Essential Content Creation Tools

In this article, we’ll be discussing the essential tools for content creation. These tools will help you create content that is both professional and powerful.

Content creation is a complex process involving many different elements. You need to consider your audience, what they want to read, how you are going to deliver that information, and how it will all fit together into a coherent whole.

The good news is that there are several tools available that make this process easier! In this article, we’ll be looking at some of the most useful ones for creating great content.

20 Essential Content Creation Tools For 2021 - Business 2 Community

Essential Content Creation Tools

Digital content rules the internet, but actually creating it can quickly become overwhelming. You start with an idea, end up changing it altogether during your research—it’s easy to get lost.

Luckily, you can make the content creating and planning process a breeze with the right content creation tools. Using the right ones helps content creators speed up the process, gain insights, and produce better-performing content.

Where to start?

No need to search all over the web to pick up the tools that will level up your content strategy game. I rounded up the best content creation tools for dedicated content creators like you. As a content creator, I find these tools quite resourceful, and I believe so will you.

Let’s make sure you create killer content every time.

best content creation tools cover

Here is a shortlist of the best content creation tools (free and paid):

CoSchedule Headline Studio
Grammarly
Canva
Giphy
AnswerThePublic
Copy.ai
Demio
BuzzSumo
Audacity
Visme
Feel free to jump through this article from the table of contents below.

Table of contents:
Content Planning and Research Tools

  1. Google Trends
  2. AlsoAsked.com
  3. AnswerThePublic
  4. Semrush Topic Research Tool
  5. BuzzSumo
    Written Content Creation Tools
  6. Grammarly
  7. CoSchedule Headline Studio
  8. Copy.ai
    Podcast and Audio Broadcast Tools
  9. Audacity
  10. Alitu
    Video Creation and Webinar Tools
  11. Animaker
  12. SoapBox
  13. Veed
  14. Loom
  15. Demio
  16. Biteable
    Visual Content Creation Tools
  17. Canva – Online Graphic Design Tool
  18. GIPHY
  19. Piktochart
  20. VismeChart
  21. Unsplash
    Bonus
    Even Perfect Content Needs to Be Promoted
    Frequently Asked Questions
    What are content creation tools?
    What are the essential tools for a writer?
    What are the best free content creation tools?
    Content Planning and Research Tools
  22. Google Trends
    Google Trends

With Google Trends, you can understand the popularity of a keyword, search term, or topic among Google search users. Considering that the majority of web users use Google, you can find trending topics in your niche.

This tool is also useful for gaining a competitive advantage in your industry and being the first to jump on a new trend.

Pricing: Free

  1. AlsoAsked.com
    AlsoAsked keyword research tool

As a content marketer, I find AlsoAsked quite resourceful when doing keyword research for blog posts. You simply need to enter a search term, select a language and region. AlsoAsked gives you a visual map of all related questions it scrapes from Google’s People Also Search section.

Moreover, it can multiply the questions generated in the first results. You can export the results in CSV format with the Lite plan. Otherwise, this tool is free for limited use.

It’s an excellent content tool to sketch out the outline of your content around SEO.

Pricing: Free for 10 searches a month.

  1. AnswerThePublic
    AnswerThePublic content creation tool

AnswerThePublic works in a similar way with AlsoAsked. It is a keyword tool that visualizes search questions and suggested terms. Once you enter a topic, select a location and language, it lists all possible questions around question words like “why, when, what, how, which, etc.”

It gives you results as questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabetical, and related. You can save the visualization as an image or export it in CSV format.

Pricing: Free to use with limitations. Upgraded plans start at $99/mo.

  1. Semrush Topic Research Tool
    Semrush topic research tool

SEMrush Topic Research Tool is a great tool to quickly come up with content ideas and plan out your content effectively. You just enter a topic and target location, then it provides you with potential ideas around the main topic.

Moreover, it allows you to enter a domain to find content on.

Pricing: Price plans start from $99.95 per month, but it also comes with SEO, content, social media, and PPC tools.

