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Business owner who is working from her home office with her pet dog No business owner wants to spend hours and hours planning, filming, editing and posting content. Your time is already stretched enough as it is; Verizon’s Small Business Survey found that 54% of small business owners struggle with consistently making new content for their social media. But the reality is, unless you have a marketing team to lean on, content creation is up to you, and it’s essential for your business. You’re not alone, though - around 47% of small business owners do their own marketing. Here are some tools that can help make content creation easier and more streamlined. Video Editing Tool According to Demandsage, 66% of consumers find short-form videos the most engaging type of content, and 82% say that watching a video influenced a purchase decision. No matter the size of your business, video should be front and center of your content creation efforts. However, not everyone is a professional video editor. So an easy-to-use video editing tool like Capcut is essential for all small business owners. Capcut’s free version offers nearly all the features you’d need to capture and edit short-form videos for social media. It even has built-in templates for those short on time and creative know-how. Social Media Scheduler If you like to batch-create content and then schedule the posts in advance, a social media scheduler is a tool you should consider. A scheduling tool helps you to get prepared ahead of time, consistent with posting content, and can save you a lot of stress and wondering what to post each day. Some popular scheduling tools are Buffer and Planable, which both have free versions for you to test first. Some small business owners may find that a free version is sufficient for the amount of content they produce and the complexity of features they need. MORE FOR YOU Graphic Design Tool Canva is a useful tool for designing social media posts, but it does so much more than that. Using the variety of AI tools in Canva’s Magic Studio (like Magic Edit, Magic Resize, and Magic Animate), it’s easy to generate all kinds of marketing collateral and edit your content to suit you. Another option to try is Adobe Express, which similarly has pre-built templates and tools that use generative AI to help accelerate the content creation process. Proofreading Tool Even the most eagle-eyed business owner needs a proofreading and grammar checker tool. Always run your captions through one of these tools to catch errors (they even provide tips to improve your writing) long before you hit the ‘publish’ button. Grammarly is a popular choice and helps you to produce written text that’s more clear and engaging for your readers. Content Planning And Workflow Tool As you become a content creation pro, a workflow tool will be essential to keeping all your admin and content in one place. A tool like Trello can help you track tasks, store your content ideas and files, and plan out your content calendar so you can visualize what’s coming up. Regular content creation is essential if you want to grow your business’s online presence. But it doesn’t need to be difficult. Utilize smart and innovative tools that help to streamline the process. They can save you time and headaches, so you can get back to running your business. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
