My Favourite Tipples from a strategic marketing consultant
Jinfo Blog

By Jennifer Burke

Abstract

My Favourite Tipples are shared by Jennifer E. Burke, president of IntelliCraft Research LLC., (also known online by her alter ego, The InfoHound). She shares some favourite online tools for marketing communications.

Item

We always need to communicate and promote the benefits of our information services and organisations, so we're always marketing. I'm a tools, gadgets and apps junkie and all my library and info pro friends know this and ask me for recommendations, especially to make their marketing lives easier.

Here are four favourites:

• Canva: I can't live without Canva! Website graphics, presentations, report covers, social media, infographics - you name it, Canva makes it (and you) look good. The free version is fantastic, has great tutorials on design, and gives intuitive graphic design power to non-designers. I love this tool so much I now use the paid version with saved colour palettes and the "Magic Resize" button.

• Unsplash: The most gorgeous, high quality, totally free, no-attribution required, stock photo site out there. They could use some help from a few info pros to improve their metadata and search functions, but it's getting better. Skip the bad clip art or generic stock in your marketing projects or presentations.

• BuzzSumo: A combination of social competitive intelligence and content strategy. See who's sharing what content from various brands (including yours!) and who are the biggest fans of your organisation's posts. Great when you want to create more of what's already share-worthy! Limited free options. 

• RescueTime: Not a marketing tool, but a useful productivity booster. There's a lightweight desktop app plus a browser extension that together track where you spend your time and show you how you're doing against your goals. See exactly how much time you spend on Facebook vs. Excel vs. favourite databases. There's a free and premium version. I love seeing the blue bars and charts showing I hit my weekly goals!

 One resource I turn to for fun or non-work reasons:

• GroceryIQ: This is undoubtedly my most essential, non-work app or tool. Never again will spouses or families come back from the store with the wrong kind of peanut butter or shampoo. Scan barcodes, look up brands, save your favourite - save your relationships!

An article in Jinfo that I found particularly interesting and relevant recently is:

• Rachael Elliott's piece on the shift of current awareness to mobile devices. We're all walking around with powerful connections to the world in our pockets and using social media for awareness and intelligence work. It's only logical that traditional current awareness tools catch up with more mobile-specific apps and programs.

Contribute Your "My Favourite Tipples"

Would you like to share your "My Favourite Tipples" with the Jinfo audience? For contributor guidelines email catherine.dhanjal@jinfo.com or visit the Publish with Jinfo page.

« Blog