If you’re a small business marketer, you might think social media automation tools are only for professionals. They’re not. Social media automation tools are super effective for any size business in any field.
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You know you need to be active on social to connect with your audience. Not just to hawk what you sell, but to share some of your human-ness, how you think, what advice you have to offer. The challenge is keeping up with the pace of social so you are sharing consistently, the right content, on the right platforms, at the right time.
That’s where social media automation tools can help, and the advantages are significant.
- Pre-schedule your social media posts
- Ensure that you are posting consistently, week over week, month over month
- Leverage older posts so don’t have to be so reliant on always creating new content
- More control over the type of content you share
- Post content to multiple platforms
- Automate repetitive social publishing tasks
- Manage all of your social media accounts in one place
- Track your results.
I don’t know a single marketer that isn’t strapped for time, Who doesn’t want to save time on repetitive tasks? Who doesn’t want to become more productive? Who doesn’t want to spend more time doing things that have a greater return on investment and maybe even have some time to do the things you love?
That’s what prompted me to reach out to Laura Roeder, she’s the founder of Edgar, one of my favorite social media automation tools. Laura’s road to recognition didn’t start out focused on being a tech entrepreneur, but she’s always been focused on how to scale. She began early on as blogger and social media consultant, she was even named one of the top 100 entrepreneurs under 35 in 2011, 2013 and 2014 working with the likes of Marie Forleo & Sir Richard Branson.
Somewhere along the way, she hatched an idea to build a software company that could fill the void she was experiencing first hand, that is, automating the parts of social that could benefit from a touch of technology. Don’t miss the interview with Laura, she’s a powerhouse that’s built an amazing tool you’ll want in your marketing tool belt, she also shares some deep insight into her journey.
Automating your social media marketing works the same way as the tasks that many of us have automated with MailChimp, Salesforce, Constant Contact, IFTTT or Zapier. Being social online can suck the life out of your day, especially as a business marketer, this is time you just can’t afford to waste.
But automating your social media activities poses a challenging question:
That’s a good question, and a challenge that we constantly face when building trust online, start by being human.
Now that we’re all in agreement that marketing systems aka marketing automation can help us be more effective, we can get to work automating the right parts of social media intelligently.
Let’s looks at some tools…
While there a dozens of options when it comes to social media automation tools, I use 3 tools for 3 very different reasons.
Edgar
It works like this, Edgar lets you organizes and categorizes your content within a digital library. Then you tell Edgar what types of updates to share at which times, and on what channels. After it posts an update, that particular post will be put back at the bottom of the pile to use again later. This continues until you change the settings. This is worth it’s weight in gold if you have a significant library of useful and relevant evergreen content.
Hootsuite
This is my social listening and engagement tool of choice. Hootsuite allows you to create a dashboard of all your social platforms, all your most import groups and keywords so you can respond in realtime or at least at your now regularly scheduled engagement time. I spend 15 minutes per day on Hootsuite, responding to tweets, commenting on posts, sharing, liking and engaging with the content that my audience cares about. It helps me work efficiently in quasi real time.
Buffer
Buffer is my curation tool of choice. While there are slight overlaps between all of these tools, they each excel at something very specific for my needs. In this case, I use Buffer to curate content that I find on the web, content that is somewhat time sensitive, meaning that it has a shelf life, like an upcoming event. Or, content from my favorite sources, whether that be people I follow or blogs that I like to read. I tend to spend time curating and scheduling post for social sharing twice a week +-. It usually takes me about 20 minutes.
Now it’s time to think about the right time to schedule your social media posts.
One of my favorite articles on the subject of finding the right time to post on social was written by Lindsay Kolowich
So … When’s the best time to post content to social media?
Unfortunately, there’s no perfect answer. Different businesses may find different days and times work best for them. In fact, timing often depends on the platform you’re using, how your target audience interacts with that platform, the region(s) you’re targeting, the content of your post (e.g. funny or serious), and your goals (e.g. clicks versus shares).
I couldn’t say it better. Here’s the Infographic from the Hubspot Blog,
What’s Working For You?
Hopefully this article has given you a good place to start with social media automation. Let me know in the comments what’s working for you, what tools you use and any tricks you have up your sleeve.
Social media is an essential part of 21st century life. And, that’s especially true for business owners who are looking to connect with customers, influencers and even potential investors.
While having a social media marketing strategy is a necessity, it can become extremely time consuming. Between updating your profile, responding to customers, coming up with content and sharing content, managing your social media accounts can become a full-time job.
See also: 14 traits every successful social media manager should have
Over the past six months I've really been dialing in my social media efforts for minimal time effort and maximum output. Thankfully, there are a few tools and strategies I've found that help automate social media so I can focus on growing my business. If that sounds like a plan, then give these seven techniques a try.
