#SAScon 2015-tools-tips-improve-internal-productivity-efficiency

@alexmoss #SAScon

Tools & Tips to Improve Internal

Productivity & Efficiency

Alex Moss Director, FireCask

@alexmoss #SAScon

Director at FireCask Award-Winning

Online Marketing Agency

Search/Social/Outreach

WordPress Development

We’re also Hiring J

Co-Founder of Peadig WordPress Theme Framework

Bootstrap Integration

Mobile/SEO/Social Friendly

Also lots of plugins

Who am I?

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We’ve worked with these lovely folks over the past year:

Token Client Logo Slide

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All Companies Deal with Pollution

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My Clutter is Organised - in a Laptop

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Reading Tools for Research

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Read faster…

RSS Reader Apps I use RSS Bot for Mac

Cnet covers other apps (Windows & Mac) now Google Reader is dead.

Squirt.io Parses any URL and shows you

content one word at a time.

Reading faster works

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Squirt in Action

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Goodbye Google Reader, Hello Feedly Feedly merges all your RSS feeds into one dashboard. Add your own RSS by URL, and

also discover new feeds by subject.

Alternatively, use Google Drive with ImportFeed functions to pull into a doc.

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Dealing with Leads

Image source: https://goo.gl/B8U76k

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Recruit’em helps you find Leads

An easier way to search through Linkedin, Google+, Twitter and other social networks to find the connection you want.

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My Personal CRM…

Google Chrome & Gmail Once Gmail is loaded, there are some handy Chrome extensions…

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Use Gmail Labs to add functionality to your inbox. The 4 plugins below help user experience and protect you from mistakes…

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I split inboxes into Important, Linkedin and Everything else. Chrome extensions enhance experience and organisation.

My Inbox is Busy, but Organised

Send text messages directly from your inbox.

To-do lists with Gmail integration. Apps for iOS and Android available.

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Find out who you’re Emailing

View more information on a person from their email. Links, social profiles

and other information.

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So, Streak is AWESOME!

Schedule emails to send later & Snooze emails to pop back into your inbox

See if, when and where someone has read your email

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So, Streak is AWESOME! Turn your inbox into a collaborative sales funnel

Also use as an email-based project management system

Use Mail Merge to create mass-templated emails

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Web Based CRM Platforms

Pipedrive Web portal platform

Cheaper and better UX than Salesforce and Basecamp

Wrike Better than Pipedrive,…

More on this later

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Communication

Image source: http://goo.gl/0S7dmD

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Instant Messaging

Skype External Communication

Video Conferencing

Non-Cloud File Transfer

Slack Internal or Team Platform

Channels per Project/Client

Better Search/Archiving

more stuff…

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Set #Channels per Project/Client, and Set Private Groups by Topic or Internal Team

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Integrations mean updates are communicated automatically.

Within FireCask, all our GIT repo commits are sent to our design-

dev channel

Statistics can be viewed within the web interface and also sent by email digest.

Here you can see activity with heat maps of DM’s to public messages.

More reading: http://goo.gl/OLpjcX

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Other Collaborative Tools

Firefox Hello Free videoconferencing

No signups at all, just share URL

Sipgate UK landline VoIP for free

Connect to your smartphone either with call settings or an app

Powwownow Free conference calling

Use 0844 number with PIN

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SEO Tools

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Collaboration

Image source: http://goo.gl/HwmPZV

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Cloud Document Management

Office 365 More privacy over data

Better desktop support

Excel handle big data better

Google Drive Better collaborative tools

Wider community

Cheaper

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A Free Projection Management Tool

Google Drive 2 years ago I created a nifty Google Drive template

to help myself organise all client projects. I even shared it within a long post I wrote for Moz.

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Google Drive Task Management Manage Task, Time & Budgets

Conditional Formatting for Easy Reading

Use scripts to trigger email alerts when allocated time is close

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Organise projects into boards. Each board has lists which can be shared amongst groups. You can even use as an editorial calendar.

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I use it mostly for personal organisation. Having the iOS/Android app also helps.

Holiday Checklist Board: https://trello.com/b/Dm1kNYbP

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All internal projects are managed within Wrike. Split into hierarchy, we can use this for all clients, miscellaneous projects and even as a CRM.

http://firecask.com/go/wrike/

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Projects are split into tree view, with each project containing each task. You can monitor and manage all tasks within your own dashboard.

http://firecask.com/go/wrike/

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All internal projects are managed within Wrike. Split into hierarchy, we can use this for all clients, miscellaneous projects and even as a CRM.

http://firecask.com/go/wrike/

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Each folder has multiple tasks. Each task can be time tracked independently, as well as room for uploads, WYSIWYG text editing and commenting.

http://firecask.com/go/wrike/

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Wrike even has a nifty Chrome Extension with desktop notifications as well as an Android & iOS app, and a LOT of other integrations

http://firecask.com/go/wrike/

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File Transfer

Desktop App

Faster and more secure

Unlimited transfer limits

Less reliance on the cloud

Web Interface

No account needed

Send files up to 2GB

Email confirmations

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Other Collaborative Tools

LastPass Manage all passwords

Share access with your team

Chrome/Android/iOS apps

Evernote

Write formatted notes with rich content to share amongst your team

Chrome/Android/iOS apps

Skitch Great to take screenshots and

annotate them. Syncs with Evernote.

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Developer & Auditing Tools

Image source: http://goo.gl/AEToki

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Some Quick Auditing Tools

Redirect Checker Checks any URL path and redirects that may occur

Sharemetric View the number of shares from a

bunch of social networks

Screaming Frog No explanation needed J

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LinkRisk audits Domain Authority

Uses multiple sources to show you a domain’s link profile

Great for competitor analysis but better to manage multiple client domains to clean up…

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Outreach CRM Platforms

Find potential sites and contact methods by domain or category

Turn outreach into a CRM to monitor contact, make notes and find related sites

Does everything BuzzStream does, plus the slide before, plus:

•  Automatically finds new/lost links every day

•  Easily manage disavow lists and submissions

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Manage your Code Better

Sublime Text Better than Notepad

Colour coded for filetypes

Integrations and functions

Bitbucket GIT is a must for any developer

Bitbucket provides repo’s for free

Paid alternative: Github

SourceTree

Windows/Mac GIT management app to connect your PC to the repo

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Geeky Lifehacks

IFTTT Choose a trigger, then an action

Connect to LOTS of apps

Great for automated tasks

Builtwith Find out information about how a

site is built

AccuRanker There are many rank trackers, but this has been great for FireCask

http://firecask.com/go/accuranker/

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OK, I’m Done! Where’s the Jägertrain?

Image source:https://goo.gl/rF1Yoz

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Thank you! Any Questions?

[email protected]

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Slides:

firecask.com/go/SAScon2015