302: What tools make my life easier?  

Running a content marketing agency means wearing about 15 hats before lunchtime… strategist, editor, designer, writer, project manager, and sometimes therapist (to yourself and clients).

To keep everything flowing (without burning out), having the right tech stack is non-negotiable.

Over the years, my toolkit has evolved with my business - from solo freelancer to agency owner managing multiple clients, team workflows, and creative outputs across platforms.

So in true “teach what you do” style, here’s a look behind the curtain at the tools that power Content Queen, from content planning and editing to scheduling, communication, and client delivery.

If you LOVED this episode, make sure you share this on your Instagram stories and tag us @contentqueenmariah. 

⁠⁠⁠⁠LEARN THE DETAILS OF A CONTENT STRATEGY WITH MY FREE AUDIO GUIDE⁠⁠⁠⁠

KEY EPISODE TAKEAWAYS 👇

✨ The 3 things to think about before investing in tools 

✨ What tools we use for content creation and just general admin 

✨ How to build your tech stack 

SHOW RESOURCES 👇

If you like this episode, don't forget to share it to your Instagram stories and tag me⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @contentqueenmariah⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠!

Other than that, enjoy - chat next week 💕

PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION

This is episode 302, and I'm talking about, well, something highly requested. The tools that make my life easier when it comes to content creation. Welcome to the Content Queen Podcast. I'm your host, Mariah, entrepreneur. Storyteller Digital Nomad Creative Content Bootcamp, and founder of Content Queen. I'm here to teach you how to share your unique story, create content, and market your business with strategy through the channels that work for you.

Each week, I'll deliver a story to help you connect to a powerful strategy around marketing, business, and content creation. I'll also be joined by amazing souls and entrepreneurs who are here to share their own journey, along with actual steps, help you take your business to a whole new level through amazing storytelling, powerful and marketing and content strategy.

Let's do it. Hello gang. Alright, welcome. Welcome back to another episode with me. Tools. Tools that we use. It's a good question. I actually had this question from a student of bootcamp and it was highly requested that [00:01:00] I share the tools that I use. But I first want to talk about when I first started in my business, I was side hustling.

I. Was trying to work out what website to use, email marketing platforms, all the things. And I came in thinking that there was just gonna be tools that like kind of did everything. And it's not until you dig further into it that you realize that you have to have what we call like a tech stack. So a stack of tech that is going to help and support you.

Now what I use versus what you use maybe another business owner. Is gonna be so different, but it's always good to hear about the tools that other people use that make their lives easier. And I had this vision in my head that like maybe one day someone will create this kind of all in one platform that kind of housed all your tech so you could use it in one space.

I think there is some stuff like that now, but I just felt really overwhelmed. So if you are feeling overwhelmed with even like what project management tool should I use? [00:02:00] What should I use to send my emails? What website provider? Maybe you've got some and you're not sure if it's the best, like we are all with you.

We all have that same struggles and really it's about kind of three things. So find what works for you. So test trial CI remember when I was migrating from Trello as a project management tool into Clickup. I did it slowly because I find, you know, you could find a cool new toy and new. Sort of tool and you're like, oh my God, like I'm gonna move everything over and I'm gonna spend the whole weekend working on it.

And then maybe you work out. Maybe it has limitations or yeah, you just don't like it how you thought. So it's always good to find what works for you, for you and integrate slowly. The second one is, remember, not all new tools are gonna be the best option for you. So basically there's all new [00:03:00] AI coming out, everything.

Everyone's like, yeah, try this, try that. But it doesn't mean every new tool needs to be tried out, right? It's, it's hard to believe, I know, but there's so many tools out there. So it's just like, okay, what do people recommend? What. Works for my personality type, my ways of working, like it really is a bit of a personal development journey, trying to find what tools work, and I am gonna be sharing the tools, right?

I'm gonna take you through it and have a blog article as well where I kind of link them all and all that jazz. And the third one is like try and keep it light. Otherwise you'll end up with a thousand subscriptions. A lot of them, lots of the tools can be free, but then to get to a certain point, you gotta start paying, right?

