Work : Best Mobile Blogging Apps

If you’re like me, as much as you’d love to scour the internet, analytics, social media and all that jazz all day everyday – you just don’t have the time. Nope! Not at all.

Fortunately, us bloggers have technology on our side with tons (and I mean TONS) of options to have us scheduling posts, tweets, updates and scanning up-to-the-minute stats straight from your phone. And when you’re a go-getter running around all day, (or maybe tied to your desk at work) you can fit in some blogging work on the go. I mean, red lights are here for a purpose right: to schedule tweets. Heck, you can squeeze in seconds where you can all over the place – from in-line at Starbucks or the grocery, to sitting in a waiting room, hanging out in the car wash while your car skims through, on and on.

This makes me sound SUPER boring, but I don’t have any games on my phone anymore. I definitely don’t have time for Candy Crush but what I do have time for are some fast and easy apps to help me feel connected to Dream in Lace, even when I literally don’t have 5 minutes to spare. And yet, while I’m definitely not someone on the hunt for the latest and greatest app, I do feel pretty good about the go-to selections on my iPhone to keep me at least somewhat on top of my game. It’s like how businesses have their tech stacks, I have my app stacks! Hey, fake it till you make it right?

Let’s just buckle down and get to it. Here are my nine favorite apps for blogging on the go!

WordPress
This one is a bit of a shocker. When Dream in Lace was hosted on Blogger I literally despised the Blogger app and would basically only use it in the case of a blogging emergency – i.e. massive typo, weird formatting, whatever. Now Dream in Lace sits on WordPress and I’m all about the WordPress app on-the-go. No, I have never written an actual post on it (or edited one, come to think of it), but it’s great for real-time stats via JetPack and reading/responding to comments. I have Disqus as my commenting system, and they (stupidly) don’t have an app – so I go to WP instead. It’s a straight-forward, easy to use app that helps you know what’s happening on your blog in a flash. If you follow blogs on WordPress, you can also skim through your feed here. I never use the BlogLovin’ app because it’s highly difficult to comment on it. But I do read and comment on WordPress blogs all the time, right on my phone!

Facebook Pages
Did you know Facebook has a separate Pages app to the typical Facebook app? No? Well, neither did I until about a month ago. If like me and are Admin on several Facebook pages, this will be essential in your life. Trying to navigate back and forth as yourself and various business pages used to be a serious headache for me. I would basically never post anything from my phone because I couldn’t be sure if I was posting my personal pics at a concert to say, work’s page. I mean, you might care that I was at a concert – but I’m pretty sure followers of my day-job’s page could care less 😉 Since discovering the Facebook Pages app, I virtually never use the traditional Facebook app. You can even keep an eye on how your page is doing and check out facebook stats for your page whenever you want. It’s a game-changer!

Google Analytics
One night I was furrowing my brow looking at Google Analytics, and not because I couldn’t make sense of anything. It felt like a major pain in the arse to have to use my computer to track stats. If like me, you’re also Google Analytics admin for multiple websites, like Facebook Pages, this will change your world! Since downloading this app I am WAY more on-top of the Google Analytics for every site I work on. Bonus, it’s actually much easier to navigate than on your laptop. For once, a mobile version of an app that’s actually BETTER than the full site.

Nikon
If you’re camera has wifi, I highly suggest you look into getting the app that connects your phone to your camera. In a pinch, this is a great way to have a remote taking pictures for you. My current camera is a Nikon, and so this app in particular is Nikon. But, if you’re using a Canon I expect there’s a similar option for you. Definitely work looking into!

StumbleUpon
I confess, I’m not always the best at remembering to use StumbleUpon and Reddit for my Dream in Lace posts. It’s still an after-thought and not something ingrained in my brain, such as how SEO is for me (unlike some of my friends who spend ages on sites like Gotch SEO learning all about it). But, I do really like the StumbleUpon app to flip through other’s posts and gain clout. I do this when I have a down moment and really have found some great information and blogs this way. Recipes especially! It has learned I’m a vegetarian and always finds me great recipes, that often end up pinned on my Pinterest page. (Which you should totally follow by the way!)

Google AdSense
Recently I was accepted to the BlogHer ad-publishing network, but I do still use AdSense. I find it works better for me than having to manually place ads from ad-networks. Like Google Analytics, the Adsense App has made me much more likely to actually look at my stats. Plus now I know how to add free google ads scripts after playing around with the app, which is an added bonus. When I had to do it on my laptop, somehow…it never got done. Now, I at least have a vague idea of what’s going on 😉

Buffer
I’ve used Hootsuite for ages for scheduling tweets and never really liked it, mostly because I find Hootsuite really cluttered and messy. Buffer is simple, straight forward and to the point. I like that you can queue up tweets, as well as re-buffer tweets on the go. Buffer also measures not just the number of clicks, but the total reach of your tweet. Reach has always been my number one insight on Facebook for determining post times and content. I think my Twitter game for work and hopefully Dream in Lace will only go up from here.

Dream in Lace Homepage
Okay, not an app – but still something very useful! Having immediate access to Dream in Lace is something so simple, but something I didn’t think about for a while. Sometimes it’s the most obvious that we miss 😉 Being one who schedules posts, I love having a bookmark of Dream in Lace to insure they posted correctly. On occasion, a post misses it’s scheduled time and this is a quick way to check that out. It’s also important to have a mobile view of your website, as many readers browse on their phones these days. I recommend creating a bookmark button for all the websites you maintain.

Bit.Ly App
Do you use bit.ly? Odds are you do, at least some of the time. Having immediate access to my stats through the Bit.Ly app makes me more likely to actually read them. Prior to getting this app, the only time I looked at my stats was when creating more links. Now, I browse them on the go. You don’t have to have a long drawn-out plan or report of your stats, but having a general idea of what links people are clicking on will be of use to you. This is just one added perk to Bit.Ly that I think anyone who maintains a website and social media should be using.

And that’s my list for the Top 9 apps. I could go on, but I figured let’s just keep it to one screen-view for now! If you’d like to see more recommendations, let me know and I can do a part 2! Also, if you have some genius recommendations of apps for maintaining social media and websites, let me know. They are absolutely a great way for me to ‘work’, without really doing much work at all. #NailedIt

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