  1. BuzzSumo
    Buzzsumo content idea generator

BuzzSumo is another content creation tool that is helpful in generating content ideas. This tool pulls popular posts based on keywords. It comes with a bunch of filters to narrow down the results based on language, location, journalist, date, and more.

The results can be sorted based on their total reach in social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. You can also set custom filters to further narrow down the results.

BuzzSumo has a free Chrome extension as well.

Pricing: Free for 10 searches a month. Paid plans start at $99/mo.

Written Content Creation Tools

  1. Grammarly
    Grammarly grammar checker tool

Grammarly is my go-to grammar and spelling checker tool. If you want to rank on search engines and provide a better user experience for your readers, your content should be error-proof.

This tool checks your content for grammatical errors, misspelling, plagiarism, as well as the tone of your content. It also has a Chrome extension, which comes in very handy when typing something on almost all web platforms.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $29.95/mo.

  1. CoSchedule Headline Studio
    Headline Studio tool for content creators

This one is another one of my favorite content creation tools. CoSchedule’s Headline Studio analyzes your content’s headline and gives a score to it based on different factors like SEO, emotional words, uncommon words, word count, clarity, and more.

You can use it to optimize your headlines and craft the best-performing ones to rank higher on search engines and drive organic traffic to your site. In short, it is a simple yet powerful tool for your content creation process.

Headline Studio has a Chrome extension as well.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $9/mo.

  1. Copy.ai
    Copy.ai copywriting software

This one is for lazy content creators (guilty as charged 😬) or whenever you feel lazy to write everything from scratch. Copy.ai leverages artificial intelligence to reduce the time and effort you spend on copywriting. Essentially, this tool writes your copy for you.

It makes sure the copy it generates sounds as authentic as possible. You can tweak the content you like among the choices it provides. What can Copy.ai write for you?

Product descriptions
Blog posts
Social ads
Startup copies: brand voice, motto, value proposition, etc.
Email copy
Sales Copy
Social media captions
Pricing: Free trial available. Premium plans start at $35 per month.

If you haven’t tried this tool yet, I suggest you go and test it out on its free trial. An alternative to this tool that is also worth mentioning is Ryter. It is relatively cheaper for $29/m with a yearly plan. But copy.ai excels in many ways compared to Ryter.

Podcast and Audio Broadcast Tools

  1. Audacity
    Audacity voice editing software

If you have recorded your voice for a podcast or a video and it sounded like a dying frog, Audacity is the right tool for you. Audacity is a free, open-source, multi-track audio editing and recording software.

You can use it to record live audio, edit it (reduce noise, adjust speed, etc.), and export it.

Pricing: Free.

  1. Alitu
    Alitu voice recording and editor

Editing is often the most tiresome part of podcast creation. You will probably want to spend your time on recording rather than editing. However, you also need to make sure the sound quality is the best.

You can use Alitu to record, edit, and publish your podcasts without any audio editing skills. It automatically cleans your audio and makes editing easy as pie.

Video Creation and Webinar Tools
Especially in recent years, video content marketing has left other forms of content collecting dust. Don’t get left behind; hop on trends with these simple video creation and webinar tools.

You might also like: Popup Video: How To Add One To Your Website (No Coding)

  1. Animaker
    Animaker video making tool

Animaker is a simple, drag-and-drop video-making tool. Used by over 10 M people to create awesome videos, Animaker is a popular tool to streamline your video-making process. Animaker users also include leading brands like Amazon, Nokia, and Unilever.

Features:

Video making, GIF and short video making, Live video editing
Ready-made templates
Character builder to spice up your videos
Extensive facial expressions for the video characters
Auto lip-sync for the characters
Animation studio
Pricing: Start at $10/mo with a yearly plan and $20/mo with a monthly plan.

  1. SoapBox
    Soapbox video content creation tool

Another video-making tool worth mentioning is Soapbox. It is a Chrome extension by Wistia, a video hosting service. With Soapbox, you can create and share videos in your browser window without needing any technical skills or experience.

The extension also comes with the split-screen view feature, which allows you to record your screen and webcam simultaneously.

Pricing:

Free Plan available Solo Plan starts at $300 per year.