And what I find is when you are in the midst of working and you need to get something, you're like, okay, cool. Just. Pay for it, whatever. And then you do that time and time and time again, and then your subscriptions really add up. So try and keep it light if you can. Remember, we're small business owners.

We're [00:04:00] not these big corporate organizations that need so many tools that talk together, and we don't always need really personalized solutions we can make do with what we have. And there are a lot of free options that work for free. As they do, and you don't always have to subscribe. There's always ways of working and ways around it.

And now with AI automations and platforms, you can kind of have your platforms talk together, right? So it can make it a lot easier. So I just wanted to preface that before I got into some of the tools, and I will link in the show notes the blog that I have created. So really I break down my. Tools into content planning and scheduling.

I've got my content strategy and documentation project and task management, video and podcast, editing, website and emails, and we've got admin. Storage, file storage, which was a hot topic in the membership this week. And then sort of your creative tools [00:05:00] plus AI tools. Again, have a blog on this. So the first sort of two tools that I use for my content planning and scheduling is I've just moved over to, to a tool called Rella.

And basically it's really good for. Social media managers. So if you are managing multiple clients, you can manage your multiple clients. You send them a link, they like link their accounts and you can work through different client accounts without adding more money in, because a lot of scheduling tools you pay for the platforms.

So for example, you might pay for. One account and then to add in, so one account across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, whatever. But then to add in other accounts, you have to pay per client. And yeah, you can add that into your billing, but this one's really good 'cause you don't have to do that. Do I recommend this for small business owners?

Not, no, not really. I would recommend like. Something because this, this is, can be quite [00:06:00] pricey, right? And it's really good if you have multiple accounts, but you can use something like TriCal is really good. I really like that one. Um, you could use, there's Buffer, there's Plan that there's quite a few, but also you could use Better Business Suite, so business.facebook.com or the LinkedIn schedule.

If you're on LinkedIn, TikTok Creator Studio, the only problem that has is you can't see. All the posts going out across all different platforms, right? 'cause they're in their respective platforms. And that was the issue that I was finding. Like I couldn't see everything. And then it's really easy for like repurposing, but when I say repurposing, you don't wanna just like click all, say Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, dah, dah, dah.

You kind of do wanna tailor it. So if you are posting across Facebook, you can add links in versus Instagram where you'd have to say, link in bio or DM or comment a keyword. You can really tailor it in that aspect. So. That is for planning and scheduling, just for planning. I really liked Airtable, which [00:07:00] was a glorified spreadsheet basically, but that's where I did a lot of my client planning, and then it was scheduled within the platform.

But I really like Airtable and I also have a Trello strategy template, and if you download that within that, I have my Airtable 2025 calendar. I know we're getting towards the end, but I always update it every year. And then for content strategy documentation, I really like Trello 'cause you've kind of got the boards and I'd have like target audience and then the cards for each.

I use this across clients. If clients don't really like Trello, I'll just put it in G Suite, like Google Doc. Um, you can also do this in platforms like Clickup, which leads me into my project management tool, which is Clickup. I really love. Clickup. Um, I also have a 10% off link for clickup, so I will put that in the show notes.

Clickup is my second brain. I love it so much and I'm like really playing around with how I can utilize it better, but that's how I manage like what task across what clients are happening so I can see all the stuff that needs to be done across every client, [00:08:00] across every platform. I even have what's called like a super toolkit.

So basically for my podcast, I have all the process like an SOP. Who does it, who's responsible, and I can see it all in there. I love Clickup. I know a lot of people went over to Notion in like 2024. I don't think Notion has the capability of Clickup and there's a really great community within Clickup helping you like get better at it.

I'm also like a super user 'cause that's how much I love it and I use it for video editing and podcasts. I try to keep everything quite light and simple. You'll notice this with the tools I use for video editing within In, within Mac, we kind of just use iMovie for your cuts and things like that, but.

Edits within Instagram is really good. Cap cut is good, although their privacy policy is very questionable, but they're the tools basically. We use cap cut iMovie and edits and iMovie. We find. Yeah, as I said, really good just for like chopping things up and like getting the, the flow and then for like [00:09:00] more of your fancy stuff, adding in.

Captions, et cetera. You know, edits and cap cut work really well for that, and these platforms can be super free and easy. Another one I absolutely love is DS script, and I use this for, you can use it to edit your podcast episodes actually, but you can use it for generating transcripts, which then can be re like.

