In this episode, I’m thrilled to share with you some of my absolute favourite tools for 2023. These tools, in my experience, have proven to be game-changers for entrepreneurs, content creators, and business owners alike.

I’m a proud brand ambassador for Adobe Express. But rest assured, all views expressed in this episode are purely my own. I wouldn’t be recommending these tools if I didn’t personally find them beneficial.

Now, you might have heard about the new beta version of Adobe Express. It has incorporated generative AI from Adobe Firefly, and trust me, it’s a blast! There’s so much more to it, and you can check out my in-depth review on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHWfrrNYb_8

So without further ado, let’s dive in!

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

1. The best tools for creating stunning visual and audio content that will set your brand apart.
2. The leading social media and community management tools to streamline your workflow and increase engagement.
3. Essential content management and creation tools that will boost your content’s effectiveness and reach.

Here are the tools and resources we’ll be exploring:

• Visual & Audio Content Production
• Adobe Express: An all-in-one tool for creating amazing graphics, videos, and web pages. Check out my review on YouTube to learn more about the beta version’s fantastic features!
• Pexels: A great source of free stock photos and videos.
• TinyPNG: An excellent tool for compressing PNG and JPEG images.
• Ecamm Live: A powerful live streaming platform for Mac users.
• Restream: A fantastic solution for broadcasting live across multiple platforms simultaneously.
• Screenflow: A robust video editing and screen recording software for Mac.
• Descript: A powerful tool for editing audio and video just like text.
• Captivate FM: An easy-to-use and reliable podcast hosting platform.
• Podstatus: A handy tool for tracking and analyzing your podcast statistics.
• Social Media & Community Management
• Agorapulse: A comprehensive tool for managing and scheduling posts across multiple social media platforms.
• Content Management & Creation
• Buzzsumo: An indispensable tool for content research and finding trending topics.
• Feedly: A great app for consolidating and reading all your favourite feeds in one place.
• Grammarly: A helpful tool for checking grammar and readability of your content.
• SEMRush: A complete suite for boosting your SEO and online visibility.
• Brand24: A tool for social media monitoring and reputation management.

Tune in to the episode as we delve deeper into each tool and discover how they can help your business and content creation efforts soar to new heights. Let’s make 2023 the year we take our digital marketing game the next level!

Show Notes

iag.me/205

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The Confident Live Marketing Show

The Confident Live Marketing Show is a weekly live video show and podcast. It’s aimed at established entrepreneurs who want to level up their impact, authority and profits through the power of live video, webinars and podcasts. We’ll focus on knocking down the 3 main barriers these entrepreneurs face when creating live content - camera confidence/mindset, tech/gear and content marketing.

It’s hosted by Ian Anderson Gray. He is the founder of the Confident Live Marketing Academy and is the host of the Confident Live Marketing Podcast. He helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. He’s founder of Seriously Social - a blog focused on live video and social media tools. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher and consultant. He has a passion for making the techno-babble of live video and social media marketing easy to understand. As well as being a geek, husband, and dad to two kids, Ian is also a professional singer and lives near Manchester in the UK.

Welcome to the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson

Gray, helping you level up your impact, authority, and profits through

the power of Confident live video.

Or optimize your mindset and communication and increase your

confidence in front of the camera.

Get confident with the tech and gear and get confident with the

content and marketing together.

We.

Well, Hello, Ian Anderson Gray here for episode 205 of the

Confident Live Marketing Show.

In today's episode, it's gonna be a shorter episode Today we are gonna

be delving into the realms of tools, my favorite tools for this year, but

because there are so many, I'm just going to be looking at focusing on

a few different categories of tools.

Today we're gonna be looking at visual.

And audio content tools and maybe some social media ones as well.

See how we get on because so much to be, so much to look into.

And one of my favorite tools that I've been working on recently or

looking at and using is Adobe Express.

Adobe Express is so cool because they've just been adding some new features.

From the world of ai.

And I had the privilege of beta testing their Adobe Firefly which

is their image-based AI tool.

It's just so cool.

And so let's have a look at it now.

If you go to iag.me/go/adobe Express, is that right?

I'm just gonna double check that.

At ieg.me/go/adobe Express.

I think that is the one.

You'll get this now the beta is at a different address, but you'll be able

to, if you go here, you'll be able to see this and play around with it.

Because the, it is public and if you're listening in the future, it

might already be the new version.

So there's so much cool stuff here.

First of all to say Adobe Express is a visual content creation tool.

So it works, it helps you create images, it helps you create videos for

social, but for all lots of places as well, and even print media as well.

So right at the top we can see.

We've got for you, we've got social media.

It's broken into different categories like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok,

YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest.

You can also play around with photos.

I'll come onto the AI in a minute.

Documents.

So you've got p the capability of playing around with PDFs in here as well.