  1. Veed
    Veed video editor tool

Veed is a simple online video editor tool that allows you to add subtitles to your videos, edit video content, translate videos, transcribe audio files, and add visual effects. It is a perfect choice to edit, crop, and add subtitles to your videos quickly with ease.

It has some glitches and takes too long to load every now and then, but it works just fine to save time from manually adding subtitles to videos.

Pricing: Free plan available for quick projects under 10 mins with watermark. The basic plan is $18 per month with a monthly subscription.

  1. Loom
    Loom video recording tool

Loom is a streamlined video sharing and recording tool that comes as both a Chrome extension and a desktop app. What can you do with it? You can record your screen, your webcam, or both simultaneously.

Additionally, this tool lets you crop videos and send them to your colleagues through a link. Loom is a go-to tool for either video messaging with colleagues or recording and downloading your videos.

I came across some glitches on its desktop app, but still, it’s a time-saver. AND it has a free version of up to 25 videos and 5 mins per video. If you plan to shoot tutorials or review videos of digital tools for YouTube, then Loom can be the one you are looking for.

Pricing: Free for up to 25 videos. The Business plan starts at $8/mo with an annual plan.

  1. Demio
    demio webinar software

Demio is a hassle-free webinar software for marketers. This tool provides a no-download webinar experience for your audience. It comes with fully customizable webinar domains, featured colors, and more.

Features:

Live presentation with real-time HD streaming
Your audience can attend with one click in the browser.
Create customizable registration pages
Add custom form fields to collect info from registrants
Embed the form anywhere
Send automated email notifications
View, manage, and export contacts
Pricing: Start at $34 per month with an annual payment plan. 14-day free trial available.

  1. Biteable
    Biteable video making tool

Biteable is another powerful video creation and editing tool. It has a forever-free plan with limited features. What you can create with this tool ranges from social media posts and digital advertising to animation and promo videos.

It comes with a huge video templates library for your use.

Pricing: Free plan available. Premium plans start at $29/mo with a monthly plan and $19/mo annually.

Visual Content Creation Tools
We live in a visual world. It is more so when we dive into the digital world. In fact, studies show that the average attention span of an internet user lies somewhere around eight seconds.

To keep your audience engaged with your content as long as possible, you’ll need to enrich it with visual content like GIFs or infographics. Here are the best visual content creation tools you’ll ❤️ using.

  1. Canva – Online Graphic Design Tool
    Canva visual content creation tool

It wouldn’t be wrong to say Canva’s popularity blew over recent years. And it’s clear to see why.

You can design almost anything with Canva, including presentations, social media posts, infographics, resumes, newsletters, logos, and YouTube intros. What makes this tool amazing is the way it streamlines the designing process and makes it easy for just anyone.

It saves your time and money spent on expensive designing tools. Additionally, it comes with stock elements and a photo library, as well as a wide range of templates for every need.

Pricing: Free plan available. Premium plans start at $9.99 per month.

  1. GIPHY
    GIPHY gif maker tool

If you think GIFs are fun to use in blog posts, you can look for GIFs on the internet’s best-known GIF database GIPHY. It can integrate with multiple apps and make GIF sharing simpler than ever.

It also allows creating your own GIFs. Just upload a video or photo and set the animation speed. Your GIF will be good to go in no time!

  1. Piktochart
    Piktochart infographic making tool

Infographics are still one of the most popular ways to visualize data and to use as a part of your link building strategy. You can drive backlinks by creating superb and share-worthy infographics in your niche.

That’s where Piktochart comes in. You can design professional-looking infographics without needing any design skills with Piktochart.

Pricing:

Free plan available. Premium plans start at $24 per month with monthly payment and $14/mo annually.

  1. VismeChart
    Visme free chart maker

Need to create charts that will rock your data and statistical contents? VismeChart is what you’re looking for. By adding customly designed chart visuals to your blog posts, social media posts, or other content, you can drive backlinks and credibility. Charts are a perfect way to visualize complicated and boring data.

Designing them on Visme is incredibly easy for anyone. You can create charts, infographics, short videos, and presentations on Visme’s intuitive, drag-and-drop designer. The best part is its free plan covers a lot of features.

Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $25/mo with monthly payment.