Put into, say, chat, GPT, or they do create blogs within their AI feature, but I don't, I haven't loved what they create, but that's fine. They also create really short snippets, so podcasting snippets, little video snippets, they do all that and they pick up really good. Parts of the episode, but then if there is a part of the episode that you want, you can just like highlight the text and create that snippet.

It's very cool. You can download it in video, you can download it in audio, and you can download it obviously in text form because it gives you the transcript. I love. D script or some people call it de Descrip. I say D Descrip. [00:10:00] But anyway, whatever. We love it. Then for recording my episodes, I obviously use my microphone and I actually record in Zoom 'cause I find it like cuts out a all of the background.

I used to record in Garage Band, but I find Zoom's a little bit better for sound. And then garage band for editing. So we cut lots of things up. If you haven't noticed, I use a Mac. So these are Mac like iMovie and GarageBand are both Mac apps, but you can use. D script, as I said, um, to edit podcasts, but they're, what, that's what I love for my website and my email marketing.

I use Squarespace for my website, but for my. CMS, which is where I manage my email marketing, landing pages, automations and delivery, delivery of my digital products and courses. I use Kartra. Lots of people were using Kajabi. Kajabi is quite expensive. And if all of this is mumbo jumbo to you, it means you probably don't.

You might not need it. If you're unsure what tools you need, just send me a message. I'm more than happy to [00:11:00] help. I also have an absolute guru systems. Colleague slash friend slash old housemate, and I can get her to give you some great insights. And she's gonna come on the podcast in a couple weeks. So that's what I used was Kartra.

A lot of people are moving over to Ivory, which is a customer relationship management platform. So that's where you can like track leads, et cetera. And a lot of people I know are moving off platforms like Kajabi, which is, yeah, where you house your courses, your email marketing, all that, and moving onto platforms like Ivory.

So I haven't used it personally. But my clients have, and they enjoy it for my client operations. So managing like contracts, you know, all that sort of stuff. Now this is going a little bit outside of like content creation, but it's just like running a business, right? I use Dub Sato. Um, again, I could really overhaul all of mine and see if I can consolidate that into a platform like Kartra.

Um, but, you know, time, energy, it'll, I'll get there. [00:12:00] But yes, it, it's really good for service-based business owners, basically. Um, for contracts or co coaching a little bit. It, I think you can do this stuff now with like Google have like an ability to send contracts and for people to sign. So it's something that I wanna look at and see if I can consolidate, but it's where my calendar is, like how people can book to come on the podcast, things like that.

And then for file storage and collaboration, I find this can be really challenging for people. Um. Especially when you know your phone gets full, et cetera. I use Google Drive for more like client work, managing, you know, blog drafts, brand assets, social media files. But then iCloud is really good for syncing photos.

Now, again, I have an iPhone. With my clients, I'll set up a shared iPhone folder for us for them to add any content that they might have, like B-roll, um, photos and videos of them out and about. I do find sometimes the quality can be compromised, so Google drive's always better. You have things like Dropbox, et cetera, but I always have.[00:13:00] 

People say like, oh my God, it's so hard to get things to go across devices. So for example, you might be editing something in Canva and you wanna get it onto your phone. I have all Mac, uh, sorry, all Apple products, and they have a feature called Airdrop, which means I can airdrop things really quickly between my phone and my laptop.

If you have Windows, you might find it a little bit more challenging. That's why having some sort of drive like Google Drive Dropbox and having the apps can make it a little bit easier so you can drop it in. On your laptop and then pick it back up on your phone. We can spend a lot of time doing this.

Honestly, it can. And people go, is there an easier way? Not really. Um, if anyone knows one, please tell me. But getting assets across from computer to phone and some people hate editing in phone, so they want it on their computer. Those things can take a little bit of extra time. And then for design and creative tools, I think Canva, we can't really beat it.

Obviously Photoshop is amazing, but you've gotta be a lot more trained in Photoshop. I am not, [00:14:00] and, and Adobe products, um, people in the team are, but you know, it, it is complicated. So we just kind of use Canva. I think you can create from scratch. Mitch does a lot of things from scratch in Canva, like.

