The Hackers Kit: The Ultimate Guide
In this part of my blog, I want to show some helpful tools and resources to successfully hack platforms.
In order to hack platforms, you have a need in basic equipment of hardware and software. Depending on which platform you want to be active on, the requirements are of course different. Nevertheless, you need hardware, software and know-how.
(Whereby software is, of course, a variable here. But, depending on how professional you want to be on certain platforms, you will need certain software)
In this part of the blog, I will introduce you to products, software and know-how sources that I use myself and therefore can definitely recommend. I will also present some alternatives, just to give you some choice.
Let’s go!
Hardware Equipment
Equipment is essential to be able to travel professionally and successfully through and on platforms. What exactly does the equipment include?
Platforms are digital. Therefore, it is most important to have and be able to use all hardware for reasonable work on a computer.
Here you’ll find some more information and my personal recommendations about:
What hardware does a platform-hacker really need?
As I mentioned before, it all depends on what platform you do want to hack. Some platforms require good images, so it’s helpful to have a good Camera (I use my Canon 5D Mark IV) and lightning options, others require good videos and audio quality, so you may need a Microphone. See what I mean?
When I cut it to the basic, to answer this question, you have to know that all platforms are digital and without access to the internet not to use. So you need access to internet. A computer is nice to work with, but a laptop will also do. Some Platforms can even be hacked on your smartphone, but mostly you will work on a computer or laptop. I assume, that you have a computer to work on.
To work nice and smooth, I require next a nice and big monitor. It can be helpful to work on a bigger screen (I often even work on 2 screens). And this is it. This is the absolute basic in hardware.
Equipment for more advanced Platform-Hackers
For a more professional level, I recommend some basic hardware equipment consisting a camera and camera lenses (I have a Canon 35mm 1.4 lens (Mark IV) and a Canon 16–35mm 2.8 Mark III as lenses for my Canon D5 Mark IV. I am super satisfied with these lenses and can definitely recommend them), microphones and lightning (softboxes). With this kind of basic set in hardware equipment, you can work perfectly and professionally on 90% of the platforms.
For photographers, I also recommend some uv-filters (if wanted), tripods and good memory cards. In a very advanced version and for real geeks I also decided to give some recommendations on drones (I am the proud owner of a DJI Mavic Air Drone). But don’t worry, for an absolute beginner, it is totally fine to start taking pictures with a smartphone camera.
If you specialize more in vocal and sound audios I highly recommend you to spend your money on a good microphone, (adapters to your instruments) and mixtables (and/or vocal cutting software). Also consider good soundboxes for your computer to help you by listening and cutting your sounds.
How to Choose the Right Equipment?
It is very difficult, especially for beginners, to choose the right equipment and not spending tons of money on useless equipment. Therefore, I came up with this ultimate guide. I will try to give you the best recommendations. All items are tested by myself and I will always be honest in my reviews.
For most hardware equipment you can ask yourself these 6 questions before buying the equipment.
- What type of platform do I want to hack?
- What equipment do I need, therefore? (Focus on the needed equipment)
- How much can I spend on my equipment?
- Do I really need to buy the equipment or can I borrow it somewhere?
- What features does my equipment need?
- What is just a nice to have, but not really needed?
To help you find the perfect equipment I wrote a bunch of guides. Check them out, I am sure they will be helpful to choose the right equipment.
→ The Best Video Equipment For Beginners
How To Sell Big Best Picks for Beginners:
Panasonic Lumix G7 4k |
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Neewer Softboxes Kit |
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Software
When it comes to the right use of software it is very difficult to give precises recommendations. Here it really depends on what platform you want to work on and what kind of business you want to grow. To give you some recommendations I came up with category groups of software you can check out.
Most of the Platforms are working with tags and/or keywords. So before starting hacking a platform, I require a research tool. It depends on what you have to do researches for: Keywords, Categories, Tags and Target groups. I am working on guides to help you find the right researches tools for the right platforms, check them out.
