You know the old adage “work smarter, not harder”? That’s exactly what the following tools will help you do when it comes to sharing, creating, and scheduling messages for your social media platforms. While there are hundreds, if not thousands of tools available on the web, the five listed below—ones I actually use frequently and love—are user-friendly and excellent resources for you as an academic using social media. Did I mention that these tools will also help save you time?! So get creating, get sharing, and get social with these five must-use social media tools:

1. Bitly

Not only does Bitly shorten your links, it also allows you to save your favorite links from the web. You can even add a note to the link you save to reference later on.

2. Canva

This is probably the most user-friendly platform for designing and creating gorgeous graphics, documents, and marketing materials. Canva allows you to select the type of graphic style and size you need (Twitter post, blog title, Kindle cover, etc.), add images from their vast image library—either free or only $1, and customize the graphic with different fonts and colors.

3. Piktochart

Design beautiful infographics, reports, banners, and presentations either completely from scratch or by choosing from one of the over 400 professionally designed templates.

4. Hootsuite

Schedule your tweets and other social media messages ahead of time for easier management of your social networks. Instead of logging into all of your social media accounts separately, you can log in to Hootsuite and see all of your social media activity in one place. Hootsuite is a timesaver for busy academics like you.

5. SlideShare

Upload your presentations to share easily with anyone, anywhere. Not only is SlideShare great for sharing presentations, but you can also share infographics, documents, videos, PDFs and webinars. You can embed your SlideShares on your website or blog and can be easily shared on your social media platforms.