When mapping out what you’re going to do this year to strengthen your marketing strategy, make sure investing in smart content tools is at the top of the list.

Streamlining the work you do through a solid tech stack will only allow you and your team to have more time to think big picture. Leave your outdated ways of creating, sharing, and analyzing in 2021 and bring exciting, easy-to-use software on board.

Looking for a sign to add new content tools to your toolkit in 2022? This is it.

Here are 12 we always have in our back pocket:

1. Hootsuite

What it is: Hootsuite helps content creators everywhere consolidate social media accounts, schedule posts and campaigns, provide analytics and organize your trusted news sources.

Why you need it: Social media management tools like Hootsuite are critical for taking the stress away from the everyday chaos of managing and producing social media campaigns so you can spend more time on creating posts, engaging with audiences, and keeping track of the 24-hour news cycle. 

2. Slack

What it is: Slack keeps companies connected by providing teams with a streamlined communications platform that enhances projects and all-around decision making.

Why you need it: With outside app integration and easy search functions, Slack is much more efficient than email when it comes to collaborating with a team.

3. Vimeo

What it is: Vimeo is an all-in-one video software that offers solutions for video editing, live streaming, virtual events, OTT, and more. This powerful video platform aims to provide professional-quality video to an array of audiences from large marketing teams to individual content creators.

Why you need it: Aside from being incredibly easy-to-use for first time video creators, Vimeo has tools to market your business, communicate internally, collaborate on videos, host events, and monetize content all in one place.

4. Adobe Creative Cloud

What it is: Adobe Creative Cloud is every designer’s must-have. It’s comprised of applications for graphic design, video-editing, and web development, which all require a monthly subscription for use.

Why you need it: The applications give visual content creators who are adept at producing visuals from the ground up the ultimate customizability and control over virtually all elements of the creative process.

5. Canva

What it is: Canva is a free graphic-design tool that gives users access to over a million photos, graphics, and fonts.

Why you need it: The website has an easy-to-use interface, offers free downloads, and allows users to format visual assets for a variety of social platforms. 

6. Wipster

What it is: Wipster is a video feedback and approval tool that allows comments to be pinned on specific video frames. It logs ongoing drafts for review and integrates into several publishing platforms.

Why you need it: No more hovering over editors’ shoulders or writing out lists of timecodes for edits. Pinning comments frame-by-frame allows videos to act as a living document. Click directly on what needs to be changed and work with editors without being in the same room. 

7. Khoros

What it is: Khoros is a social media marketing platform used by some of the biggest media agencies out there. It helps you to connect to viewers by improving and rounding out how you execute your social strategies.

Why you need it: Who doesn’t need a platform that helps you reach your audience? Khoros can help you optimize your social media strategies by letting you keep everything in one place so you can share more with your audience, faster. 

8. Edubirdie 

What it is: Edubirdie, an essay writing service, has a free online tool that lets you double check for plagiarism in any article or essay.

Why you need it: Plagiarism is one of the most severe mistakes made by all kinds of writers. Edubirdie’s tool is free, fast, credible, and helps ensure your work is free of mistakes and unreferenced citations.

9. Sisense

What it is: Sisense enables companies to make informed decisions using their wide array of dashboards and charts, including features such as embedded analytics and cloud innovation.

Why you need it: Easily share and customize data sets in charts and page dashboards to suit your needs at any given moment.

10. Parse.ly

What it is: Parse.ly tracks real-time and historic audience engagement for web and video.

Why you need it: What could be more important than being able to track which articles your audience is viewing and engaging with most? Parse.ly takes it a step further than some of their competitors with in-depth historic data and filters for everything from tags to verticals and individual writers. 

11. Trello

What it is: Trello is a collaboration tool where you can organize projects and aggregate information to use for a later date.

Why you need it: Trello can do almost anything. Its message board format lets you take quick notes and schedule projects for the future. It offers integration with most major apps and services so posting and sharing across multiple platforms is a breeze. 

12. Salesforce

What it is: Salesforce is a customer relationship management tool that allows you to best connect and interact with potential and current customers.

Why you need it: Salesforce does a lot, including automatically updating reports on revenue, workflow automations that make communication between teams much easier, and arguably most importantly, the ability to integrate with basically any other platform.