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The Most Valuable Creator Tools You've Never Heard Of
I interviewed 40+ top Creators about their tech stack and handpicked their sleeper automation, engagement, and monetization tools to help you hack your way to Creator success!
Avi Gandhi
April 25, 2024
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Having the right tools at your disposal can make all the difference as a Creator, and there’s a vast array of lesser-known yet super powerful tools out there.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll dive into the hidden gems that top Creators swear by, from marketplaces that get you paid for content creation to Discord servers where you can find excellent YouTube editors - and much more.
This will be a living document where we will continue to add great products that help Creators win, so make sure to bookmark it and check back every once in a while.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
Audience Engagement: Manychat
If you’ve ever seen big Creators say “comment and I’ll DM you XYZ”, and wondered how the heck they fulfilled sending DMs to thousands of commenters…Manychat is how. It automates the whole thing, which has another big benefit:
When you get a DM on Instagram, it pops up. I don't have my notifications on for Instagram, but if I'm in the app, a notification pops up saying, ‘Hey, Duke just sent an attachment.’
That's what happens when you comment the word 'member'. Literally three seconds later, you'll get a notification at the top saying, ‘Hey, Duke just sent you an attachment.’
It’s a clever workaround Instagram’s limitations:
Instagram obviously doesn't allow links in the caption or comments, and a lot of followers find it hard to go to your link in bio to find your outfit of the day.
That's been a game changer for my account because before that… we had an assistant who would send them out individually and it took forever. Not only is it good for sales, but it's also good for engagement. Everybody, even if they don't plan on buying it, will still ask for a link just because they think they might want it later!
Affiliate marketplaces are super valuable for Creators; they provide a centralized platform to discover and participate in lucrative brand partnerships.
I firmly believe that affiliate is the silent juggernaut of the Creator Economy, both in terms of Creator revenue and value generated for brands.
LTK is a Creator favorite — a beloved and more exclusive affiliate alternative to Amazon.
[It is] so much easier to use from a Creator's perspective. They have so many tools available, like 'Shop the Post', and you can create big shoppable web pages… it's just kind of been what I’ve been using ever since.”
LTK could also have an edge over just putting your affiliate links on social media platforms:
They're a bit better with linking things on platforms like Instagram, because Instagram is not fully transparent. If you are making money off of products, they don't show you that data. You have no clue - if you're posting a photo, did I push somebody to buy this product? There's no way to link and track that very well.
Like To Know It is what we like to use to embed on our website, but we can also connect that with Pinterest and with Instagram so that we know if somebody is purchasing something.
Once you're approved through LTK, then you are able to generate a link that is specific to me for all of these brands that I was already talking about and sharing. When someone clicks it, even if they don't buy anything, you can still see that they clicked the link and went to the website and all of that.
They’re even starting to become a social platform of their own.
I see it more as a social place for me to post collections of products. People can shop collages or click through to products a lot easier. It’s a whole different audience that I'm trying to capture.
These Amazon Aggregators solve two problems that Creators like Logan Nathanson grapple with daily in the affiliate game:
Discovering new, interesting products
Finding products is definitely one of the major challenges we have because you just have to search and search until you find things.
Spending money on all the products he features
Right now we probably buy, even with all these programs and brand deals, probably 80-85% of the products that we talk about.
So-called “Amazon aggregators” present a solution.
Their goal is to buy out Amazon sellers and aggregate them…They own hundreds of products or brands.
These companies also pay him a little extra on top of his Amazon commission, so overall they provide 3 benefits:
1. To have a list of 500 home products helps narrow it down a little bit, versus the 500,000 that I'd have to look through on Amazon.
2. I get to do exactly what I'm doing but earn additional commissions.
3. Those products are free, which could definitely make a difference. If it's a multiple-hundred-dollar product, I don't have to go purchase that myself.
UGC (User-Generated Content) marketplaces allow brands to discover, license, and leverage content created by everyday consumers, influencers, and creators.
Over the last two years, Cheddar Chez worked with 700+ brands via these platforms:
There was one particular third party app called Billo that I got started with…I'm like, “Oh my gosh, people do this? You can get paid to do this?”... They do the marketing to bring people who want my services to me. I just went and applied to whatever brand that I wanted to work for, and then from there, I think the first month I made like $1,200. I was trying to make $500, but I ended up making double that.