  1. Unsplash
    Unsplash free stock photo database

Stock photos come in handy every now and then. Unsplash provides a rich stock library of high quality images and photos free to use and shared under the Unsplash license. The platform has over 207,000 contributing photographers and generates 17 billion photo impressions per month.

Bonus
Ubersuggest – Free keyword research tool
Hemingway Editor – Grammar checker
Trello – List making application
Even Perfect Content Needs to Be Promoted
The most important thing to do as a content marketer is to keep improving your skills, learning new ones, and expanding your knowledge of tools and resources. This way you can always make sure to craft killer content that performs.

free online content creation tools

To the outside world, creating posts for social media may seem easy. But, marketers and brands know there’s a lot more to social media content creation and editing than meets the eye, particularly in today’s social media landscape.

From choosing the perfect image to representing your point of view, to creating the perfect Twitter hashtag to making a video for TikTok, here are some great content creation tools to help you along the way.

1. Canva

A social media tools list wouldn’t be complete without Canva. One of the most popular tools for creating social media graphics, Canva allows users to create high-quality images quickly using layouts, templates and design elements.

The free version of the tool is extremely comprehensive, but those who want more can invest €11.99 per month (up to 5 people) or go with pro or enterprise pricing if it’s the best fit for the business. It is free for education and non-profits.

How to Create Beautiful Graphics with Canva:

  • Search Canva’s amazing library of templates and choose to use them as-is or to customize for your needs. There is a section dedicated to social media graphics for an array of content formats across platforms.
  • Choose your unique elements to make the graphic your own.
  • Share your new visual on any social media platform!

2. Crello

Similar to Canva, Crello is a graphic design tool that makes it easy for certified social media marketers to create stunning graphics without a lot of design knowledge.

Crello’s advantage over Canva is that it offers more than 30,000 free design templates, 180 million photos, 32,000 videos and 15,000 illustrations. You can also design as a team by inviting members (up to 10), animate your designs and choose from a music library. Like Canva, a variety of different image types are offered, including templates specifically for social media. Crello is free for users, with limited usage, and pro plan starts at $9.99 a month.

How to Build Graphics Quickly with Crello:

  • Use Crello’s ‘Create’ tab to find a free design template or templates that work for your brand.
  • Simply click on a design template you love, and customize it using the Crello editor.
  • Save your finished product, and/or share it across your social media sites.

3 Hashtagify.me

Hashtagify.me is a free tool (with paid add-on features) that allows you to search for hashtags. Once you’ve searched for a hashtag, you can determine its popularity and how it’s used. The tool is simple to use: in the search box, type in a hashtag you are curious about, and search to find out its performance and related hashtags on Twitter and Instagram. You’ll also see the top influencers for that hashtag, as well as recent tweets using that hashtag and other demographics. Paid users can sign up for alerts on particular hashtags, track influencers and usage patterns, and more.

4. Prezi and Flipsnack

Prezi allows you to create stand-alone presentations, appear alongside a presentation, and design awesome interactive graphics and charts. Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, presenting and collaborating from home has become hugely important and the platform has capitalized on its technology to make it seamless while looking good!

Prezi can be integrated with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webdex and has an ‘Inspiration’ section where you can see what other brands have done to engage their audiences. You can also get reusable designs and templates so you don’t need to start from scratch. An individual subscription starts at $3 a month.

If you’re looking to take your PDFs or ebooks to the next level, look no further than Flipsnack (previously known as SlideSnack. This tool has a flip book maker that allows you to create, share and embed online flip page formats.

For your mobile visitors, you can convert PDFs to HTML5 to make a book that’s fully mobile responsive and create mobile friendly content that engages.

5. Grammarly

Grammarly is an all-in-one spellcheck and grammar tool. It helps users write error-free copy on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and almost anywhere else on the web.

Grammarly works by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to scan your text for common and complex grammatical mistakes, including everything from subject-verb agreement to article use and modifier placement. It also goes beyond regular checking to provide users with explanations and helps them improve their writing skills. The plugin is free for individual users, with premium and business plans also available.