Marketing, and of course you've got generative ai.

With the new version of Adobe Express, it's so much easier to collaborate

with other people, whether it's a team, like an internal team that you might

be working with virtual assistants, or maybe you have clients you can now

share your creations or some people can.

Like a designer can can share their creations and you can collaborate with

each other and you can move things around and comment and stuff like that.

I'm not gonna show you that today but I've created a video on YouTube.

If you go to my YouTube channel, Ian Anderson Gray, you

can find out all about that.

Now the generative AI stuff is really cool because you can now just put in

some text basically create a prompt and it will come up with some stuff.

I'm massively into Lord of the Rings, so I'm going to ask it to

create mysterious Hobbit whole house.

Near the woods at night with an owl in the trees.

That might be a bit specific, but let's see what that comes up with.

So I'm generating that.

What this is doing is it's pinging a request over to Adobe

Firefly, and then the artificial intelligence is coming up with.

The image and it's come up with it now and that is pretty cool.

So obviously if you're listening to the podcast, you won't be able to see this,

but it is a mysterious word and it is pretty much like a hobbit hole here.

So now I might not particularly like this version, but that's okay because it's

come up with four different versions.

The second one is good.

I like that.

The third one, the owl, is actually right on top of the house

and yeah, that's pretty good.

But maybe I want to have a different idea.

I might want to have.

Maybe I want to have a painting.

I want to make this a painting, an acrylic painting idea.

So let's generate that again, and it's gonna come up with a

different style acrylic painting.

And if I don't like that, I can keep on generating different

things different ideas.

That is really good.

Cool.

So this would be good for a kid's book.

If you're listening to the podcast, you need to go and watch the video

here because it's really cool.

So yeah.

Anyway that's awesome.

And then you can then add that to one of your projects in Adobe Express.

I really like that.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm gonna download that actually I think for later.

So I'm gonna download that as a p and g.

It's downloading that.

And I'm gonna go back to, I'm gonna go to, My stuff.

And I also want to show you, I've got all these graphics.

So I've already added my brand.

And in my brand I've got my logo bug there.

So I can add my logo bug, say to the top right hand side.

I can also, if I go again to, I can add some, I've not actually added

my fonts, so let's add my fonts.

I'm gonna use the Bevis new regular as my font.

And I'm going to, that's, I like that.

I like that.

So let's add some text to the screen, add some text.

And this is adventure story.

I'm gonna call this, if I can spell correctly, I dunno whether I've actually

adventure story and then let's change that to that font that I used earlier.

So I quite like that and I'm going to change the color.

To, let's just let's use my brand.

That's good.

And then let's just drag that to the top or maybe the bottom actually.

And these, you've even got things like text effects.

I can make that glow can make that strong, or I can even use some text effects using.

Artificial intelligence again.

So for example, I could do, I don't think this is gonna look very good.

I could do a disco ball, so this is gonna change the text into a disco ball.

Effect, which is really cool.

So there's so many different things I'm not showing you.

Oh my goodness.

That's yeah, that looks a little bit weird.

But anyway, there you go.

Adobe Express, check it out by going to iag.me/go/adobe Express.

There's so many things I haven't shown you, such as the quick

actions and using PDFs as well.

There's so much here.

So for example, with the quick suggestions, we've got text effects,

removing backgrounds, generating QR codes, animate from audio, which

is actually something I haven't.

Played around with yet.

So you can make an animated character with your own voice, which

I definitely want to check out.

So there's so much stuff there.

Do check it out.

I am a brand ambassador for Adobe Express.

But all the views that I give on this channel are my own, are, I'm a big fan.

I've always used Adobe Express for since it came out.

Definitely check that out.

What else have we got?

As well as that?

So much stuff to talk about.

In Adobe Express, you have all those you have the Adobe

Stock Library at your disposal.

But I do wanna talk about another cool one.

Stock library called Pexels.

PS is really cool because it's not just got photos.

You've also got videos and they're all free to use.

These are royalty free images.

So for example, I can just.

Man with laptop, let's just put that in man with laptop and it will come

up with images of a man with laptop.

But maybe I want to show some, find some videos and I've now got some

videos of man with laptop or woman.

I can change that to woman with laptop.

And these are great.

So these are great for creating when, if you're creating YouTube

videos or that type of thing.

So yeah, I, I really love that is Pexels.

And if you're, when you're creating websites j JPEGs are great for

images, but for photos, sorry.

But if you're using logos, then p and g format images are great.

And the problem with that is that PNG images can end up becoming

just really massive in size and they can slow down your website.

Tiny png.com is where I go to for this.

Now, I know Adobe Express has some of these features in, but if you're

just wanting a quick and easy.

Website app that does this, then you, all you need to do is just

drag your PNG into this and it will drastically reduce the size of the image

without affecting the way it looks.

