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These are the tools and products I use as a content creator.
The links on this page are affiliate links: if you make a purchase using one of the links below, I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!
Hands down, Descript is my FAVORITE video and audio editing software.
Descript can be used for editing any audio or video – it is popular with video creators and podcasters.
Descript is a script-based editor, rather than a timeline-based editor.
To use Descript, you upload your video into the program. The program then automatically generates a transcript of your video or audio file.
From there, you can quickly edit the media (video or audio) by editing the script, not by editing the timeline.
This speeds up the editing process dramatically, because it’s easy to simply highlight and delete bad takes or errors without even having to take the time to listen to them.
Additionally, you can highlight text and move it around, just like you can in a word-processing program.
Descript also has AI features, such as voice generation, which allows you to correct an individual word in the recording without having to re-record it and insert it.
They have a tiered pricing system: you can sign up for the free version and upgrade to a paid version if you decide you need more features.
I started by using the free version, and it completely blew my mind. After trying it for 15 minutes, and realizing the capacity of this editing program, I upgraded immediately and more than a year and a half later, I haven’t looked back.
If you are a content creator, you need an email list. Even if you are NOT a content creator, but if you are a piano teacher or other business person looking to grow your studio or business, an email list can be a very helpful tool.
I started my email list in 2010, as a means of publicizing my own and my students’ events. For many years, my email list had somewhere between 70-100 people on it.
When I started my YouTube channel, I started to get serious about growing my email list and sending weekly emails (well, as close to weekly as I can manage!).
(By the way: you can sign up for my weekly newsletter here!)
Now my email list has about 3000 subscribers, and it is continuing to grow.
Here are the reasons having an email list is important:
There are many Email marketing providers out there, and I have tried several. I eventually ended up settling on ConvertKit, and I couldn’t be happier with them.
I chose Convertkit for so many reasons, including:
• Their deliverability rate is very reliable (meaning your emails actually end up in peoples’ inboxes)
• They have amazing customer support
• The interface is highly intuitive and it’s easy to create a template for your newsletter
• They are one of the industry’s leaders in terms of new innovations
• It is easy to “tag” or “segment” your audience based on their interests or unique needs
• It is easy to set up autoresponder sequences for new subscribers or other segments of your audience
Convertkit has a dynamic pricing model, where the amount you pay is related to the number of subscribers you have. It is completely free for up to 1000 subscribers on your email list.
One aspect of content creation is cultivating and expanding a social media presence. I am not a huge fan of social media, mostly because it takes a lot of time and attention and it’s hard for me to be consistent.
I realized that a social media scheduler was the right decision for me, because a tool like this allows you to pre-write your social media posts and then schedule them out over time.
I started off with a social media scheduling software that was geared more towards bloggers. I used it for a year but never quite “clicked” with it – and I didn’t get my full money’s worth out of using it, and I found it too complicated to use.
I am a member of a formal mastermind – we are four content creators, all pianists: two YouTubers and two podcasters. One of my mastermind colleagues told me about SmarterQueue, and I found it wonderfully helpful.
With SmarterQueue, you can tag your social media posts based on category (e.g., “new video” or “behind the scenes” or “student recitals”) and then create a cadence of posting them in different categories.
SmarterQueue schedules to all of the social media platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, X, and pretty much any place you need.
It also integrates with many programs, including Canva (which I use a lot). You can make a design in Canva and then pull it straight from Canva into a post in SmarterQueue.
SmarterQueue comes with a free onboarding call. I found the onboarding call to be extremely helpful. It was wonderful to have somebody walk through the features and show me where everything is, and also answer my questions about how to use the software for my own purposes.
SmarterQueue offers a free trial, so you can take it out for a spin before you commit to paying for it. They also have excellent customer service.
Their pricing is based on the number of social media profiles you are managing. It costs $24.99 for up to four social profiles, which is plenty for most people.
Get an extended free trial (30 days instead of 14 days) by using my affiliate link.
Notion is the program that I use every single day, to organize my entire life. I have used many task management systems and digital organizing systems including ToDoist, Trello, Evernote, and Omnifocus, but after finding Notion, all of those other systems became completely unnecessary.
The brilliant thing about Notion is that it’s highly customizable and you can create anything using their system of blocks, pages, and databases. You can make it as simple or as complex as you need to.
It’s also a great tool for collaborating with other people – you can create pages in Notion and share them with other users, or post them to the internet as web pages.
The drag and drop interface is extremely intuitive and easy to use. You can use it on any device – phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and it syncs your information instantly across all devices.
Notion is completely free to use. It has a paid version, but that is mainly geared toward companies and people who use Notion in teams.
Because it’s so highly customizable, it can actually be a bit intimidating to know how to get started with Notion. I highly recommend watching their tutorials online in order to get an overview of the many capabilites of this program. There are also many free customizable templates that you can download and use.
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