Apps, Tools & Plugins for Indie Authors in 2017 – Part 2

There are millions of apps, tools, extensions, and plugins available online. This is Part 2 of a big list of tools for indie authors that I’ve discovered and tested.

You can find Part 1 of this article here:

Apps, Tools & Plugins for Indie Authors in 2017 – Part 1

So, let’s take a look at Part 2 which includes social media dashboards, Pinterest extensions, scheduling apps for Instagram, WordPress plugins and editing apps.

Social Media Dashboards for Indie Authors

Use one or more of the following applications to schedule your updates for a variety of social media networks.

32. Buffer

    Buffer is a popular choice. You can use Buffer for free. If you’d like to schedule images to Pinterest, you’ll need the Awesome plan, which is about $102/year. What’s fun about Buffer is its integration with other social media applications, such as its curation app, Daily, as mentioned in Part 1. Buffer is one of the easiest scheduling programs available.

33. FutureTweets

    This free service allows users to schedule messages on Twitter.

34. Hootsuite

    People new to social media tend to start with the free version of Hootsuite. It’s easy to set up and will allow you to post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, your Google+ page, and Instagram. You can set up your feeds and use Hootsuite to keep in touch with your friends, fans, and followers by aggregating your social media news feeds on this application. What this means is that you can navigate to Hootsuite to see all of your friends’ and followers’ posts in one place. The paid version provides analytics.

35. MediaFunnel

    MediaFunnel will help you to distribute your content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and WordPress.com. In addition, you can use MediaFunnel to manage your brand and engage with your followers. For $5.95/month, you can manage 10 social media channels, schedule your posts, and use a variety of URL shorteners to track your click-through rates. This is a great price considering all of this app’s features.

36. Plugg.io

    This application interfaces with Twitter and Facebook, and offers plans that range from free to $199.95/month. The free plan is all you’ll never need as long as you don’t connect more than five Twitter accounts or send more than 10 scheduled tweets daily. You can also use this application to help you to find new friends to grow your following.

37. PostPlanner

    An application designed for Facebook profiles and pages, Twitter, and Pinterest, PostPlanner enables you to find content and schedule your status updates. It costs about $108/year. This application will show you the newest content trending in your niche and provide you with real-time analytics. It also has a cache of thousands of updates that you can select from on those days when you absolutely can’t think of anything to say.

38. Shareist

    Shareist is an all-in-one system for planning your content, producing it, distributing it via social media, and then viewing your analytics. The program features a bookmarklet system for capturing images, videos, and tweets to share. It also has a system for importing your favorite blogs and it will schedule your social media posts. You can start with a free account and then decide whether you like the app enough to sign up for its pro account for $25/month.

39. SocialOomph

    SocialOomph is a scheduler app for Twitter and LinkedIn. It will allow you to schedule your social media posts, set up recurring tweets and LinkedIn posts, find new followers, and track your click-through rates and keywords. It also provides limited analytics. In addition, you can schedule recurring tweets. A recurring tweet is a message that will repeat itself at any interval you choose. You can create a variety of messages with the same URL, just vary the language of the tweet as well as the hashtag. Use SocialOomph for free or subscribe to the app to take advantage of all of its features.

40. SproutSocial

    SproutSocial offers many benefits. You can schedule your posts, including to your Google+ page, connect your account with the URL shortener Bit.ly to track click-through rates (hits to your website), unfollow users on Twitter, and find new followers. The real value in having SproutSocial is the analytics. However, the app is somewhat pricy: the monthly fee starts at $59/month.

41. TweetDeck

    With this free Twitter application, you don’t have to be on the Internet to check your account. Once you download it to your desktop, you can check your Twitter account and respond to Mentions, Direct Messages, and Retweets as they arrive. It’s an easy tool to set up and use, but it allows scheduling only to Twitter.