So you can sometimes go from two or three megabytes down to a hundred

K, which is app absolutely nuts.

So that is tiny.

P n g.

Next one we are gonna talk about is eComm Live, and I'm using

eComm Live to create this video.

Now it's a live video tool primarily, but you don't have to use it as a live video.

I'm actually pre-recording this for many reasons.

I'll talk about my reasons for not going live another time.

But it's just, it's not fit.

It's, I don't want you to think that e-Comm Live is all about just streaming,

because it's all about recording.

It's also about upping your game with Zoom presentations and

webinars and things like that.

So e-Comm Live is amazing.

They've currently got a big offer at the moment, 30% off.

All you need to do is go to iag.me/eam, that's iag.me/eam, and

then they've got a big deal there.

30% off if you buy this summer.

So e-comm live is awesome.

I've talked about e-comm live so many times in the pla past.

Now e-comm live also.

Now the new version has multi streaming.

So if you got a powerfully enough computer, you can multistream

to different destinations.

For example, Facebook and YouTube at the same time.

However, you do need to have a powerful computer and powerful

powerful internet for that.

This is why I love Restream and re streaming the e-comm

live work really well together.

So if you're just streaming and you've got a, you've got a computer that can

deal with it and you've also got a decent internet speed, then you might not be

able to, you might not need restream.

However, I want to talk about.

What Restream has, cuz it has the studio facility, multi streaming upload

and stream chat, and lots of more.

It's lots more stuff.

It's got analytics as well.

So the studio is a web based live streaming tool, so you

don't have to download anything.

It's really simple.

You can bring in guests very easily.

You can also stream to your guests channels in a service

called Restream pairs.

That is pretty awesome.

I was helping out with the big live stream that we did to promote the book.

The most amazing marketing book ever.

There you go.

The most amazing marketing book ever.

I'm holding it up.

And for that, we went live over a 20, 24 hour period and we had all the authors,

all a lot of the authors from the book.

And we were able to just by extending our, the guests a link, they were

able to add the, their channels and we were able to broadcast it to

lots more channels through Restream.

So the studio is cool.

You've got this ability to multistream to lots of different

places all at the same time.

They've got about 30 different destinations, including many ones

that you won't have heard of as well.

But you've also got the ability to upload a video and stream that live, and

that's what I'm actually using for this.

If you are watching this live, this is a prerecorded video.

We've, I've edited it and then I've uploaded it into Restream and

then it's broadcasting this live to Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

So you don't necessarily need to go live.

Personally, I think going live is great and you should only use the streaming

of prerecorded videos minimally.

I'm using that a lot at the moment, but that's just for

reasons I'll talk about later.

You've also got this chat facility, so this is baked into Restream Studio,

but it also links in with e-comm.

So if you are.

Linking it in with eam.

You can see all the chat from Restream on all those different

channels in ECA as well.

And you've got analytics.

So Restream is cool.

You can use it with with the studio or you can use it with other tools

like o Bs with Wirecast with.

EComm live.

It is really cool.

So that is restream.

Now the next tool that I wanted to talk about is a Mac only tool,

and it's called Screen Flow.

Now, if you are a PC user, the tool that I'd recommend here is called Camtasia.

So the screen flow is basically, it records your screen and it's great

if you are giving you're wanting to give a, create a tutorial.

I use it for basically all my courses that I create, but I

even use it to edit videos.

So I'm an Amazon influencer.

I actually use ScreenFlow as my video editing tool.

I do have the professional stuff up there.

I've got OB Premier Pro.

I've also got what's the one for Mac?

I've even forgot what it's called.

Final Cuts, final Cut Pro.

I've got those, but I keep on coming back to ScreenFlow cuz it's just so simple.

And you can do so much with ScreenFlow.

So if you're a Mac user, ScreenFlow.

If you're a PC user, the alternative is Camtasia.

Camtasia is also available for Mac, but I personally really ScreenFlow.

It is really cool.

Now the next one is script and I use script.

For editing this podcast.

So I use ScreenFlow for a lot of stuff, but for this for this podcast, I use a

script because you can just drag and drop your video or your audio into script.

It will transcribe that into text and then you can.

Edit the video or the audio just by editing the text.

You can get rid of fellow words, ums and uhs.

You can do so many cool things with it.

It is amazing.

I'm only talking a little bit briefly about it, but if you're wanting

to repurpose, if you're wanting to create lots of video snippets,

just script is the tool for you.

It is pretty cool.

Okay.

Podcasting.

If you want a podcast host, the host that I use is Captivate fm.

I was actually their first ever customer.

They haven't quite released it yet, but I was looking for a podcast host and

Mark Asquith, who I'm good friends with, he's the founder of captivate Captivates.

He said, why don't you just try my hosting and it is just, I've used a lot and I've

looked into this a lot, but a thing about I love about Captivate is it offers the

sweet spot between ease of use and power, and it's very much focusing on how to

manage, grow, and monetize your podcast.