Things that you could do in Adobe products, like not just using templates in Canva that are already there, but he'll do stuff from scratch. Do you have to? Absolutely not. But if you're ever working with a designer and they can give you the assets that can be moved over to Canva, I would recommend, because then you've got original assets, but you can, you can still do the editing, but this is where we can create, you know, our lead magnets, our social media content.

You could do video editing in Canva, and Canva has a lot of AI tools that. I haven't even scratched the surface of, to be fair. Then the last thing is AI tools. Um, you know, we've got things like chat t obviously lots of us use it. Um, we create, you know, custom bots, so I have a custom bot which has all my documentation and things uploaded.

I used to use Claude, but I found chat [00:15:00] t's. Writing ability was getting a little bit better. And do we need to pay for two platforms? Not always. And then DS script, as I mentioned, has AI features, which is really cool. And then the platform rela that I'm currently using has its own builtin AI assistant, which I'm playing around with.

There are lots of AI tools out there, right? But they're just very basic ones that I use for content creation. I think chat GPTs, um, the thing with it is it goes on the more you train it. So if you do have a custom bot, which means you would pay for it. You do still have to keep training it. And I think this is what happens is we open a chat, we say, you know, can you write me a social media caption on X, Y, Z?

And then it gives us something back pretty generic. And then we go, well chat. T doesn't know how to write, but you've gotta give it all the information and you've gotta remind it of information. So it is like a team member. It's not just going, you know, you wouldn't say to your team member here, write a caption on, on healthy living.

And then that person's like, oh, okay. And they'll just write a caption on [00:16:00] healthy living. If you say, give it more detail like I am a health coach, I specialize in X, Y, Z. Here are some examples of work I've done before. Here are some captions I've written before. I would like to write a caption on the benefits of intermittent fasting.

I dunno, for women. This age group, I also wanna mention this, this, this, and this. Da da. Like you do have to give it the information. And yes, that takes time. And then you keep using those chats to keep building and strengthening the information that it has. And I find that's where we think things are super generic.

'cause we're not training them, we're not tea teaching it like a team member. We're literally teaching it like. We are just throwing stuff at it. Like imagine having a boss that just throws information at you with no context. And I'm looking at Mitch and he's probably going, yeah, you do that to me all the time.

Oops. Um, but imagine just having very vague information and trying to give, like, I know these things are bot, but at the [00:17:00] same time you get out what you put into it. So trying to make it really tailored and giving it as much information. And then what I also do. It's obviously you edit it and you put your human spin on it, but then you feed that human spin back in.

So you say, you know, that blog you wrote here are, here's what the final product ended up being. And then they'll remember that if you don't keep feeding it information, it's just gonna keep giving you generic content back. But anyway, that's a sign tension. They are just very high level. The tools that I use to keep it really simple, obviously.

This could be a very extensive list of all the tools I've ever used and tried and whatever, but I try to keep it as simple as possible. I will put the blog link in the show notes so you can check it out, and there's links to the things that I use, but your tech stack should support you, not have you with a gazillion tabs open and feeling overwhelmed.

So keep it light to begin with, and then add as you go when you [00:18:00] need it. Don't think you need it now until you validate what you're doing. But anyway, if you have any other questions about the tools I use, please reach out, but be a content queen or king and remember that developing your strategy and story develops your business.

Thank you so much for joining me today, and please don't forget to share this with all your business and entrepreneurial friends. You can do this by adding it to your Insta Stories and tagging me at Content Queen Mariah, or just tell 'em about it. If you do, rate and review on whatever platform you listen to is on, it does help me get this message out there, this podcast, and welcome.

More amazing guests. We've got heaps of guests lined up and they keep finding us through the charts and emailing me and asking to be on the show. So keep leaving your amazing comments and reviews. Follow us on Instagram or TikTok. Let me know if you have any questions about the tools, any tools that you've tried or that you've heard of and you see if I recommend, like I do know a lot of them.

It's just I don't always need to use them, so I don't, and I think it's about finding what works for you. But I'll talk to you next week. Bye.

PodcastMariah MacInnesmarketing, marketing advice, how to be authentic online, business ownerComment