Five Tools That Will Change Your Communications Game

It feels like everyone has something to say these days — which isn't necessarily a complaint; there is a LOT to be talking about! An unfortunate byproduct of this is that getting heard is a lot easier in theory and not in practice. With the information and content overload that we sift through daily, employing different communications tools and strategies is a requirement to ensuring that your message is being transmitted as efficiently as possible.

While large organizations have communication departments at their disposal, smaller groups have to make due with what they have. Luckily, several game-changing communication tools exist online and can punch up your organization's communications to compete with the big guys.

Hootsuite

A social media must-have, Hootsuite is an absolute necessity for any organization that interacts with social networks (So... every organization!). This platform, with a totally fine free package and optional premium features, syncs all of your organization's social media platforms into one headquarters. Gone are the days of switching tabs between your org's Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Wordpress, and Google+ profiles... it's all in one place!

With handy engagement tabs that display all of the mentions and interactions between other profiles and your own, Hootsuite makes having one unified voice on social media easy. It's also great for scheduling posts, so that your brand can maintain steady communication based on your needs. The premium suite of features has some great resources, the best one being the analytic reports. Their comprehensive reporting tools can narrow down your audience demographics to a T, which is essential to crafting content that will be noticed by your intended audience.

Canva

So you have all of your social media in one place... but what do you post? You may have some messages you want to get across, but maybe you don't have a way to make them appear very interesting? Fear not, for Canva is here to make everything pretty and readable.

Another free service, with premium options that are way less significant than the previous platform, Canva helps you create beautiful graphics to liven up any social media post. You needn't be a creative genius; Canva has a crazy amount of templates with wide arrays of color palettes already selected (but they're customizable too if you're feeling inspired). The user-friendly service makes infographics, blog graphics, Instagram posts, event headers, and many more attainable for everyone.

TweetDeck

Similar to Hootsuite yet a bit more focused, TweetDeck is a valuable resource to get the most out of your organization's Twitter. Keeping up with the theme of free services, this platform puts all of the most important pieces of your Twitter on one screen. Divided into columns, you can see all of your organization's mentions, follows, tweets, and other related activity.

The best part of TweetDeck, however, is it's ability to throw you right into conversations you want to be a part of. By adding more columns — formatted to show you tweets containing keywords or specific hashtags — you can view the notable and ongoing pieces of the subject most important to your organization. Whether you want to measure the success of a campaign or gauge public response to an idea or product, TweetDeck is a godsend for making sense of your often over-saturated Twitter feed.

Pixlr

Maybe the name "Free Photoshop" would've violated some copyright laws, but the Pixlr Editor might as well be called that for how close this complimentary service is to the classic program. Pixlr is the place to go when you need to make your photos ready for anything Communication related. It helps to have some background knowledge of how to use Photoshop, as Pixlr's features mimic most of PS's functionalities.

Pixlr is great for quick edits, creative overhauls, and even branding images!

MailChimp

Last off is a service that targets the most-used communication platform of any organization: Email! MailChimp is an automation service that helps you build email lists like a pro. Whether your marketing something or sending out a newsletter, this program makes reaching lengthy contact lists simple!

While the sending of the emails is a huge help, the real fun comes with the analytics reports, which detail how many people opened your message and what links they decided to click while you had their attention. MailChimp helps you make the most out of your emails and gives you a great idea of what your subscribers want to see.

MailChimp offers a great start of features for smaller businesses and has various levels of price plans for varying sizes of organizations.

Communicating to your organization's best potential isn't difficult when you have the right tools!

Joe DeWitt is a communications intern at the Choose Clean Water Coalition.