With the news that Oprah will not be hosting her now-famous “Favorite Things” show this year, in which she promotes her favorite items for the holiday seasons (bringing a boon of publicity to the products and making them holiday season must-haves), I began to think about my own “Favorite Things”.

As the Director of Marketing for Secretary in Israel, I help my clients increase their presence via both traditional and online media. This work often ranges from helping to secure interviews, schedule and promote my clients’ events, book speaking engagements, and connect with and continue to build their online following through Twitter and Facebook.

To succeed in all these tasks is no simple feat, and I often rely on some free online tools to help my clients in their marketing endeavors.

One of my favorite online tools is Screenhunter, a free online tool that you can easily download onto your desktop. Screenhunter allows you to take photo/screen images of anything that appears on your computer. I often use this software when creating flyers for my clients’ events or when building their online media portfolio. Oftentimes, my clients or their products are referenced on a blog – however, blog posts are not permanent and can be removed at any time. In order to show that my clients’ received mention on a blog, I will take a screen capture image to add to the “As Seen In” page of my clients’ websites.

Another fantastic free tool is Scribd. Scribd is a simple to use website for uploading documents and photos. One of my clients has a large following on Facebook and she likes to share with them articles she has written or appeared in, presentations she has made, poems that inspire her, and more. Unfortunately, Facebook does not currently have an application for uploading documents to share with the general public; however, this is where Scribd comes in. Simply upload a document to Scribd and it has a permanent hosting spot on the internet. Scribd furnishes you with a link which you can send to anyone you choose so that they can read and download the document you have uploaded. If you choose, you can also set Scribd to sync with your Facebook and Twitter accounts so that as soon as you upload a document to Scribd, a Tweet is sent out, or your Facebook status updated to announce the document that you have uploaded and provide your followers with a direct link.

Last but not least of my favorite free tools is Twuffer. Twuffer is a free online service for scheduling and sending out Tweets via Twitter. One of my clients likes to connect with her followers via Twitter at least once a day and has provided me with a list of Tweets to send out on her behalf each day. While it is not difficult to post to Twitter on a daily basis, this client wants the Tweets to go out at a certain time each day PST, which is already late evening here in Israel. To solve this dilemma I investigated a few Tweet scheduling services but was disappointed by their inconsistent postings. Twuffer allows you to schedule month’s worth of Tweets in advance and sends them out at the exact time and date you select. (One piece of advice – it takes 24 hours for Twuffer to sync with your Twitter account, so your first one or two Tweets may not go out as scheduled. After that, however, it is smooth sailing.)

Though I may not yet have the same reach as Oprah, I hope that this list of “Favorite Things” is helpful to you in all of your online marketing endeavors!

MORE ABOUT ALYSSA

Alyssa is a graduate of Cornell University. She has worked at companies including CNN, FoxNews, the Embassy of Israel, & Ruder Finn. She and her husband currently reside in Tel Aviv, Israel.