We all do better when we share.

All communities are small, by nature... a small town, a circle of friends, mom-and-pop businesses, farms. The sharing economy is something we can all participate in; by giving to each other, we all get better at what we do.

Here are some marketing resources we have cultivated; most are free. Contact us to add to the list, and dig in!
Updated 10/4/20.

Best New Finds!
LinkTree—Work-around to be able to promote more than one link on Instagram. Brilliant!
Padlet--Easy and beautiful bulletin board site. Makes collaboration a breeze.
Byond.Social--Post to Instagram from your desktop, in a flash. And there's a great plug-in for Chrome.

Curate and Manage Content
AnswerThePublic—Strange (and strangely entertaining) tool to generate questions.
Greenshot—Simple way to capture what's on your screen. Free download here.
TinyTake—Another screen-capture app, a little more user-friendly.
Diigo--Bookmarking tool that’s probably more user-friendly than the one that comes with your browser. 
Google Alerts—Find out what the competition’s up to, what folks are saying about you—or anything else. Just one of the many tools Google provides. Look for it in the Google Apps that are in your Gmail account.
Goodreads—Need a pithy quote to illustrate a point? Get clever quotes from Goodreads.
Hootsuite—Schedule social media posts in advance, all in one place.
Quote Investigator--Verify sources of quotes before reposting.
 
Protect Your Work
Plagium—Find out if someone is swiping your content. Click here.
Quetext--Another tool for detecting plagiarism. The paid version proofreads for you, too.
TinEye—And, find out if someone is swiping your images. Click here.
Image Raider—A more in-depth tool for tracking who might be using your images. Get it here.
CopyScape—Another free online tool to check for plagiarism, in this case, entire pages.
DMCA Protection—Copyright protection is a complex subject that may require a lawyer, but at least you can let people know that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act exists and applies to your intellectual property. Get free badges here.
 
Publish Online
Issuu--Make your own little magazine, add music, and optimize it for search engines before sharing. Beats a PDF by a mile. Also take a look at Flipsnack.
Self-Publishing—Maybe your book will be accepted by a major publisher and you'll end up a NYT best seller. While you're waiting, you could be making money with your book. Blurb is a very powerful publishing tool, as are IngramSpark and AmazonKDP.
Portfolio Sites—For artists and photographers, there are several tools for making online portfolios.
Blog Sites—A list of several popular free blog sites is here. The reviewer gives Wordpress, the long-time leader, a 9-out-of-10 in user-friendliness; we think WP takes a bit more technical knowledge than some of the others reviewed. 
BuiltWith—Want to know how a website was built? Find out what platform and all the technical whistles and bells here.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider—This one is for the tech-minded and is a very powerful free online tool. Good luck.
SlideShare—One of the most popular sites for sharing presentations. Look what others are doing.
Listly--Make lists of useful topics and direct traffic back to your website.
Medium—Blogging platform that is simple and beautiful. Basically just start typing.
Photo Sharing—There are several photo-hosting sites. If you just want to share pictures of your vacation, Google Photos is as good as any. This is especially true if you are a dedicated Google/Gmail/Android user. If you need to store and share images for business, be aware that, unless you have your own hosted website, you don't always have control of your images. Image-sharing sites have been known to disappear.
 
Create Your Own Content
Quozio—Create beautiful images of quotes that you can pin to your Pinterest boards and share around.
BuzzSprout--Host and share audio with this free tool; there are paid options as well, for professionals. And other sites to consider.
Thesaurus.com—Make your writing more lively with just the right word.
Elements of Style—Remember good ole Strunk & White from college? If your writing could use some help, they’re here for you. Look it up.
Grammarly—Not sure if your grammar is up to par? It’s easy to check your grammar.
TimelineJS—Make beautiful timelines and embed them wherever, from a simple spreadsheet.
iPhone Text Generator— You don’t have to be Ellen Degeneres to find creative uses for this little tool.
Online Chart—This free online tool makes charts so much more elegantly than Excel does; try it.
Colourlovers—Find the latest trends, create color palettes, share with the community.
PlaceIt—A very cool free tool that lets you turn any screen shot into a totally realistic-looking photo in a variety of settings; try it now.
GifMaker—You can make your own GIF animations or simply make a video from slides. Easy as pie.
ImgFlip—Another GIF maker, also makes memes and pie-charts.
Blog Topic Generator—Need some inspiration? Try this; it might get you going on your next blog post.
Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer—Will your headlines move people? Find out here.
SpellCheck—Before you publish, check it. If you type directly into your website, copy/paste it here to be sure things are spelled correctly.
 
Layout & Graphics
InkScape—This free, open source vector art software looks amazing; get it here.
Draw.io—If you just need simple charts and graphics, this free tool is easy to use.
Autodraw--Another free drawing tool.
PicMonkey--No longer free, but so cheap it's worth it.
 
