Social Media
You only need to be interactive on one social media platform to gain a following. Figure out what your demographic is using the most and use that platform.
- Alignable ↗
- Discord ↗ ↗
- Facebook ↗ ↗
- FetLife ↗
- Instagram ↗
- LinkedIn ↗
- Mastodon ↗
- Reddit ↗
- Signal ↗
- Snapchat ↗
- Telegram ↗
- TikTok ↗
- Twitter ↗
- Vimeo ↗
- Whatsapp ↗
- YouTube ↗
Narrow down the overwhelming amount of content on the web and social media
- Answer The Public ↗ – provides reports of the top questions and queries people are searching for in Google. Free and paid.
- fraidycat ↗ – continuously creates a summary of the recent activity on the accounts you follow; results available by browser extension and standalone apps for your laptop/desktop (no mobile support). Free.
- Mailbrew ↗ – creates a summary of all the topics you’re interested across multiple platforms; results available by daily email. Free.
- Nuzzle – personalized news discovery and curated newsletters via web, mobile apps, messaging bots, and email newsletters. Essentially takes either your Twitter or LinkedIn feed and pulls the most frequently shared articles for you. Free.
- Refind ↗ – daily email with 10 most popular links relevant to your interests. Free.
- Signum ↗Signum ↗Signum ↗ – emails you twice monthly with an analysis of over 300,000 blogs, forums, portals and social media accounts to keep track of the emergence of new trends at the earliest stages. Paid.
- T ↗w ↗eepi ↗ – uses the hashtags and Twitter accounts you input to reveal which accounts you should interact with to get the most engagement. Paid.
Manage your social media feeds and the content you post
- Combin ↗ – manages your Instagram account. Free and Paid.
- CoSchedule ↗ – yes, it is expensive, but if you really want to gain control over your social media presence without paying much attention to your actual social media accounts, this is what you need. Paid.
- Pagemodo – manages your Facebook business page. Paid.
- Post Planner ↗ – low cost social media manager to plan your posts. Paid.
- Repost for Instagram ↗ – repost Instagram posts. iOS and Android. Free.
- Splitters – splits your tweet into a thread. Free.
- Tweriod – analyzes your Twitter account to tell you the best times for you to post. Free.
Websites
If you go with WordPress ↗, build your website on your computer first
- DesktopServer ↗ – Free and Paid.
- InstantWP ↗ – Free.
- Local ↗ – Free.
- MAMP ↗ – Free.
- XAMPP ↗ – Free.
Website platforms other than WordPress
- Blot ↗ – create a blog that is as simple or as fancy as you want, all through Dropbox. Free.
- Squarespace ↗ – Paid.
Platforms to turn your website into a teaching tool
- LearnPress ↗ – installs into WordPress. Free.
- Teachable ↗ – Free and paid.
- Thinkific ↗ – Free and paid.
Platforms to turn your website into a store
- Big Cartel ↗ – Free and paid.
- WooCommerce ↗ – installs into WordPress. Free.
Community and membership website builders, lite (alternatives to Patreon)
- Ghost ↗ – for writers, podcasters and video creators set up sites to publish online and deliver newsletters to their audience; membership/paid subscribers option available; can use your own domain. Paid.
- Liberapay ↗ – more integrations than Patreon; accepts payments through Stripe and PayPal; does not take a cut like Patreon does. Payment processing fees, only.
- Substack ↗ – email list, a website for all your posts or podcast episodes, community features, control over what’s free and what’s only for your paying subscriber; uses a subdomain. Free to use until you charge members for content, then Substack takes a small fee.
Community and membership website builders
- Disciple ↗ – creates a website and matching iOS and Android apps to create your own community platform with online courses, membership site, subscriptions, sales, and more. Paid.
- MemberPress ↗ – installs into WordPress. Paid options.
- Member.buzz ↗ – website builder, memberships, fundraisers, event registration and ticket sales, newsletters, auctions, budgets, articles (posts), sales, and more features coming soon; works with your own domain. Free except for sales (they charge a transaction fee).
- Mighty Networks ↗ – website builder, online courses, subscriptions, and membership site; accessible via the Mighty Networks app and the web; works with your own domain. Free and paid options.
- PeepSo ↗ – installs into WordPress. Paid.
- Ultimate Member ↗ – installs into WordPress. Paid.
