to create and plan content for social media. While it was originally created as an Instagram tool, Later now allows you to also create and schedule posts for Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

To create a visual content calendar, users can import images and videos to the media library, then drag and drop the media to the weekly or monthly calendar. From here, you can click on the image thumbnail to write a caption, add hashtags, edit the image and schedule your post. If you want to see what your Instagram feed will look like, you can click the Preview button, where you can also rearrange posts.

Later also makes it easy to search by hashtag to find user-generate content that you can then save to your content library for future sharing. The platform also includes analytics to help you more clearly see what’s working and what’s not, and help you find your best time to post.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is another great social media management tool. It lets you create posts for a variety of social media platforms and schedule the posts to go live automatically. To make social media management a collaborative effort, you can add team members and set custom permission levels for each person.

Hootsuite also includes analytics reports so you can track specific metrics and see how posts are performing. 

Dubsado

With Dubsado’s appointment scheduler, we’re able to have potential clients click a link on our website to book a call with us. They can see which dates are available and which aren’t, as well as what time slots are available for each day. After selecting an appointment time, potential clients can fill out our questionnaire so we can gain a better understanding of the person’s brand and their marketing needs.

We also use Dubsado to create contracts that can be signed digitally. Doing all of this through Dubsado is a convenient alternative to having to do it manually. Dubsado also lets you send invoices and set up payment schedules, track emails, create financial reports, and lots more.

QuickBooks

QuickBooks is accounting software that makes it easy to organize your finances. There are a variety of features you can take advantage of, depending on the plan you choose. For example, you can track the profitability of your projects, manage bills, get a closer look at your business’ income and expenses, manage and pay contractors and more.

You can also import transactions from your bank and apps, send invoices, and take steps to be more prepared for tax season. 

PayPal

When it comes time to pay our team members, PayPal makes it simple. Each team member can easily create and submit an invoice via PayPal, as well as view their recent history to see when the invoice is paid. The money can remain in their PayPal account or be transferred to their bank account. When it’s time for us to pay an invoice, PayPal makes that simple as well.

With a PayPal business account, you can also accept online or in-person payments, track payments, print order labels, and more.

Slack

Communication is key, and that’s especially true when it comes to working with a team that’s fully remote. That’s why we use Slack, an instant messaging platform that focuses on collaboration and takes a more team-first approach to communication than email does. Slack makes it easy for our team members to keep in touch with each other and gives everyone visibility to important discussions.

Slack uses channels to organize communication by certain topics. For example, we have a #TeamHDOS channel for general updates, questions or announcements are relevant to the whole team. We also have an #Education channel meant specifically for team members to share helpful articles or information to ensure we’re all staying up to date on important marketing-related skills.

In addition to text messages, Slack allows users to share images, files, gifs and more. It also features a directory of over 2,000 apps that you can incorporate into Slack, such as Dropbox, Trello and Salesforce, to name a few.

While we also utilize email, Slack is a more convenient option when you want to make sure someone sees your message right away or you just want to ask a quick question.

Running a business isn’t always easy. From projects to clients to contractors, there’s a lot to think about. Luckily, there are a variety of resources available to help you stay organized and successfully grow your business.

The ones we’ve listed here are some of our favorites, and we’d love to be one of yours! If you’ve ever thought about outsourcing your digital marketing, click here to learn more and book a free strategy call with us.