Research & Market Your Brand
SEO Guide—From “what is search engine optimization” to how to do it; beginners guide to SEO.
KnowEm--Check a brand’s availability across all social media platforms, domains, and the USPTO trademark database.
Ubersuggest—Generate keyword variations for your search terms with this simple tool.
Ask Your Target Market--Free marketing research tool when you use your own list. Get it here.
Google Scholar—A little-known way to dig deeper into serious subjects.
​Survey Planet--Free survey tool.
 
Analyze & Adjust
Google Analytics—The grand-daddy of them all. Track site traffic, find keywords, it’s all here.
RichBlocksPoorBlocks—Instant demographic data, great for research. Get it here.
Page Rank—Find out how high Google ranks your page on a 1-to-10 scale.
Grade Your Website--Find out in seconds what you need to do to make your website more search friendly.
SenderScore—How deliverable is your email, really? Find out here.
 
Get More Done with Utilities
Google Typography—Free fonts plugin for WordPress.
Audio Converter—Got a .wav file you need to convert to an .mp3, or vice versa. This little utility does it for you.
HelloFax—You probably ditched your fax machine long ago, but sometimes you just need to send one. This free tool does the trick without a machine or special phone line.
Read-able—How readable is your website’s content? This handy tool will tell.
Pingdom—Find out how fast your website loads; click here.
Inogolo—Pronounces foreign and difficult words for you; try it.
Proportion Calculator—Great for resizing images; get it here.
Free QR Code Generator—Generate QR codes instantly with this tool from Shopify.
WhoIs.net—Curious about who owns a domain? Look it up.
NetLingo—Can’t figure out a buzzword? Here’s a dictionary of them.
WordPress Theme Detector—See a WordPress site you like? Find out the theme being used.
Disposable Email—For when you want to sign up for something and avoid spam later.
ScreenLeap—This free tool lets you share your screen with any other user via your browser. Get it here.
Random—Randomly rearrange lists (great for picking contest winners) and a lot more here.
Hello Sign—Get up to three signatures a month free with this secure tool.
PicResize—If you’re not into PhotoShop and just need to crop and resize images quickly, this is for you.
Print Friendly—A whole bunch of free buttons to make your WordPress, Blogger or Drupal site more print-friendly.
Aspect Ratio Calculator--Make sure your image or video is the right shape for uploading. 
Scam Advisor—Before you buy from a site you’ve never heard of, check it out.
GetHuman—Just need someone to talk to about your customer service issue? Find contact info.
Reverse Text Generator—Strange, but perhaps useful. Try it here.
Favicon.io--You know that little icon that appears next to the site name on a browser tab? That's a favicon. And, you can make one here, fast and free.
 
Reach Them with Email Marketing
MailChimp—Professional email service free for less than 2,000 addresses.
TinyLetter—Simple, free, couldn’t make it easier to do email marketing; read more.
 
Manage Your Business
Wave--Free accounting and invoicing software. Have been using it for years, and it is flawless.
 
Share Your Content
TinyURL—Shortens those URLs that are hugely long into nice, neat little ones.
Web2PDF—Save any web page as a pdf and share.
Photo Sharing—There are many; check here. But remember, when it's out there, it is copyrighted but it is also public. Chose wisely.
Click to Tweet—Want site visitors to tweet your stuff? Create a link to tweet instantly, like this { CLICK TO TWEET }
Screencast-O-Matic—Make a little video of what you're doing on your screen and share it; even upload directly to YouTube! Zoom may have made this obsolete, but you may like it.
 
Collaborate 
WeTransfer--Free and simpler than Dropbox; use it to send up to 2GB of files.
DBInbox—Non-Dropbox users can send files to your Dropbox account with this little inbox tool.
GroupMe—Free texting with groups of people all at once; get it here. Can’t upload a list, however; you have to build your own.
Trello—Organize your ideas with this free tool, and collaborate with others.
 
Social Media 
Social Media Images—The right image size for every platform, updated frequently, here.
 
Career Management
Career Aptitude Test—Ever feel like you’re in the wrong job? This test may just help you find a new career.
ApplyMagicSauce—See what online behavior says about you, or a potential employee. Try it here.
 
Why do the sites listed above offer such powerful tools for free? Because they have embraced content marketing. By providing content that is useful without charge, they are driving traffic to their websites and encouraging visitors to use their premium services. You can do the same. 

We currently use most of these free marketing tools but don’t necessarily endorse them. Some of them have paid versions that may provide more of the functionality you need. Please evaluate the ones you choose to use in terms of your own marketing needs. Tiny Creative House doesn’t provide tech support or training for these tools, nor does it vouch for the content of any site.

Copyright Notice: We spent a lot of time compiling this list of gems; don’t just copy and paste it into your site (we’ll know). Be nice and simply provide a link to it.

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