1. Social media automation software and apps
The easiest way to automate social media is by using automation software and apps. These include Hootsuite, Buffer, SproutSocial, HubSpot, Social Oomph and Social Flow. Each tool may have unique features of their own, but essentially they all allow you to schedule social media posts in advance and monitor your accounts when someone mentions your brand or leaves a comment.
If you’re just starting out, select just one tool and experiment with it by scheduling a couple of updates. I personally use Buffer and really like it. Most of the tools above have apps so that you can stay up-to-date with your social media accounts while on the go.
I also like using Brand24 to find out who is talking about my company online. This is a social listening tool that shows me every person that mentions my brand both on social media or a blog post. They don't do any social posting but the social listening feature is amazing. You can then acknowledge these mentions and thank people publicly.
2. Fill in the gaps
Automation tools like Hootsuite can be a real timesaver. But, you can take that automation to the next level by using tools like Zapier and IFTTT. Basically, these resources make it possible for apps, systems and websites to talk to each other. For example, you could create a 'zap' that automatically posts new WordPress posts into your Facebook page.
IFTTT gives you the ability to create 'recipes' so that you can sync your online profiles or Google Calendar with social media so that you never forget a birthday. The possibilities are endless. Check out this Buffer post to help you get started with IFTTT.
3. Sync your blog
You’ve worked pretty hard on that blog post or creating that infographic. Why not ensure that it’s going to be seen by your friends and followers on social media? If you use WordPress, this is pretty easy to do since there are more than enough plugins that allow you to add social share buttons onto your page or automatically post on social media whenever you publish a new article.
However, you can also sync your blog content and social media updates in advance with a tool like CoSchedule. This handy service lets you plan out your editorial calendar in conjunction with the social media channel that you want the content to be shared on. Remember, not all types of content will work on all social media channels. Share content on the channels where you know your fans will see it. I find that the content that does super well on Twitter doesn't do as well on Facebook for my audience. My Google+ audience likes more in depth articles while my Twitter likes short nuggets of advice. Test out and see what your audience likes and then automate it as much as possible.
4. Recycle evergreen content
Unless you literally started a blog last week, there’s a very good chance that you have some old blog posts in your archives. While it wouldn’t make much sense to share an article that discussed the hottest marketing trends of 2010, you could share evergreen content.
Evergreen content is timeless content that is still relevant. You could go through your archives, or you could also use a WordPress plugin like Revive Old Posts to simplify the process. There is also a killer tool that I use called MeetEdgar that allows you to publish a post and then automatically recycle your top posts several times on a schedule.
5. Tweet multiple times
While you don’t want to be the person who is flooding your fans' feeds with the same link to a recently published article, there’s also no rule saying that you can’t post that multiple times. In fact, the most effective Twitter users tweet 3 times per day. Even if you only send out the same content, you’re increasing your chances of it getting noticed by a different audience.
If you look at your audience and get to know them you'll find that they are from all over the world. This means that whenever you tweet, you'll have followers online. I like to setup a schedule for tweeting several times a day at specific times. I then go online and find the best content (mainly motivational quotes as they do super well as you can see from my Twitter stream) and schedule them out over the coming months. This allows me to spend two to three hours once every three months finding good quotes. Keep in mind that you can always post something important to social media whenever you want. This is just scheduling out so when you get busy, you don't look inactive.
6. Curate content
Social media isn’t just about sharing content that you’ve created. It’s also about sharing other people’s content. Thankfully, curating is easier than ever with the help of those automation tools that you’ve been using. For example, Hootsuite gives you the option to discover suggested content that you’re interested in based on keywords. Buffer allows you to create a posting schedule based on updates from within your network.
Newsfeeds like Feedly, dlvr.it and Scoop.it can also be used to curate and share relevant content. But, if you need a more robust content curation tool, there’s no better option than Curata.
7. Focus on one task when you have down time
Finally, you have to realize that you can’t automate 100% of your social media activity and have it be exactly what a dream account would look like. If you want to have a huge strong following, automation won't ensure this. There needs to be moments when you have an actual interaction with customers, fans or followers. And, trust me, people can easily notice when an account is basically a robot. Instead of getting overwhelmed, focus on accomplishing one task whenever you have some down time.
Social Media Automation Software For Mac Pro
This could be anything from responding to or leaving comments, personally sharing updates or refreshing your profile. You don’t necessarily have to do this every 30 minutes, but try finding a little bit of time each day or each week to give your account a human touch. I find that the more personal touch I give my account the more real I am to my followers. This gains their trust and with their trust you can make a more powerful impact online.