Then from there, it was just like 40 videos a month, 50 videos a month, back to back to back to back to back.
Billo was just Chez’s entry point - a place to establish himself as a quality UGC Creator and learn how the UGC business works. Eventually, he discovered the next level.
I came across another platform called Insense, and that platform paid way more than what I was making on Billo.
[It was like] $300 for a video, $500 for a video, $800 for a video, where, like, on Billo, you're getting $70 as a Premium Creator. I'm on Insense and I'm like, “Man, this is crazy!”
The other benefit of being a UGC Creator in these marketplaces is that you receive a ton of product that you can keep or resell.
My front door looked like an Amazon warehouse. I had packages at my front door every single day!
Content Creation: Opus Clips, Readwise, and The Leap
Whether you're an individual Creator, a team, or a brand, being able to efficiently produce high-quality, engaging content efficiently is critical.
Here are some useful tools successful Creators use to streamline their process:
Opus is a generative AI video tool, powered by GPT-4, that repurposes long videos into shorts in one click.
For our podcast, we use Opus Clips, which is an AI clip cut down tool. You upload the whole thing, it captions it, and then it gives you a bunch of cut up clips.
I use Opus myself, to cut down my podcast appearances into clips for LinkedIn. My editor also uses it to speed up the process of turning my YouTube videos into promotional shorts.
Readwise makes it easy to revisit your ebook & article highlights in Kindle, for use as inspiration or in your content.
It's really cool. It takes your Kindle highlights and turns them into a dashboard and then turns them into note cards and also imports them into Notion…It totally 10xed my game, where I could just search through any quote I've ever read or any quote I've ever highlighted.
A super simple vertical video tool for making and selling short courses, potentially on less complex subjects or to test the market for a larger course.
It's all done through the phone… and it's so easy. I did the entire course in an hour and a half, and then edited it, which took about three hours.
It's driven almost $300 from a class that I used to host. I used to host in-person workshops for flower arranging, and this is just an easy passive way to keep that knowledge going for anyone who wants to take that class.
It’s so simple. Essentially, it helps you as a Creator transition from digital products to very easy courses - speedy things that you can learn in under 30 minutes. It can be used as a teaser for, if you want to do something longer, a course in the future. And it's all cell-phone-based; you film everything 9 by 16.
Beyond creating content, getting in front of the right eyes at the right time is key. These tools can help make it easier.
Automatically updates your Twitter handle in real-time to show when you’re streaming live on Twitch.
When I go live on Twitch, my username updates to say that I'm live now, which then acts as a banner. And then, because I'm sharing good content that other people are sharing to their own audiences, it shows 'Live Now' for every single retweet.
So people end up coming to my Twitch stream from that. It's automated.
Twitter/X analytics and monitoring platform that helps Creators simplify and automate their content posting.
You can compose threads sequentially and then have them post at specific times, and then you can also have it do the auto-retweet thing, as well as plug your newsletter after it gets 50 likes or something…so instead of putting a link in the first tweet, and not getting any reach, you can do it later.
Automation: Keyboard Maestro and Zapier
Over time, shaving minutes (or even just seconds) off your Creator workflow can add up to hours and even days that you can either reinvest in your business or use to take a well-deserved break.
Automate keyboard and hardware shortcuts to streamline your workflow and save time.
You can set up shortcuts on your keyboard so it'll open up specific websites or it'll bring up different tasks that you need to do. You could even do something like, if you plug in your headphones, it'll automatically mute all your distractions and do all the things so that you're ready for a podcast. That kind of thing.
Zapier lets you automate actions between different software tools - like email, forms, project management, etc. This sounds boring, but is actually wildly powerful - especially if you’re trying to build a funnel to turn your audience into customers.
If someone fills out a form on ClickFunnels, I have Zapier fill out that same form on HubSpot…Then HubSpot's going to score them. Then, based on that score and what they said, it's going to assign one of the onboarding members, either Austin or Thomas. Once they're assigned, they're also going to be assigned a task - 'Hey, make sure you call this person within...' Then it also goes into Lark….
