We joint Microsoft 365 Office with whole organization late compared to other companies, all of us have now been working under same organization since beginning of year 2021. Before this we used MS Office services separately. I use mainly Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook and Teams from this. MS 365 O tools integrate seamlessly with each other. We have company pages in Facebook and LinkedIn, I also have my own profile in those. I have posted also advertisements in Facebook. WhatsApp is familiar in private and business use. On my free time I also use apps like Instagram, SnapChat, TikTok and Pinterest. I have google account separately in private life and other for work purpose. At work I manage my office´s company profile from this account. I can read feedback and reply to those, add pictures, modify company information, change pictures, ask reviews etc. If someone wants to chat via Google Meets this is ok too.
5 new digital tools for work
Canva is free photo and video editor. Canva was established year 2013.Great tool to create better design posts, videos, cards, flyers, posters, documents, invitations etc. Canva has thousands of free layouts, fonts, backgrounds, images. It is easy tool for editing photos, and you can make very good presentations and frameworks with this. You can even work on Canva with your team together. You can also connect social media accounts to your Canva. I have connected my Facebook and LinkedIn profile to this. I can make posts through Canva see these directly in my feed. All this is for free, if you want to get more features you can buy Canva Pro, it costs 109,99€/ one person/ year. Canva Pro is their premium product and working with Pro is time saving, it has features that are not available in basic Canva.
Hootsuite is tool for businesses to manage multiple social media accounts. It was established 2008, so it definitely is one of the pioneers. You can create and manage campaigns, engage with customers, and collaborate with your team from one place. I had this for few months. With Hoot-suite you can track activity and analyze results from different social media platforms. I used it for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Nice that in Hootsuite you can see if someone has replied to your posts, and you can reply to them back through Hootsuite. Hootsuite costs 99€/month/one us-er/10 social media accounts. You can first try this with free trial. They have increased their pricing rapidly and is now multiple times more expensive than few years ago. Hootsuite has also paid ad-vertising features.
Buffer is also social media management tool. Just like Hootsuite and Canva it allows you to auto-mate your posts for different social media platforms. Buffer is cheaper than Hootsuite, but their pric-ing is made differently so if you are not careful you might end up paying much more then you planned. Buffer is better for beginners, but when you grow as user you might start to need features that are more easily available in Hootsuite. Buffer also tracks users, but it can´t be used as effec-tively as with Hootsuite. You can get started free with Buffer Free. Buffer Essential has for publishing features, analytics and engagement tools, cost $6/month/one channel. There is also Team and Agency profiles with higher prices. For all of those you have possibility to try 14 days for free.
Instagram is free photo and video sharing app. I use this in my private life, but we have not yet started using this at work. You can use it for creating and sharing photos, stories, reels and videos, as well as follow what others are posting. You can scroll users, follow people, comment and like posts that others have shared in Instagram. With business account you get additional tools, you can connect with customers, share information, and help your business to be discovered. If you want to advertise something in Instagram, you can affect to costs with your requirements for this ad.
LinkedIn recruiting tools helps you find, attract and connect. You can post jobs in LinkedIn. If you want to do this for free you have very limited possibilities compared to these services that LinkedIn Talent Solutions offers. They have these specific products for hiring: LinkedIn Jobs, LinkedIn Recruit Lite & LinkedIn Recruit. These products help matching open roles and qualified candidates. If you want more features there is more services and products available. For free you can only have one job post at a time and limited number of free jobs in 30-day window. When you start promoting your job, advertising then this ad changes to LinkedIn Jobs. With this you can plan your budget according to your wishes. LinkedIn Lite has package features like 30 InMail messages/month, 20+ search filters. If you have wide network it can work ok, because it finds and engages from your 1st, 2nd and 3rd connections, you have limited candidate profile views. With LinkedIn Recruit you get same features as from Lite but little more and better. For example 150 InMail messages/month, 40+search filters and “open to work” and “more likely to respond” appliers, unlimited candidate views, great ATS integrations (applicant tracking system). Custom reporting and analytic tools. Lite is about $170/month for one user and Recruit $1080/month one person, but possibility for collaboration.
Self-evaluation
Digital software tools can be great help with your daily tasks at work, this improves efficiency and productivity. Sometimes I feel a bit overwhelmed with all options there are, this is why I think companies should evaluate digital tools and decide what tools they should use. Specially if there is need to collaborate with others, or these tools need to integrate with other tools. When choosing new tools it is good to compare different options and list pros and cons. I feel that I am skilled user for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, but there is still features that are not familiar to me. Facebook made some changes this summer with advertising, and I have not yet looked into this matter more deeply. It was interesting to learn about new tools that could be useful in my work, and I feel I should do this every now and then.