So not only has its got amazing analytics in there, it's also got the ability to.

Add ads at the beginning and the end, and to manage those and in the middle

as well, you can add them really easily.

Love Captivate fm.

You can find that out at iag.me/captivate.

Now if you have a podcast, it's really difficult to see how you're doing in

terms of the growth and how you are.

Ranked on Apple Podcasts and also reviews as well, because, I dunno why Apple do

this, but if somebody leaves a review and they're in the uk, it will only

appear on Apple Podcasts in the uk.

So if you are in the US you won't see that and vice versa.

And so what pods status does, and there's a few different tools that do

this, but I really love POD status.

Because it's very good value for money is it will allow you to track

the progress of your podcast, but it will also show you reviews from all

the different countries in there.

It is really cool.

Oh, there, there's my friend Phil Pollan on there.

That's really cool.

Yeah really cool part status.

Com pod status.com.

And of course, the other tool, which this is completely free, is pod

chaser.com, and it's built as the I M D B of the podcasting world.

It basically it, it shows you all your, all the podcasts that you like, but in

terms of, so I can see here, If I click on my name, I have all the podcasts

that I've been a guest on, so I can see there's idea time innovation with Dr.

Joe North.

Been on the Christian CEO Podcast with Kelly Barda.

Let's Talk Money and More with Leslie Thomas.

We've got a livestream backstage with Alec Johnson.

I've been a guest on all of those, and I add all mine on the air.

So for example, I, if I click on the Confident Live Marketing Show.

I can see there are 227 episodes here.

I can see all the guests on the show.

There should be loads more than that.

Yeah, it's just taking a bit of time so I can see all my previous guests.

So this is great.

If you are a podcaster, you podcast might already be on pod josepha, but

you can go in there and claim it.

It's really cool.

Awesome.

We are almost out of time, but I did wanna talk about some tools

to do with content and social.

Now the tool that I use, and I've talked about loads, is a Agora Pulse.

A Agora Pulse is a social media management tool, so it helps you

manage Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, not Pinterest

but hopefully Pinterest is coming.

Instagram.

TikTok, it helps you publish and schedule and it helps you manage

messages and social replies and mentions and all that kind of stuff.

And it also has analytics and reports.

There is a free version of this.

The price.

So it, at first glance, it might look expensive, but actually the price of

their cheapest one is really good value for money when you compare with the

likes of Hootsuite and Sprout Social.

And even if you compare with some cheaper ones out there, like Buffer

and Social Champ, remember, this is a social media management tool,

so it has everything in there.

It doesn't just allow you to post and schedule.

It also has a social inbox, analytics reporting.

All those kind of things baked in.

And they've also now got an AI powered writing assistant as well.

So if you're wanting to create copy for ads or a social post, organic

social posts, you can do that as well.

So if you wanna find out more about that, go to ieg.me/agorapulse

ieg.me/agora pulse.

It is awesome.

Okay, next few tools to talk about this.

Buzz Sumo, and I've not talked about Buzz Sumo for ages, but I love Buzz Sumo

because if you are creating content, whether it's videos or blog posts,

you want to do the research, what type of posts are doing really well?

So you do a search for the type of content that you're wanting to create,

and then it will come up with all the most shared posts out there.

What is being shared the most?

Because from a social point of view, Sharing is the most valuable because

if people really like it, they might like it, but if they really

like it, they might share it out.

So Buzz Sumo is awesome.

Buzz sumo.com.

And then of course you've got Grammarly as well.

I'm just gonna sign out.

But you've got, yeah, it's, they've got a free version of this.

And Grammarly is basically helps you, it corrects your grammar

and helps you write better.

It's AI driven.

I love Grammarly.

It is really cool.

And then we've got SEMrush.

I always used to call it s e m, rush search Engine Marketing,

but it is pronounced SEMrush.

If you are interested in growing your website and increasing the SEO

optimization, then SEMrush is for you.

One more to talk about and that is brand 20 four.com.

This is a social listening and monitoring tool, so if you want to make sure that

you are finding out when people mention you, then you wanna check out brand 24.

It is pretty cool.

Brand 20 four.com.

And that is it.

I've, I'm not gonna go on anymore, but Brand 24 was the final one.

I will do another, I will do another episode talking about different tools.

I think that would be really cool.

But that is it for this week.

Until next time when we've got the return of Frank Pendergrass on

the show, looking forward to that.

But until next time, I encourage you to level up your impact,

authority, and profits through the power of Confident Live video.

See you soon.

Bye.

Thanks for watching the Confident Live Marketing Show with Ian Anderson.

Greg, make sure you subscribe at Iag me slash podcast so you can continue

to level up your impact, authority, and profits through the power of Live video.