10 Free Tools Every Female Entrepreneur Should Use

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON FORBES SEPTEMBER 10, 2012 | READ THE ORIGINAL POST

Hopefully by now, you are familiar with Chic CEO so I won’t even be mentioning it in the list…but seriously, every female entrepreneur should know about all of the good stuff we provide at www.chic-ceo.com. Now that we have that clear, there are also tons of other super useful and free tools out there. Here are 10 free tools that every female entrepreneur should know about…

1. Google Analytics: Not only lets you measure sales and conversions, but also gives you fresh insights into how visitors use your site, how they arrived on your site, and how you can keep them coming back. Oh yeah, and it’s free!
2. Hootsuite: Is a social media management system for businesses and organizations to collaboratively execute campaigns across multiple social networks from one secure, web-based dashboard. Launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audiences, and distribute targeted messages using HootSuite’s social media dashboard. Key social network integrations include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and new Google+ Pages, plus a suite of social content apps for YouTube, Flickr, Tumblr and more. Hootsuite is a fabulous time saver and helps to organize all of your social networking into one dashboard.
3. Square: OK so you do have to pay a transaction fee with square but they give you the handy card reader for free. As you may have guessed, Square is a credit card swiper that allows you accept credit card payments on your Android, iPhone or iPad. You’ll never miss a sale again.
4. Dropbox: Is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. You can get up to 2 GB of free storage just by signing up and up to 18GB by referring new users.
5. Hackpad: Is a wiki that makes it easy to edit documents and keep everyone on the same page. Authorship colors show you who wrote what. So when you are working on a document, you can keep track of changes while the document evolves.
6. Rock The Post: Rock The Post is a crowdfunding website designed to fund small businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits. It is the ideal tool for entrepreneurs to leverage networks, reach out to new contacts, and fill in the missing pieces of their projects. Rock the Post provides budding businesses with the means necessary to amass resources and flourish.
7. Evernote: Save your ideas, things you like, things you hear, and things you see all in one place. Their goal is to help the world remember everything, communicate effectively and get things done. From saving thoughts and ideas to preserving experiences to working efficiently with others, Evernote’s collection of apps make it easy to stay organized and productive.
8. Lockbox: Makes it easy to share information, in a totally private way, with clients, partners and/or associates. They enable communities within that you can email, collaborate and share private information with.
9. Instapaper: Gives you a Read Later bookmark. When you find something you want to read, but you don’t have time, you can click the “Read Later” button to easily get back to it when you have time.
10. Genius Scan: Turns your iPhone into a pocket scanner. It enables you to quickly scan documents on the go and email the scans as JPEG or PDF. Seriously helpful when you either don’t have a scanner or are away from it!

I’d love to know what other free tools, apps, sites and services you are using for your biz!