9 Must-Have Tools for the Penny-Pinching Conservative Activist

In a world where there are so many voices competing for noise, it may seem like your brand—whether it’s your blog, your campaign, or your cause—is destined to get drowned out in the ruckus. After all, your low- or no-budget conservative cause probably doesn’t have the financial resources necessary to put together a robust and effective online marketing campaign.

Believe it or not, the best tools to building your online brand are right at your fingertips, and you can get them for free. If you are serious about becoming a conservative digital activist, here are the top free tools you can use to make your brand stand out.

WordPress, Blogger, or Tumblr

 

 

The first step before you do anything else is to build a location to host all of your content. While social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are great places to share your content, none of them are designed to host your content. Use one of these three free sites to build a blog and a website where you can host your own content. Once you start hosting your content, you can then share it.

These sites are all free, assuming you don’t purchase your own private domain (which typically cost between $12-20, depending on how popular the name is). However, buying your own domain makes you look more professional and will help you start the process of building your own brand.

Pro tip: While you can’t use a private domain for Tumblr, it is worthwhile to establish a presence on the site if you plan to use it consistently, mainly because Tumblr acts as a cross between a blog and a social media site and will definitely give you more exposure.

Canva

 

 

Building a distinct brand for yourself is crucial to standing out amidst all of the online chatter. The first part of building your brand is establishing your message. However, while you are deciding on your specific message, it’s equally important for you to start formulating your visual brand.

You don’t have to be a graphic designer with Photoshop experience to start creating visually compelling graphics. Canva.com is a free resource (with some advanced paid features) that allows you to create visually compelling graphics in minutes. You can design your logo, social media memes, and even business cards with this incredibly intuitive software.

Google Analytics

 

 

Once you have a website and an established brand, you’ll need a way to track how people are interacting with your content. Fortunately, Google Analytics integrates well into just about any website, and is fantastic for tracking how many people come onto your website, and what they do once they’re there.

If, as an activist, you really want to change people’s lives and make a difference in the world around you, then tracking your audience’s behavior will give you the knowledge you need to more effectively impact their lives and, hopefully, spur them into action.

Google Trends

 

 

What Google Analytics does for your internal website, Google Trends does for the rest of the outside world—it helps you find out which topics are trending so you write about topics that people are engaging in right now. Politics is, more than anything, a conversation, and Google Trends will empower you to enter the conversation at precisely the right moment.

Google Trends also allows you to compare your brand to similar brands to see which one is generating the most conversation online. Use it to improve your performance relative to your competitors—whether fellow candidates or other online activists—or, if you’re ahead, monitor your lead and keep up with the conversation.

MailChimp

 

 

While social media is a great avenue to get your content out into the world, maintaining an email list allows you to send your content out to people who have already opted in to receive those updates. MailChimp, free up to 2,000 users, allows you to build a list, segment it out by specific interests, and create a professional email signup form that you can imbed easily into your website.

MailChimp gives you the ability to build beautiful email campaigns that put your message in people’s inboxes. By using organic growth to build your list, you are only reaching out to people who want your content, thus giving you a captive audience to engage as you spread the word.

Facebook for Business

 

 

If you are engaged in online content marketing and you don’t have a Facebook page, then you are already behind the times. With over 1 billion people using the network, Facebook is prime real estate for your content. While its algorithmic news feed and emphasis on paid advertising makes organic growth difficult, it is imperative to establish your own presence on Facebook, because people will come looking for you there.

If you are a blogger, then post your latest articles once they go live on your website. If you are a candidate or campaign worker, then post pictures and other great content regularly. Facebook for Business gives you the opportunity to track peak times for your fans and post at those times. Additionally, it allows you to establish a unified location for other people to manage the page with you and, if you want to advertise at some point, then your ad campaign will take place on the same platform as your page.

TweetDeck, Buffer, or Hootsuite

 

 

Just like Facebook, if you are not using Twitter, then you are slacking in your social media management. Twitter allows you to monitor trending conversations through hashtags, as well as catch the breaking news when it’s happening.

However, one of the downsides to Twitter is that the vast array of content requires you to be posting constantly. Due to the fact that you probably aren’t on Twitter 24/7, using tools like TweetDeck, Buffer, or Hootsuite, will allow you to schedule out Tweets so that your audience is constantly collecting information at the right times throughout each day. These tools also give you the opportunity to monitor your Tweets and discover which work best with your audience.

ManageFlitter

 

 

Building a presence on Twitter can be a bit challenging and time-consuming. Fortunately, ManageFlitter allows you to find out who’s following who and who you should be following. Use it to manage your audience in a way that is more powerful and effective than the regular Twitter platform.

Asana

 

 

If you are working as a part of a team, check out this new management program that is all the rage. Create projects, manage your team, assign tasks, and view your entire calendar in one place, allowing your whole team to be on the same page.

With the online marketing world requiring a lot of work and a lot of coordination, you’ll need a tool like this to keep your entire team productive while you advance your cause and make a lasting impact in the digital realm.