When it comes down to it, good content ideas are really all you have when creating a website or managing social media accounts.
However, quality content doesn’t appear out of nowhere — it takes a fair amount of research and planning to figure out what your clients want and put your ideas into practice. This is where content planning tools come in handy to help you organize digital marketing campaigns.
In this post, we’re going to take you through six of the best tools for content planning so you can make your content creation process a little easier and a lot more organized.
1. Content Snare: Best for client onboarding and collaboration
We don’t like the idea of putting our platform at the top of the list, but let’s be honest — Content Snare is incredibly useful when it comes to onboarding clients, organizing campaigns, and keeping all of your content in one place.
For one, it features a comprehensive library of digital marketing form templates that help you understand exactly what new clients expect from your agency. You can use each template as-is or edit it to learn about your client’s content expectations, web design needs, social media campaigns, and so on:
Content Snare keeps your content and files all in one place by having your clients upload their documents directly. On top of all of that, it has the bonus of making sure you’re not chasing your clients, colleagues, or content creators for what you’re trying to create.
Related: How this digital marketing agency saves 50 hours each month using Content Snare
The platform lets you set due dates and reminders so you don’t have to hound anyone to submit their content on time. Thanks to automated reminders, you can spend more of your time focusing on your part of the project rather than worrying about someone else’s due dates.
More importantly, you can try practically all of the Content Snare features free of charge by signing up for a 14-day trial. No fees or hidden costs — just enter your email address and see what makes Content Snare such a powerful content planning tool.
2. Airtable: Bets for collaboration and task management
Airtable is both a spreadsheet and a database that allows you to virtually organize anything. It’s great for multiple content marketers or collaborators as everyone has access to the same view of the same database while trading ideas and commenting through Airtable.
Changes are automatically synced to everyone’s devices so it never requires refreshing. This includes adding photos, links, long or short notes, or any other file type you need to share with your colleagues or keep organized for yourself.
Airtable also has a content calendar and scheduling tools that allow you to keep track of meetings and keep up with deadlines. All these functionalities make it perfect for optimizing your content workflow.
3. DYNO Mapper: Best for website content organization
While Airtable can technically be used to plan and keep anything organized, DYNO Mapper was specifically created to help keep website content organized. It takes you through the whole process, helping you with content curation and checking for mistakes in your website’s structure.
It even integrates Google Analytics and tracks keywords that are integral in deciding which topics you should create content around. So, not only does DYNO Mapper work as a great project management tool but it also heavily integrates search engine optimization (SEO) into the process.
Do you really need anything else in a content management tool? We think not.
4. TextOptimizer: Best for content optimization
While TextOptimizer is not an organization tool per se, it’s certainly a game-changer when it comes to improving your digital marketing. This program helps you come up with the topics and keywords to create content around.
Enter your query into TextOptimizer and receive a list of keywords and phrases that are optimally recognized by Google. You should use this tool not only to come up with the best keywords to base your content’s titles around but also as a way of finding the best hashtags to use on social media platforms.
We could write a whole other article on why using various social media hashtags is important so you’re not going to want to miss out on this tool.
5. Content Scheduler: Best for social media content
Content Scheduler is truly a jack of all trades when it comes to social media marketing. You can use it to plan and organize your posts, but the real magic is in ancillary features. For instance, it lets you create drafts, preview posts, integrate your favorite tools such as Grammarly and Pinterest, tag your themes and categories, and collaborate with your team right on the software.
These features are outstanding as it is essentially like having your own social media manager. Plus, you can keep track of analytics, such as follower growth, audience engagement, and the best times to post. Truly a game-changer when it comes to one-stop content planning.
6. Monday: Best for project management
While maybe not the most appealing name (who wants to be reminded of Mondays?) this platform is another great content planning tool. Monday helps you get pretty much everything done when it comes to content planning.
For example, it allows you to organize content in different ways, even providing charts that show who’s working on what and how much there is left to do. This easily helps you collaborate with your colleagues and calls out the ones who don’t have their share of the work done.
Colleagues can even select “stuck” if something isn’t going too well or “working on it” if things are nearly there. There are multiple different progress views, including calendars, charts, files, and timelines. Monday is definitely worth checking into if you are creating files that heavily revolve around working as a team.
Grab your tool as manual content planning no longer works
If you’re serious about planning and producing content, you need to be using content planning tools. They can help bring aspects of your content creation to light that you never even thought of and streamline your marketing for optimal success. Keeping organized is a hugely important factor when it comes to content creation so we highly recommend looking into one or more of these fantastic programs.