Blogging on an IPad - Apps that Make it Possible

I've been blogging for almost eleven months now - and almost solely on my iPad Air.  For the most part, Apple has made it a fairly easy process.  There are very few things that I need a real laptop (or desktop for).  There are apps for just about everything - including social sharing.  
These are the apps that I use the most:

For Blog Creation:

Blogger:
I love the Blogger App.  It helps me to blog on the go (I use it not just on my iPad, but also on my iPhone).  I can quickly type and upload the blogs while I'm on the road and typically use the 20 minutes I have to drive into and home from work for this task.

The app is a little limited though.  You can write your blog, add your pics and bold or italicize text - but you can't change the font, add hyperlinks or tag your images.  If HTML editing were integrated into the app, it would make it a little more versatile.

Canva:

This is my new favorite.  It's not quite as versitile as the website - but it's evolving.  Canva allows you to use preset templates or to add your own pictures and modify the text for your specific purpose.  It has templates that work best with a blog post, Twitter posting, Facebook and others.  You can find paid text and graphics on the site, but if you're on a budget (or like me, have no budget), you can find graphics either from Wikimedia Commons or from freedigitalimages.net (or another graphics site) to fit your post and then modify the text as needed.

I find that this app crashes fairly regularly on my iPad - but I'm hoping that with time it will be a little more stable.

For Social Media:

From what I understand, every good blogger needs a good social media platform.  I manage accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+ - and Apple has apps for each of these social sites to make posting and interacting with your followers easier.  The beauty of the iPad is that each of these apps can be set to let you know when a user has mentioned or interacted with one of your social accounts.  It makes monitoring and responding all the easier.

For Social Sharing:

BufferApp:

I typically use BufferApp to schedule all my posts on both Facebook and Twitter (you can use it for LinkedIn too).  The app conveniently allows you to add text and photos as well as a link to your post and puts it up at a time that the app has determined that your users are most likely to be on-line.  I buffer once a day (generally in the evening).  This makes sure that my content is being put up even when I'm not able to do it myself.  As well, every time you buffer a post, you can choose to send out of one network or across different networks simultaneously.

You can also "ReBuffer" your most popular posts using the analytics that the app provides.  This allows more of your audience to see your best work.

I use the free portion of the app - but if (when?) my blog starts making money, I'll purchase a package which allows more functionality.  For a mere $10 monthly you can manage up to 12 social profiles with unlimited buffered posts.  

Hootsuite:

Hootsuite has similar functionality to BufferApp.  I personally prefer the BufferApp because it automatically puts your posts into specific timeslots - Hootsuite is a little more complicated.  You have to set the timers yourself, and it doesn't have the "ReBuffer" feature.

For Monitoring Your Presence:

Google Analytics:

I can't yet claim to be an expert with this particular app - but it does at the very least give me an idea of where my traffic is coming from and which of my blog posts are doing well (and which ones are not).  Google Analytics requires you to sign up for analytics and install a code on all the pages of your blog - but it's fairly simple to install.  The dashboard is fairly easy to read and understand even for a novice like myself.

Klout:

Truthfully, I'm still coming up to speed on this particular app's full functionality as well.  The free app (and Klout's website's) main purpose is to analyze your social media accounts and rate you from 1 to 100 on your "overall online influence." The site reportedly measures 35 variables from Facebook and Twitter to measure "True Reach, "Amplification Probability," and "Network Score".

I suspect that Klout is more useful to business users - but it does give me an idea if my social media interactions are slipping.  I use Klout to find and buffer very interesting articles to share with my audience as well as to share my own blogs.  

StumbleUpon:

I've been sharing my blog with this app for a while now - and I'm finding (finally) that I'm getting a lot more traffic from the site.  StumbleUpon is a content discovery tool that monitors your likes and dislikes to tailor content specifically to your tastes.  I often share content from StumbleUpon with my readers.

Bloglovin':

I can't say enough about this app.  Bloglovin' allows me to keep track of my blogging friends and give them the love that they deserve.  I not only have all my favorite bloggers in one place - but I use this app in combination with the BufferApp to share the most interesting blogs with my readers.

Blogging on an iPad is not quite as versatile as blogging on a laptop - but with a number of apps at your finger tips - and they're getting better every day.  Please - share with me - what are your favorite apps?  Do you have any blogging tips and tricks for the iPad?

Image Credit (Edited):  "Woman With Touch Pad" by Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot / freedigitalphotos.net

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