8 Digital Tools We Love!
Throughout university, I accumulated a whole bunch of digital tools to help me do my work. I have found that these tools have also been really helpful to me since kicking off my healthcare PR career. So, I thought I’d write a blog about it! Here are 8 of the most useful digital tools I have come across and use on a day-to-day basis. Just a caveat before we start: Although some of the tools have paid versions that offer more functionality, they all have incredibly capable free versions and my experiences below are the free versions.
Clockify.me
I didn’t realise the number of projects I could possibly have on at one go. Since starting my new job at Mearns & Pike I’ve been pulled in all kinds of different and exciting directions on a whole bunch of different projects and it can be really hard to know how long I’m spending on each one. Luckily for me, I found Clockify.me. It’s super simple to set up, you just type the name of the project, assign it to a custom-made client and then press start and watch the time increase one second at a time! By the end of the day, you know how long you’ve spent on each project and it displays all your work in a handy graph so you can easily see how long you’ve spent! Super handy for filling in a time-sheet at the end of the week (or even month)!
2. Google Alerts
If like me, you’ve ever Googled your own name, you’ll know that it is possible to set up an email alert for any time your name is mentioned online. Well did you know, you can change this so that Google will email you about any phrase? For me, this is useful to know when/if a story I’ve pitched has been published! But those of you who have interests in pop culture, you could just as easily set up an alert for your favourite films, artists or actors and get emails every day telling you where and when they’ve been mentioned! Simply go to google.com/alerts to set it up! This can also be super useful if you want to know how much online conversation there is about your product or brand on any given day.
3. I Love PDF
Is anyone else frustrated by PDFs? Sure they maintain the structure and flow of a document, but what if I need to edit it in the future? Even worse, what if I only have the PDF and I need to edit that? Unless you’re willing to fork out money to Adobe for the privilege of editing PDFs you’re going to have looked around for the perfect PDF to Word converters and I bet, come up short every time with free trials(* keep reading to the end for a solution to that particular problem) that don’t last quite long enough. Well, worry no more, I have found the perfect PDF file converter that not only allows you to convert PDF to Word, but it also allows you to edit PDFs in the browser with a whole bunch of extra tools. Go to ILovePDF.com
4. Unsplash
This one has been incredibly useful for lots of projects. Unsplash.com not only has some of the best stock photos I have ever seen but also some of the most high-quality images I have ever come across, and even better they’re completely free of charge! These photos are amazing for PowerPoint backgrounds, social media posts, headers and banners or basically anything you can think of, I honestly can’t recommend this website enough!
5. Pexels.com
Similar to above, in creating videos I have had to rely on my fair share of stock footage but (especially when studying) lacked the budget to pay for it. The best free, legal, public domain video footage I have found comes from Pexels.com. As with Unsplash you simply have to credit the originator of the video but in my opinion, that is a small price to pay for such high-quality footage for free!
6. DaVinci Resolve
One of the best, and (mostly) free video editors I have ever used! It is so much more than just a video editor, as before last month I had only used it to edit podcasts. That’s right it has a fully capable audio editor built-in. It combines the workflow functionality of Final Cut Pro with the affordability of Windows Movie Maker. It is free. There is a paid version of course which has some extra features but I have found the free version more than suitable for all of my personal and professional needs. I have used it for adding subtitles to videos as well as editing whole videos together. It has lots of great transitions, effects, and animations built-in as well as a fully functional colour corrector for the more capable video editors among you. You can download DaVinci Resolve for free from their website.
Here is a small (and quick!) flavour of something I edited together in DaVinci Resolve for one of our clients:
7. The Noun Project
If like me you’ve had to create websites or logos then you’ve probably wanted to have some lovely icons on there. If you also lack the Adobe Illustrator skills to make icons yourself (like me), well luckily this is where TheNounProject.org comes in! It has plenty of free to use icons that are easily customisable in wannabe-professional-graphic-designer’s mate PowerPoint. Just search for what you want and it will return thousands of results! As with most things on this list it is free to use as long as you credit the originators in some way.
8. Snapdrop
I’m sure we’ve all sent emails to ourselves in order to send files from one device to another, right? Well, what if I told you, there was another way? For years iPhone and Mac users have laughed at us mere Windows and Android luddites with their fancy AirDrop and copy and paste that transfers between devices. Well, I can only offer you an alternative to the former. Try Snapdrop.net. Open it on both your computer and your phone. On your phone, you’ll see your computer’s name, and on your computer, you’ll see your phone’s name! You can send instant messages or share files to any device on the same network. At last, we can finally do away with sending ourselves emails all the time!
*Bonus tool: 10minutemail
Free trials were always the bane of my life until I came across 10minutemail.com. As the name suggests you simply go to the website and it offers you an email address that is only valid for 10 minutes. 10 minutes of course being the perfect amount of time to sign up for a free trial! Once your free trial ends, get a new 10minutemail address, sign up and you can use the service again! Also perfect for when you’re buying something from a new shop and you don’t want to give them your real details!