- Wild Apricot ↗ – membership database, website builder, payments, event management, email and contact database, online store; accessible via the Wild Apricot app and the web; works with your own domain. Paid.
Keep your website privacy policies and terms of condition up to date
- Termageddon ↗ – written and updated by real privacy attorneys, not robots (like most other sites). Paid.
- Termly ↗ – uses templates for policies and terms of conditions (and more) written for various types websites. Paid.
Custom URL shorteners
But please don’t use URL shorteners ↗.
- Polr ↗ – Free.
- Rebrandly ↗ – Free and paid.
- YOURLS ↗ – Free.
Form maker that is private and secure
- Forms.id ↗ – Free.
Analytics
Monetization (sell ads and sponsorships)
- Intravert ↗ – Free and paid.
Marketing & CRM
Secure mailing list manager with re-mailing capability
- Schleuder ↗ – Free.
Just email newsletters, simple newsletters
- Buttondown ↗ – Free and paid.
- TinyLetter ↗ – Free.
Email marketing other than Mailchimp
All-in-one marketing automation
- Mautic ↗ – Free.
Personal “CRMs” to personally grow your network
Invitations with RSVPs
- Stuff – invitations with RSVPs to private and public events that easily work with a mobile interface. Sends invites via email, text message or any platform you prefer. Free.
Miscellaneous
Creating content for your social platforms and website
- Auphonic ↗ – post production for anything you create that has audio. Free and paid.
- AutoCap ↗ – helps you caption your videos. Android. Free and paid.
- Clipomatic – helps you caption your videos. iOS. Paid.
- Creative Commons Search ↗ – search for media you can reuse, some of which can be modified. Free.
- DaVinci Resolve ↗ – combines professional 8K editing, color correction, visual effects and audio post production all in one. The best out there. Paid.
- Desygner ↗ – creates and stores your graphic designs. Four cents per month more than Canva ↗. Free and paid.
- Expresso ↗ – edits your writing to make it more readable, precise, and engaging. Free.
- Headlin ↗e ↗ Analyzer ↗ – helps you improve the wording of your headlines/titles. Free.
- Icofont ↗ – 2100+ free icons for you to use in any of your designs. Free.
- Pixlr ↗ – online photo editor, like a beginner’s Photoshop. Free and paid.
- Ripl ↗ – creates branded videos and images in minutes, then instantly post to all your social media accounts at once; includes analytics. Free and paid.
- SnagIt ↗ – screen capture and recording software that lets you quickly capture a process, add your explanation, and create visual instructions. Paid.
- SocialSizes.io ↗ – templates of all the social media image and video sizes. Free.
- Sourced Fact ↗ – journalism with crowd sourced fact checking. As a writer, you can sign up to have your pieces published with fact checking included. Free.
- Unscreen ↗ – removes the background out of completed videos (not livestreams). Free and paid.
- Zencastr ↗ – use their website to record your remote interviews in studio quality; includes separate tracks for each guest, soundboard for live editing, automatic post-production, built-in VoIP. Free and paid.
Tools that keep track of your work and accomplishments
- Create a Career Management Document ↗. Free.
- Authory ↗ – For folks who are writers, this is an automated portfolio and article backup; includes a mailing list for subscribers, social media analytics, an author’s page, and more. Paid.
Archive everything you read, watch, and listen to so you can reference it later
- ArchiveBox ↗ – an open-source app to self-host your own private web archive. It saves HTML, JS, media files, PDFs, images and more as local, static, browsable HTML clones. You can even archive your entire browser history. Free.
- Pinboard ↗ – bookmarking service. Paid; archiving (document repository) is a separate yearly fee.
- Polar ↗ – tagging, annotating, highlighting, keeping track of your reading progress for for web pages, textbooks, and PDFs; includes a document repository which saves all content (including webpages) into your account so even if the website goes down, you can still access its data from your Polar account. Free and paid.
- Zotero ↗ – collects documents into a document repository, organizes the documents any way you want, creates citations and bibliographies, and lets you share your sources for collaboration. Free.
Caz Killjoy’s Tools for Sex Geeks Who Aren’t Tech Nerds © 2020 by Caz Killjoy is licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International ↗.
This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form and for noncommercial purposes only.
BY: Credit must be given to me, the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial use of my work is permitted. Noncommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.
ND: No derivatives or adaptations of my work are permitted.