42. Twuffer

    This free and user-friendly program will schedule your tweets, show you your news feed, and send you milestone reminders. To use this tool, you’ll need to sign in with your Twitter account, set your time zone, and start scheduling your posts.

Chrome Extensions for Pinterest Make Pinning Effortless

Open your Chrome browser, navigate to the Chrome Web Store, and search for the following extensions.

43. Pinner for Pinterest

    Again, to use this feature right-click an image you like and post it onto one of your pinboards. If you highlight text on the web page (including your own blog post), it will automatically appear in the description box.

44. Pinterest Save Button

    You can add this extension to your Chrome or Firefox browser. Once you add it, click on the extension button on your browser and it will provide the option for you to click on any picture you see on the web and save it to one of your Pinterest pinboards. This way you can save as you travel across the Internet without needing to open Pinterest.

45. ShotPin

    When you see an image you’d like to save, click the browser extension, select a pinboard, and add a description. It’s that simple.

Scheduling Apps for Instagram

Instagram is a popular social media network, and if your reading demographic uses it, you’ll want to check out these applications

46. Onlypult

    With this app you can upload images and videos from your computer, not just your smartphone. Onlypult also provides analytics. Plans start at $12/month.

47. Later

    This tool enables you to upload images from your computer, iPhone, tablet, or Android; plan and schedule your posts; upload videos; and manage multiple accounts, if you have more than one. On a free account, you can upload 30 posts per month.

48. Sked Social

    With this tool you can organize campaigns or schedule images one by one, manage multiple accounts, create content, and add bulk uploads at once. For a single account the cost is $20/month.

49. Takeoff

    Use this free app to schedule images to Twitter and Instagram simultaneously. You’ll find it at iTunes and at Google Play where it’s called Publish.

WordPress Plugins

The WordPress plugins mentioned here will aid you in socializing with your community. You’ll need to download the plugin to your computer, upload it to your WordPress website, and activate it. If you have trouble uploading or activating the plugin, ask your webmaster to help.

50. Digg Digg

    Have you noticed the ribbon of social media icons that appear alongside the blogs you read? You can install this plugin to encourage social sharing right from your website. Social sharing buttons include Twitter, Buffer, Facebook Share, Facebook Like, Digg, LinkedIn, Google+1, and many more

51. Facebook Page Plugin

    This plugin will let you embed and promote your Facebook Author page on your website. You need to visit Facebook to get it.

52. Follow on Twitter button

    You’ll find a number of different formats for your Twitter button, including “tweet” and “follow on Twitter.” Select the button you prefer, and copy the html code onto your website. On a WordPress website, you’ll need to go to Widgets to add the code.

53. Gravity Forms

    For $39, you can purchase this plugin and enjoy an unlimited amount of forms, auto-responders, spam protection, updates, and support. This plugin integrates with iContact and aWeber email newsletter programs.

54. Yoast All in One SEO Pack

    This plugin will analyze your content and enable you to select the wording and image you prefer when visitors share content from your blog. For example, you can select the exact title and description of each post that will appear when your readers add your post to social media. In addition, it will help you to improve the SEO of your post, thereby appearing higher in Google results.

55. Social Warfare

    This is one of the most popular social share buttons on the internet. You need to pay a low one-time fee for lifetime use of the plugin and updates.

Editing Apps

No list would be complete without editing apps. Here are the two that I use.

56. Grammarly

    Use it online or download the app to your desktop computer. Then cut and paste in your blog post or new chapter and let Grammarly get to work, notifying you of the use of passive voice, split infinitives (I don’t worry about them since The Grammar Girl told me not to), misspelled words, and other grammatical mistakes and poor word choices.

57. Hemingway

    Similar to Grammarly, the app highlights complex sentences and common errors. If you want to write like Ernest Hemingway, get this app.

This concludes my list apps, tools and plugins for indie authors in 2017.

If you have something to add to this list, please let us know in the comments.
 
Photo: Pixabay.com.