6. Typeform

Asking questions is a great way to prompt engagement on social media. But sometimes asking one question isn’t enough to get the response you want from your audience. That’s where Typeform comes in.

Typeform is a user-friendly quiz, form and survey builder that allows you to ask your audience questions in different formats, including image-based, multiple choice, short answer, yes or no, and more.

Once you have your quiz in place, you can share it across multiple social media networks in the formats that work best for your audience. 10 questions and 10 responses per month are free, and Basic, Plus, and Business versions with additional features are also available.

7. Anchor

Anchor is one of the most popular platforms for creating, distributing and monetizing your podcast. All for free! It integrates with all key podcasting outlets and free social media platforms for audio. Its easy distribution with Spotify – the great audio disruptor allows you to analyze podcast performance through analytics through engagement insights. We use it at the DMI for distributing our own digital marketing podcast, Ahead of the Game.

With the Anchor app, users can easily create videos and audio recordings that are perfect for sharing on social media.

8. CapCut

There are many free graphics tools that allow users to easily create beautiful images for social media, but most of them aren’t available (or aren’t very intuitive) on your smartphone.

CapCut (previously known as ViaMaker) is a free all-in-one editing app for iOs and Android developed by the creators of TikTok, ByteDance. What makes it popular is the ease of use and a big music library. Like TikTok, the app has advanced filters along with stickers and fonts along with a range of magical effects.

CapCut recently topped the U.S app store so it must be doing something right. Best of all, CapCut is free to use so get editing and sharing!

9. PowToon

Video is the most popular medium on social media networks. The problem is, many companies rely on expensive external agencies to create these videos. The finished product can look too contrived, miss the message mark, and really drain the budget.

A tool like PowToon means you don’t have to be a video master to create engaging videos, especially for presentation purposes. The platform allows you to choose from several templates and customize them according to your business. You can simply plug and play your content and share across your social media networks. Free and paid versions are available from $19 to $99 per month.

Interested in learning more about video? Check out this guide to video marketing on social media.

10. Animoto

Animoto is another great video platform that allows non-experts to create captivating multimedia. Animoto allows you to turn existing video clips and images into video slideshows with little effort. You can either use one of their existing storyboard templates or build a video from scratch depending on how much time you have and your ambition!

Animoto does offer a free version, if you don’t mind having their branding on your videos. Other plans are at €28 or €69 per month based on your business’s needs. Annual subscriptions offer significant discounts.

How to Create Quick Videos with Animoto:

  • Use one of the many storyboards provided by Animoto to speed up your video creation process. Each comes with a song, a style, and a particular structure.
  • Replace the existing template content with your own text, video clips, and photos.

After you create your video, you can download it in various formats and levels of quality and upload it directly to your social media platforms. There are many ways to use video in your social media marketing, so make sure you do some research to find out the best route for you.

Knowing how to create a great video is one thing but understanding how to create good marketing videos is another. Consider a social media and marketing course to use video to its full potential!

11. Placeit

11 Social Media Tools Every Content Creator Needs

One more video tool in this list is PlaceIt. This image and video tool allows brands to showcase their products and digital designs in realistic web/video environments. It can save hundreds or even thousands of dollars on externally sourced product videos and images.

A one-time purchase on the platform costs a few dollars, or you can choose to pay $14.95 per month, or $89.69 yearly, depending on your brand’s needs.

How to Create Video mock-ups with Placeit:

  • Search for your desired environment. Tip: include your preferred device (e.g. iPhone or Mac) and background (e.g. office or cafe).
  • Upload your image or enter a URL to grab a screenshot. Placeit will automatically place your image in your selected environment.

Once you have your product images, you have the tools you need to promote your products on social media via organic or paid posts.

Looking for a social media and marketing course that ups your game?

Whatever social media content you want to create, these 11 tools will prove invaluable. With DMI’s Social Media Marketing course you will learn how to share, tweet and pin your way to success using engaging content that sets your brand above the competition. Plus you’ll learn how to research, plan and strategize along the way!

Conclusion

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

Check out other publications to gain access to more digital resources if you are just starting out with Flux Resource.
Also contact us today to optimize your business(s)/Brand(s) for Search Engines

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