So Zapier triggers all of these things to connect across platforms that wouldn't be able to connect otherwise.
Diversification can boost your audience, income, and engagement. These platforms make it easy to post across YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, X, and more.
For easily multistreaming to many platforms. Livestreaming isn’t just for gamers - if your goal is to build a deep relationship with your audience, don’t sleep on it.
I will dual stream to Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok Gaming at the same time, and then I'll use Restream.io for a combined chat…it's great, it's every streamer's best friend!
…Restream gives you your own stream key, the code that you need to put into OBS, which is the streaming software to stream to the different websites. You stream and then it automatically streams to YouTube and Twitch. TikTok is not on it quite yet, so I have to put in my TikTok in a different way, but it all ends up working out.
Restream lets you stream to all those platforms at once and then it combines the chats so that you can read the chats in one thing.
People are always saying, “I've been watching your livestreams and you give so much value - that's why I decided to join the course…”
The livestreams serve as mid-funnel in terms of nurturing the people who are already in my audience and continuing to provide value to them on an ongoing basis.
Livestreaming tool designed for Mac; streams to all platforms
For me, it's just the way that the layout is - it's very simplified and easy for me to use.
Project Management: Rella
After years of trying to manage her brand campaigns in notes, spreadsheets, Google Drive, and a plethora of other software, Natalie Barbu created Rella to streamline and centralize Creator project management:
I was using so many different things to manage my business as a Creator - content planners, notes on my phone, spreadsheets for revenue, project management tools for brand deals, and it was just so scattered and fragmented.
I would always spend hours each week on admin tasks because I had a lot of brand deals and content that I was putting out across different platforms.
I was like, “Why is there nothing out there that's just one tool for all of this?” And so that's how Rella started.
Rella is ridiculously robust. For example - if you upload a contract, it’ll point out red flags, as well as pull all the deal terms, add dates and deliverables to your calendar, remind you to send invoices, etc. You can also use it to store files, add team members for review, schedule uploads and posts across social platforms.
Natalie recorded a 2-minute walkthrough for Creator Logic readers - check it out if you’re interested!
Staffing: Invite-only Discord servers
Outside-the-box tactic to find great editors, thumbnail artists, content strategists, and other freelancers that specialize in social media.
We've had a lot of success and found some editors through niche Discord groups, which isn't something many people think of. It's such a different hiring process for YouTube editing vs traditional Hollywood editing, which we run into where they're like, “Why do I have to do all these weird sound effects? What’s retention?” It’s a different world. So Creative Paradise is where we find a lot of people for short-form content, and we've hired from Colin & Samir's Discord group as well."
Podcast Hosting: Red Circle
Free, simple podcast hosting with automated ads.
At the time, when I started in 2020, I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue the podcast - and their hosting is completely free. The only risk I could find was that they were small and they might just shut down.
It's been four years and they're still there and going strong. I like them because it's very easy. I just upload it and it's out to all platforms without me having to think about it. Never had an issue.
Payment Processing + Banking: Novo
Free business banking platform with integrated invoicing, built for Creators.
I signed up for a bank for Creators and self-employed entrepreneurs called Novo Banking. Now I primarily invoice my clients through that and they send the money directly to my bank versus going through Stripe, paying the Stripe fees, and then coming to my account.
Invoicing: Wingspan
Free invoicing platform where the payer pays the fee.
There’s no fee on the freelancer end because the fees are put onto the clients, which is really nice.
Bio Link: Hopp
Wix’s searchable bio link platform — excellent for Creators talking about products and wanting to sell via affiliates. Anna Daly’s management team chose it for her:
There's so many different capabilities. We added Anna's products in there and there are little widgets that you can go and shop. You can add searchable keywords and specific codes, and viewers can easily copy it before they go shop the link.
Email signature: WiseStamp
Unify your brand and turn your emails into a powerful marketing tool.
[We’re] always trying to find little ways of standing out. This was an early choice, so were price sensitive + lots of customization options (IG feed, quotes, etc. in email signature)
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Written by Avi Gandhi, edited by Melody Song,
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