Working with Images and Photos, you may need an image editing tool. Mostly I use Adobe Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop, but I recommend you as well a couple of Apps (for editing on your smartphone) and some cloud services. Read this guide to get further information.
Video editing is another big thing. If you work with videos, check out my video editing tools recommendations. Also, you often need hosting services e.g. YouTube or vimeo. Be sure to find the right hosts by reading my pros and cons list of video hosts.
Working with Sounds and Audios, make sure to use the right recording and cutting software. I came up with this hopefully helpful recording software guide.
Maybe you also want to automate your content publishing. In this case I came up with these content planning and organizing tools, I want to recommend to you guys. You’ll find at the same time some recommendations on WordPress plugins you can use to share your blog content easily on different channels.
Last but not least, you should track your traffic, campaigns and ROI. Therefore, I decided to give you some recommendations on monitoring software you could use. Please note, that different platforms require different monitoring tools. I tried to cover up as many as possible, but sure there are so many tools one can use, it is hard to check on all of them.
However, if you think, I really should check on a tool, email me and I will have a look at that software/tool.
Know-How Sources
Know-how is the most valuable thing you can have. I’m sure you’ll agree with me on this. On my blog, you will find a lot of know-how about all kinds of platforms, but there are platforms or hacks that you better have a look at in detail. I have been hacking platforms for years, but I also started from scratch. What I did first was to learn. I tried to learned everything that had to do with online marketing, self-publishing and platform hacking. Here, I would like to recommend my sources for the right knowledge about (specific) platform hacking. This is about books, online courses, other blogs and YouTube channels that you should definitely check out. I update these regularly so make sure to check them out once in a while.
Since I present many different platforms here, I have sorted my know-how sources by platform under the different media. I will only recommend the best courses, in my opinion, from which I have learned the most. Some of these courses and books were real milestones for me, without which I would not be where I am today.
If you also have recommendations for courses, books, and other knowledge sources that were real milestones for you, please feel free to write the recommendation in the comments or by email to mail@howtosellbig.com.
Books
Yes, I am crazy in love with books. Since I was little, I always loved to sit down and read something. Through the time my taste in books changed but never the fact, that I am crazy in love with reading and the feeling and smell of paper. In this part of the Blog, I present you my best books recommendations.
Feel free to connect with me on Goodreads and give me recommendations as well. I am passionate about Online Marketing, Platforms and Biographies of great personalities.
(Online) Courses
(Online) Courses have been the entrance for me. I remember years ago doing my first online course about building a website with WordPress. This course was my entry into online marketing, which was later followed by platform hacking. I am still very grateful to have done this course. Hundreds of other online courses followed — I just love to take online courses. We live in a time when every expert can share his knowledge and there are incredibly smart experts out there. Check out here which courses I can recommend.
- Social Media Courses
- Self-Publishing Courses
- Platform closing courses
- Online Marketing Know-How Courses
- Mindset courses
- Business classes (Strategy, Business Models and Leadership)
Webinars and Seminars
I have visited a lot of seminars. It is just something different to feel the energy in a room and get in contact with like-minded people. I just recommend you a few big international seminars, since it’s impossible for me to cover local seminars in all these countries you guys come from.
But I do want to recommend you some great webinars I took or which are on my wishlist. Webinars are a mix of online seminars/ lectures and video courses. They often take a couple of hours but are very practical, which is great when you do special software webinars.
Other Useful Tools
I have a list with other useful tools, I want to share with you. This list includes other platforms you can use to simplify your work process, automation tools, Content planner, Checklist and so on.
I update all my tool recommendations regularly, so make sure to watch on by from time to time.
Anyway, if you use great tools, that I do not mention, but you think they are worth to be shared, please contact me and leave me a recommendation. I am also constantly looking for guest authors, so maybe you even feel like writing and publishing an article about your beloved — worth to be shared — tool 🙂