u/GamersFTW-LTD

I am a freelancer in my free time working as a community manager and social strategist for businesses in my area on the side. I have no dependents and major obligations yet, but I like money and I’d like to have some savings apart before 30.

My main job takes up most of the week, the side gig takes the rest, so it’s easy to feel burn out. Thankfully, I really like social media so instead of doomscrolling, I’m doing it with a purpose.

As soon as the Ai started to be actually helpful I wanted to automate all the repetitive stuff. Everything I use comes down to getting work done faster without sacrificing the things that actually require a functional brain: copy, strategy, funnel decisions.

Apps that improved my work quality. Not "I feel more productive", I mean real output:

Grok: My Perplexity replacement. The research flow feels more multi-agent to me, and it's more flexible with third-party restrictions than the other two I'll mention. Big deal when you're doing a lot of competitive research.

Claude: Everyone kept saying it was better for writing and coding. Turns out it's just true. I built a full interactive dashboard to summarize client performance every month. I don't keep a paid subscription active every single month though. The free tier handles most of what I need.

ChatGPT: it’s been my pick and everyday driver since the 3.5. It's the one that feels most calibrated to how I think, especially for anything strategy related. Familiarity is a good selling point for me, idk.

Fathom AI: Handles meeting notes automatically. Some clients have privacy concerns with it, which is fair. But when they're open to it, it saves real hours. It also tracks how you perform in calls, which sounds odd until you start having a lot of business conversations and realize you've been saying yes to absolutely everything. One careless client can drown you. This helped me stop doing that.

Magnific: Everyone thinks it's just copyright-free images. It's not. It's a full creative suite for people without a design background. If you need ads or anything that needs to look like someone actually made it, this is where I go. The video and image tools are strong. It does cost money, so watch for their deals because they run them pretty often.

Canva: My clients are always running events and asking for invites, flyers, the whole thing. Canva handles all of it and a solid chunk of the templates are free and safe to use. Helped me avoid the "obviously AI-generated design" look for a long time. Still does.

Jira / Trello: Different tool for different situations. Jira when there's a real team involved, Trello when it's just me and one client. Wrote a short doc called "Jira for Owners" to get clients up to speed on only the parts they actually care about. Saved a lot of back and forth.

One thing worth saying if you're thinking about doing something like this: the apps don't make the business work. Your offer does. Figure out what you're actually selling before you pick any software. Iterate. Ask questions. Turn a no into a follow-up. Lead with value before you ask for anything. The clients you land early are the ones you use to build everything after.

If you're running a similar setup or have tools I'm sleeping on,drop them below. Not selling anything, not DMing anyone.

Is there any model much better that I just missed? Lately, i'm seeing some incredible videos, like cinematic style. I won't say they look like Hollywood but definitely was a much further step than what i've seen so far. Is there any option to do that?