Usually when people say “A lot of people have asked…”, the truth is probably 1-2 people have asked. It’s just the truth.
In this case, a lot of people have actually asked this question: “What do you use for (fill in the blank)?”. So I thought I’d share some of the most commonly asked questions Blue Light Media about what tech or hardware we use.
Project Management
Monday.com is our platform of choice. We’ve been using them for almost 10 years since they were called Dapulse. We’ve tried various platforms like Trello and Asana, but Monday.com has been the most intuitive.
Monday.com is super powerful and has various modes and templates to fit your business needs. We use it for everything from sales pipeline management to client communication.
We also use Slack.com for day-to-day messaging, both within the agency and with our brand clients.
Website Builder
We were on SquareSpace since day one and if you’re starting your business, this is generally where I’d point you to. It’s easy to manage, has everything a small business needs integrated into one platform, and you can create some really beautiful websites through it with no experience whatsoever.
However, the platform is pretty limited unless you get some custom code into it. We decided to transition to framer.com for website building. This platform is straightforward and designer-friendly.
While it has a ton more options to customize your site, it is a little more challenging to manage various views (i.e. mobile vs. tablet vs. desktop). You might need to bring in a designer here, but for now, I’m really happy with our current design. Check it out at bluelight.media
Bookkeeping, accounting, invoicing, etc.
Quickbooks.com has been our bookkeeping tool for - well, ever. If you’re a freelancer, you might be able to use something simpler like WaveApps or Zoho. However, Quickbooks is widely known among accountants, which makes integration much easier.
Quickbooks also has a separate app called T-Sheets, which we use to track time spent on each client we work on. Those reports are really handy for workload budgeting.".
Social Media Publishing
SproutSocial. I’m pretty sure SproutSocial is the gold standard when it comes to social media publishing. Sprout Social recently released a program that has the client sign up for the service and adds seats for you (or your agency). If you and the client break up, they’ll get to keep the software. But most importantly for you, you can manage your overhead a bit easier.
There are still no seamless solutions for stories or TikTok posts that I know of, but if you come across one which gives more than a reminder to post, please let me know.
Podcast Recording/Editing
This could probably be a post on its own but here’s a list:
I record into my MacBook using Garage Band
I use a Behringer 4-Channel USB Mixer
I use Shure MV7X XLR mics. They’re not the uber-expensive ones that the celebs use, but if you can actually tell the difference I’d be SHOCKED.
I use Zoom to record remote interviews
I use MicMe.com for editing, bumpers, and producing. They’re fantastic.
I recently found a great editor for video clips. Hit me up for the contact.
I use Libsyn.com for hosting.
Influencer / Creator Management
For years we were doing this manually, but we recently onboarded creator. co. Truth be told, the onboarding experience is sub-par, but integrating with our current process seems to be helping out the team quite a bit.
Creator.co allows us to get influencers sourced, approved and paid relatively seamlessly, however much of the reporting is still done manually.
In the past, we’ve used Tagger Media and UpFluence. Tagger was probably my favorite (this was probably a few years ago) but it was priced so high we couldn’t justify keeping it around.
Client Reporting
Some of our clients like a high-level visual report and for that we use Reportgarden.com. It’s a little clunky to me, but our clients seem to like it and it hasn’t been enough of an issue to update. Outside of that just clean up .csv files in Google Sheets and send that over.
We’ve also used Google Data Studio so clients had a real-time view of their performance. In fact, as I’m typing this out right now I’m kind of thinking that we should just make that standard so we don’t have to keep exporting reports every month.
Payroll/HR
We use a company called Trinet, which allows us to manage payroll, benefits such as health insurance and 401K, and also help navigate HR-related issues such as onboarding and offboarding employees.
What I love about this platform is that it allows your employees to choose what type of healthcare benefits they want to use (i.e. Blue Shield, Kaiser, Aetna etc.). It’s not fully turn-key, you’ll still need someone managing it all for you if you’re not doing it yourself.
Ads Management
We’ve tried various platforms in the past that touted AI and machine learning capabilities to boost ad performance, but they didn't deliver as expected.. Most recently we used Madgicx to help us optimize ads, but after a while, I didn’t really see the value in it. The UI was nice to easily understand which creative was performing the best, but you can also do that natively.
Today we manage all our ads natively and we do great with that workflow. We do build custom views in our account though which helps us analyze the data faster based on what we find to be most important. Here’s my exact board in Meta for our e-comm clients:
Budget
Amount Spent
Reach
CPReach
Impressions
CPM
Link Clicks
Link CTR
LPVs
Cost Per LPV
Add To Cart
Add to Cart Conversion Value
Purchases
Cost Per Conversion
Return on Ad Spend
Conversion Value
Ad Preview
That was a lot.
But I’m always happy to share how we’re operating Blue Light or how I’m managing my own content (hint: there’s no hack, no matter what you gotta work).
By the way! If you have an app or software you absolutely cannot live without, I would love to learn about it!
In Case You Missed It
Last week I posted the number one thing that stunts the growth of small businesses on Instagram.
Spoiler alert, it’s you.
I’ve been getting back into the swing of things in regard to content creation and overall it feels pretty good! I’m excited to continue to share what I’ve learned growing Blue Light Media, our brands, and insights from other experts in the industry. If there’s anything I could offer my 2¢, please let me know.
Freelance Opportunity
If you or someone you know is looking to take on some smaller-budget Google Ads management (<$10K/month) please let me know!
We’re looking for help with ongoing optimization of Search, Shop, YouTube, and Shorts ads management, as well as ad-hoc work such as product feed setup and campaign setup.
To clarify, we are not looking for full-time support at this time, but if you’re a freelancer this might be something worth a conversation. Just email me here.