Apps that will help you write
Writing engaging content is one of the best ways to market you and your business online. It’s the most natural, organic way to increase visits to your website.
It allows you to share your knowledge and enthusiasm. It shows your readers what makes you tick, what motivates you and what makes you different.
It encourages people to want to find out more about you and in turn your business.
Coming up with ideas, sourcing information and writing them down can be daunting.
So here is a handy list of apps that will help you create a process for collecting content and develop a habit of writing.
Apps to help you write
Typing
Grammarly uses AI to suggest improvements as you write.
The free version includes help with spelling, punctuation and grammar. The premium version helps with style, tone and clarity.
iA Writer is my favourite writing app. It has a minimal interface. It helps me focus on the writing, and only the writing.
Voice
Natural writing sounds like you are speaking which is why dictaphones used to be so popular. Smartphones and computers have the ability to dictate and for it to be transcribed into text.
Otter has lots of flexible features for transcribing your thoughts and even whole meetings.
Apple Voice Memos comes free with your iPhone or there is a microphone option in the keyboards in most apps.
Apps to help you collect ideas
Note taking apps
Evernote is very popular note taking app which syncs across devices and allows you to save thoughts, links, images and more.
Apple Notes is similar to Evernote. It is a native Apple app and is the one I use. I use different folders for different themes and save things of interest as I go along. This gives me an active reference library which I can refer to each time I start to write on a new topic.
Read later apps
If you see an interesting article on the internet and you don’t have time to read it, save it to Instapaper or Pocket to read later. The above note taking apps can do similar, but the difference with these read later apps is that they save the whole article to read in app.
Both Pocket and Instapaper have broadly similar offers. I have used both but my preference is for Instapaper only because I like its interface more.
Highlighted App is a timesaver and a joy to use. It is a book highlighter app for iPhones. Scan some words in any printed book and it will convert it into text for you to copy, edit and make notes on in the app. You can also share the chosen quote on social media.
Apps to help you schedule your content
I no longer use any of these apps but many do and so in the interests of usefulness I have included them.
Social media only truly works when you are engaged with the platform and the people in your circle. This means posting is better done organically when you have something to say, or someone you want to engage with. If you are not careful, over-reliance on scheduled posts will remove you from this interaction. It’s ok some of the time, but not all of the time.
They all do similar things, so it comes down to how user-friendly you find them and the cost.
