Top 10 Apps for Marketing Students

While students come in many shapes and forms, a “typical” student generally finds themselves having to figure out how to juggle three major priorities: studies, social/personal life and part-time work. If you’re an astute marketing student you might even add in some internships to that list, along with relevant extracurricular activities and attending networking events (read: degree-related university societies).

Whether you’re struggling to balance these priorities, looking to gain some real-world practice with marketing tools used by professionals or simply looking for a way to make life easier, make sure you check out these top 10 apps for marketing students:

1.      Evernote

A free app, Evernote puts all your notes and ideas in the same place and even allows them to be synced across multiple devices. So if you’ve ever found yourself daydreaming about your next best marketing idea while travelling to your lecture (or indeed during a lecture), Evernote ensures you can take notes, capture photos, create to-do lists or record voice reminders of your brilliant idea.

Then, when you get home, these notes are easily searchable on the app so you can get to work on your idea straight away. If you’re feeling particularly proud of your idea, you can also upload your notes to social media. And for further reading: how marketers can best use Evernote.

2.      Dropbox

A collaboration and file-sharing tool, Dropbox lets you upload files and share them easily with other people or straight onto your laptop. Dropbox has a website where you can sign up for the service for free using an email address (don’t use your university email address if you want to keep using Dropbox after your studies).

Not only can you add files into Dropbox that are too large to email (then give access to, say, your coursework project teammates), but you can increase your 2GB of free storage by encouraging others to sign up too. Make sure to download the handy app so you can access all your files on the go – that way if you need to get a quick look at your assignment, you can check it on your phone instead of having to find a free computer at the library.

3.      Flipboard

With the marketing industry changing rapidly, it’s useful to have an app that helps keep you up-to-date on current news, the latest technology, marketing tips and popular stories. Flipboard is a free news aggregator app that allows you to pick and choose which genres you want to see in your Flipboard, and in what order. You can also add popular publications, thousands of websites, and explore magazines created by other readers.

With full-screen images and a fun flip-through interface, Flipboard lets you customize your magazine experience. You can even add Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and other social networks to your Flipboard so you can choose to check out current affairs or your friends’ latest party.

4.      myHomework

A useful organization app, myHomework lets you set up assignments for specific classes, add them to your calendar and set reminders. Perfect for students juggling multiple classes (i.e. pretty much all students!), the app sends you push notifications when you have an upcoming assignment.

You can create an account on the myHomework website and sync your app so you can access your assignments on your computer or laptop. You can also use Facebook to sign in to your account and, if your teacher uses Teachers.io, you can join the class to automatically download class information, assignments, files and announcements.

5.      HootSuite

A useful app for businesses using social media, HootSuite can also be useful during your studies, and if you start using it now, you’ll be able to familiarize yourself with its features ahead of graduation – definitely an asset when you come to apply for marketing jobs. And you can also benefit by saving time and taking control of your personal social media usage.

A social media management tool, HootSuite creates a dashboard for all your social networks, including Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook. HootSuite also allows you to analyze social media traffic, track brand mentions and schedule your social media messages. No more spending hours on Facebook when you should be completing that essay!

6.      Quora

Great for knowledge-hungry marketers wishing to have the most reliable information at their fingertips, Quora is similar to sites like Wikianswers and Yahoo! Answers, but with the promise of getting real answers from people with firsthand experience and expert knowledge of the subject. You may even get your question answered by celebrities.

You can also contribute your own knowledge on Quora, which is great for consolidating what you’ve learned. There’s no better way of assessing whether you’ve retained all that marketing knowledge than by telling someone else about it, and you might even be able to see your input being usefully implemented within a real marketing campaign.

7.      Trello

Great for organizing team projects, Trello is a collaboration tool for to-do lists. As marketers often work in teams, you may spend a large part of your marketing degree in projects with other people. With Trello, you can assign a “board” to each team member where they list tasks they have to do, tasks they are working on and tasks they have completed.

You can also assign other team members to tasks on your list, give yourself deadlines and priority labels, and even write checklists within individual tasks if necessary. Available for both the web and mobile, Trello is great for coordination, keeping track of group goals and staying organized – it’s like having a personal secretary in your phone!

8.      The Kindle App

While Kindle is best known for being an Amazon e-reader, there is also a Kindle app for Apple, Android and Windows devices. Since the Kindle app is also available on computers, you can annotate, highlight and take notes on the pages of the book using the app on your phone, and finish your annotations on your computer later.

You can also search for text in the book, and many Kindle books have the same page numbers as printed books for easy reference during your seminars. Plus, if you’re a literature lover you may already know that there’s wide range of free books available via Project Gutenberg – many of which can be useful secondary reading for a marketing student – but did you also know they’re now offering many of their books as free Kindle books as well.

9.      Google+

It may not be about to overtake Facebook or Twitter in the personal social media market, nor LinkedIn in the professional social networking market, but Google+ is already a highly touted tool for marketers.

Google+ (or Google Plus) lets you add friends, family and professional connections to your circles (in their respective categories), join Communities to explore interests and find like-minded people, automatically back up photos and videos, use animations, panoramas and other Auto Awesome effects on images, and even meet potential clients on the other side of the world face-to-face with the Google Hangouts feature, straight from the app.

You can also chat with up to nine friends, create separate personal and business pages and write blog posts. If you make your G+ posts public they will be indexed for Google’s search engine, which can mean a lot more exposure for you: Future Marketing Ninja.

10.  POP

An acronym for Prototyping on Paper, POP is great for professional app designers and newbies alike. You can test the flow of your new website, app or program as soon as you get your idea, and it requires zero code or app-building knowledge. Remember that brilliant marketing idea you had in your lecture? Well here’s the app to help turn that idea into your very own app.

Sketch wireframes of app ideas with pencil and paper (or Photoshop or Fireworks), take photos of the sketches using your phone (or link them in POP), then build links between different wireframes to mirror the basic functionality of your app. When you’re done, share your prototypes with friends and colleagues for feedback and start the journey to building your app for real.

Which of these top 10 apps have you used? Which would you recommend? Share your experience in the comments below.