Tools I Use to Run My Social Media Agency
I’ve spent the last four months as a full-time business owner getting my shit together faster than I ever have before. From having no CRM system to hiring my first employee within a matter of months, a lot has changed internally within Socially Taylored.
I pride myself on providing a seamless client experience with stellar response times. Having systems in place that help me batch and automate my workflows has been HUGE these last four months of growth, but more had to change on my task and project management side once I brought on a team member.
Below is an updated version of my favorite tools and platforms that I use to manage my social media agency that have helped me to scale my business rapidly within the last 4 months!
*Links marked with a (*) are affiliate links and I will make a small commission if you choose to use them. As always, I appreciate your guys’ support. 🙂
As a former Trello user, Asana is *chef’s kiss*. I switched over to Asana for task and project management when I hired Marley, my new graphic designer! Asana allows me to easily delegate tasks between the two of us, while keeping it organized by client!
My favorite thing about Asana (which Trello lacked in their free version) is that it allows any task to be recurring. There are so many tasks that I do on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis that need to be repeated for each social media client. Plus, Asana also allows each task to have sub-tasks, which has made it super easy to onboard Marley this past month because each task was easily laid out for her with everything she needed.
Slack is what I’m using to communicate with my clients and growing team! Slack helps me keeps things organized within the business by separating all of our conversations in unique channels. I have channels for each of our clients as well as some internal communication channels for Marley and I.
I also love Slack because of the do not disturb settings. This has been crucial for me with implementing healthy social media and client boundaries. I struggled with being accessible 24/7 early on in my career, and Slack has eliminated the need for me to give out my personal phone number.
Voxer is a Walkie Talkie app with live voice messaging, text, photo, and location sharing. It’s another communication channel I use with my clients. Voxer was introduced to me by a few of my coaching clients and it’s been AWESOME having it. It allows me to answer longer questions that would take awhile to type out via email, but don’t necessarily need a call on the calendar. Ya feel me? Those are the kind of calls that break up productivity- and nobody wants that! Voxer eliminates that problem.
As a former Screencastify user, Loom is the bomb.com. Loom allows me to record and share video messages of my screen, cam, or both at the same time!! I primarily use this to send clients demos of how things are done, where they can find things within the Ads Manager, or help with troubleshooting. Again, it’s so much faster than typing an email or meeting live.
If you can’t tell by now, I reallllly don’t like taking calls if I don’t have to. 😂 I used to spend all day on the phone at my agency job and never felt like I could get any work done. My entire life was “the meeting that could have been an email” and I refuse for it to be that now. So, I implemented a bunch of tools (hi Slack, Voxer, and Loom) so I can maximize my productivity and be on the phone for longer strategy calls when needed. I like to think this saves everyone time on my end and the client’s.
Zoom
Zoom is the video conferencing system that I use to take my longer strategy calls. I can host everything on Zoom from discovery calls, consultations, trainings, client meetings, masterclasses, webinars, podcast interviews, and more. Zoom also allows me to share and record my screen, so I am able to pre-record a bunch of trainings and other helpful resources for clients.
You guys… Canva* is the shit!! I’m sorry to all my design friends reading this and cringing at the thought of me not using Adobe- but Canva is the shit. 😂 You can make any sort of graphic quickly and easily. The majority of my graphics made for Socially Taylored and all my clients are done through Canva! I create a ton of templates during the on-boarding process and have my clients approve so they’re ready to go moving forward.
Later
You’ve heard me say it before and I’ll say it again – Later* is my FAVORITE Instagram scheduling tool. I plan and schedule all of my clients’ Instagram grids using this ~chef’s kiss~ of a platform. From the user friendliness of the platform itself, to the ability to schedule Instagram Stories, write notes to myself, view best post times, analytics, and incredible customer service are just a few of the things I love most about it!
Tailwind
Tailwind* is my favorite tool for Pinterest Scheduling. I’m able to schedule pins and make sure my client accounts always have updated pins going out every day. It takes me approximately 20 minutes to schedule 2 weeks worth of pins. Seriously, Tailwind makes it such a quick process! I also use Tailwind’s interval tool to schedule pins that I design for client products or blog posts and want to routinely re-pin.
Honeybook
I would die without Honeybook and that is not an exaggeration. Honeybook is basically my entire head. I use it to organize and automate my workflows. Honeybook tracks my leads, allows me to take notes for client projects during meetings, and it automatically follows up with them to send links to book calls, proposals, contracts, questionnaires, invoices, and more. I am also able to automatically track payments & remind clients when their payment is late all in one place!
You can get 50% off your first year of Honeybook on me here*!
Wave
Wave is a FREE (!!) accounting platform. I use Wave weekly to reconcile my bank transactions and upload my receipts so I don’t lose them. I also use it monthly to run reports for profit/loss.
Now, I’m not a tax expert or accountant by any means, so when I tell you this software is so easy to use I mean it!! I do want be transparent and say that I outsource my taxes with an accountant because it’s just not my realm of expertise. But I am the one doing the monthly bookkeeping tasks for Socially Taylored! I would love to outsource it at some point, but right now I like being really in tune with my finances.
Flodesk
I’m happy to report this is now an active (!!) project for Marley and I that you guys will see in the coming months. Flodesk is an incredibly user friendly email marketing software. It has tons of sleek and modern design templates that I’m obsessed with (*cough cough MailChimp*). Flodesk makes it easy to create opt-in forms and landing pages that grow your email list + makes putting together workflows a breeze! Plus, Flodesk is easily one of the most affordable email marketing softwares on the market for small business owners.