Tools are only as effective as the skills of the person using them.
In a world of digital marketing that’s 24/7 with ubiquitous connectivity from anywhere, anytime, marketers’ need for tools is greater than ever. Content Marketing in particular offers a competitive landscape where the effectiveness and efficiency offered by the right mix of tools can make the difference between feast or famine.
There are many categories for content marketing tools since content and consumer pursuit of information are the backbone of the web experience. Here are some of the content marketing tool categories that come to mind (not too different than a high level list of marketing tools actually).
- Content Planning
- Content Research
- Content Creation
- Content Curation
- Content Distribution
- Content Promotion
- Content Optimization
- Content Measurement
- Content Reporting
Obvious content marketing tools include the class of enterprise platforms and services that many large brands are using including Contently (content marketplace), Kapost, NewsCred, Skyword and Percolate (content marketing software), UberFlip (content marketing automation), new content marketing platforms like the one from Curata and much anticipated tools like Cintell (customer intelligence).
Wisdom of the Crowd – I’ve published lists of content marketing tools here in the past but these sorts of resources warrant regular updates. In addition to the near-daily pitches I receive and my own research, I reached out to my network on Facebook for new content marketing tool suggestions.
The result? An A to Z list (and then some, 45 tools in all) of new and many not so new but highly useful content marketing tools to help you solve content planning, creation, promotion and measurement challenges. This is by no means a comprehensive list but it is a collection of the content marketing software companies that are top of mind amongst my own social network.
Atomic Ally – Content scoring tool to customize for specific audiences.
Buffer – Content promotion scheduling, analytics and team collaboration.
BuzzSumo – Content social media research, alerts, links and influencer discovery.
Canva – Web based visual content design tool with stock photos.
CoSchedule – Content editorial calendar plug-in for WordPress offering workflow and analytics for blog posts and social shares.
Curata – Content curation and content marketing platform.
DashThis – Create a content marketing dashboard marketers will actually use and execs will understand.
DivvyHQ – Web based editorial calendar with content planning and workflow.
Evernote – A multi-platform app that captures text, images and video synchronized to the cloud and across devices.
Flipboard – Create a curated online magazine.
Grammerly – Grammar checker app for the Chrome browser.
HemingwayApp – Web based, dynamic text editing tool.
Jing – Desktop software to create content recorded from your computer screen as images, animation or video.
Kapost – Content marketing platform.
Keywordio – Find topics in demand on search engines.
KISSmetrics – Connects all data to a person. See the entire customer journey —across campaigns, web and mobile.
Leadfeeder – sales lead generation tool for B2B companies that shows you which companies visit your website and what they do there.
Leadin – WordPress CRM & lead tracking plugin with analytics.
MeetEdgar – Social content scheduling (by category that recycles shares).
NewsCred – Content marketing software.
Oktopost – Social media content distribution tool for B2B.
Over – Mobile app for adding artwork and text with creative fonts to images.
Piktochart – Web based infographic creation tool.
Prismatic – Social content recommendation tool.
Qzzr – Create and embed quizzes in your content.
Resonance – Content retargeting tool.
Scripted – Written content marketplace.
Scoop.it – Content curation, blogging and social promotion platform for small businesses.
Scrivener – Mac software for structuring, writing and editing long documents.
SEMRush – Discover what topics and keywords are driving traffic to your competitors’s content.
Share as Image – Microcontent creator and sharing tool for Chrome that turns text into an image.
Shareist – Research, curation, scheduling, and page creation tools for social media channels, blogs, and email newsletters.
ShowHows – Tool for making embeddable content focused on step by step instructions.
SlideBatch – Curate embeddable “batches” of any kind of content or media with customized layouts that display on any device
SlideShare – Content hosting and lead generation.
Sniply – Share other people’s content in a way that drives traffic to your own content.
Trello – Visual organization tool.
Uberflip – Curate content, design an experience and convert with offers using this embeddable content hub.
Videolicious – Easily create videos using a mobile phone with easy social sharing and centralized dashboard for review and publishing.
Viraltag – Pinterest marketing tool and platform.
Word Swag – Mobile app for adding text with creative fonts to images.
X – What? There’s no content marketing tool that starts with the letter “x”? Seems like a nice marketing opportunity!
Youzign – Basic web-based tool for creating marketing graphics: facebook covers, twitter covers, YouTube channel art, infographics.
Zemanta – Content ad platform for amplification.
Other content marketing tool resources:
- Ultimate List of Content Marketing Tools – Curata
- The Best Content Marketing Tools for Efficient Marketers – Buffer
- 7 Content Marketing Tools to Improve Your Productivity – CMI
A big part of compiling this list of tools was a group effort – participation marketing in action! Thank you to these fine folks from my Facebook network for their content marketing tool suggestions!
Andrew Davis, Brian Fanzo, Bhupesh Shah, Kelly de Vooght, Ian Cleary, Marc Meyer, Robyn Tippins, Bas Van Den Beld, Jay Baer, Tamar Weinberg, Teri Ross, David Brown, Kristi Hines, Lisa Picarille, Ashley Combe, Kristie Wells, Cari Bugbee, Shel Holtz, Tom Martin, Susan Emerick, Janette Speyer, Angie Schottmuller, Ann Handley, Martin Jones, Susan Beebe, Kimberly Reynolds, Corey O’Loughlin, Stephanie Losee, Cindy Turrietta, Bernie Borges, and Susan Bratton.
What content marketing tools have you discovered recently that really WOW you?
I would suggest adding Pressly (www.pressly.com) as a good tool for curating organic and external content. Atomic Reach is also good for making sure grammar and tone are right.
Thanks Mark!
Love it! Thanks for the comprehensive list.
Thanks Robyn 🙂
Thanks Lee! Great list
Thanks Eric.
nice
Hi John, I thought about Pablo, but Over and Word Swag do such a good job with many different font options.
Ok there are about 8 in there I’ve never heard of but now feel compelled to check out. Just as I was considering an early night. Thanks Lee 🙂
Sorry Gary, but just think of the improved productivity you’ll get with new tools 🙂
Whoa Lee, this is pretty exhaustive. Love it!
If you had to choose, what would be your top 5 tools from this list you couldn’t do without?
Great question Puranjay, For my personal use I’d have to say: Buffer, BuzzSumo, Evernote, Over, Google Analytics. I hope Uberflip becomes part of that list as I get to know it better.
Lee, thanks for curating this. Shared with my digital media students!
That’s great Bhupesh!
Hi Lee, Thank you for putting DashThis on your list! Cheers
You’re welcome Paul. It was a community effort.
From Buffer to Buzzsumo and Scoop.it to Snip.ly and most evverything in between, this compendium of SMM tools lists some of the best on the market, but like Lee said, tools are only as effective as the skills of the person using them.
Exactly.
Some awesome tools on here, covering all the bases. Hope to see uprise.io on this list soon 🙂
(*I am the Co-founder)
Well first off Lee, your name is Lee, so that’s very good. 🙂 Secondly, uprise.io is very interesting and I will be checking it out more thoroughly.
Hehe that is true we are a pair of Lee’s 🙂 Thats great if i can help you or the any of the TopRank team out with anything please let me know.
Hey Lee, nice list! You should also add Brightpod.com to the list. It is content planning and collaboration tool for marketing teams.
Hi Lee! Great list I ever seen. You have done great job by compling this a 2 z social media tools list.
Thanks
This is the best post I’ve seen in quite a while regarding content tools.
Great work.
Great List @leeodden:disqus! My favorites are Buzzsumo, SEMRush, Buffer, Canva, Sniply, Trello and Zemanta. I literally can’t live without those tools.
Hopefully my new tool, Contentmarketer.io makes the list sometime in the near future.
Hey Sujan, You’ll have to set me up for a preview 🙂
Have you guys looked at http://rightrelevance.com?
Cool list Lee. Another tool for competitive analysis and keyword research/suggestion you might consider adding to your list is serpstat.com – I love the questions tracking algorithm. Have you seen it?
@leeodden:disqus Can I point out that Scrivener software is available for both Mac and Windows? Thanks for the list… weekend reading!
Thanks for the list Lee, I’d also add Stacker and Feedly.
Stacker is similar to Buffer, and it allows you to easily schedule social media posts, reply to users directly from your inbox, manage multiple SM accounts and analyze the statistics. I love the look and functionality of this tool and it’s quite affordable.
Feedly is great for content research/curation. You can follow several topics and websites/blogs in a niche, and easily discover the most shared stories.
Hey Lee,
Great list, I’ve added some of those tools to my kit already! : )
On a side note, there’s one more tool you may want to add to the list: Contentools content marketing platform, an end-to-end software to help content managers and marketers manage all their content in one place.
Nice tool compilation, Lee! I’d suggest including https://placeit.net as it is a mockup tool that helps for creating visuals 🙂
Great list Lee! Another content curation tool is Lefty (lefty.io). It lets you find and use public Instagram photos to use for your blog, social posts and editorials. Best and only Instagram search engine in the market.