Social media marketing has become an undeniable necessity for many companies’ marketing strategy, however, it comes at a price; Social media can be time consuming, distracting, and at times, frustrating.
A simple way to enjoy the benefits of social media marketing while not having it distract you from daily operations is social media automation.
Importance of Social Media Marketing
There are numerous reasons why having a social media presence has become a key component to today’s marketing strategies. Here are just a few:
- Increase brand awareness: 91% of marketers have said that a social media marketing campaign has increased brand awareness and improved their audience’s experience.
- Improved brand loyalty: When it is easier for your customers to find and connect with your company, they are more likely to come back for more content and information.
- Grow at low-cost: Setting up your social media accounts is free and it has the potential to bring you engagement, leads and conversions at a low cost. The best way to take advantage of social media is to create an ad budget and boost some strategized posts.
Why Social Media Automation
While social media can be a successful marketing avenue, small business owners with limited time and resources can begin to wonder if it is in fact worth it. Juggling operations and your general marketing campaign is a huge workload and adding a social media account on top can seem like an unnecessary additional task.
The solution here is social media automation, a way to schedule your social media posts ahead of time so that it automatically posts during the week or month. Social media automation has the potential to:
- Save time: Instead of spending 10-30 minutes a day brainstorming social media content for your business account, take an hour on Monday to schedule them all at once. This will allow you to get in the “zone” and knock out your social media posts at an efficient rate, saving you time during the week.
- Encourage collaboration: Many automation tools offer the ability to collaborate with co-workers and leadership. By automating your posts, you are giving yourself the time to send posts to others for approval or feedback.
- Boost creativity: Once you get into the rhythm of creating social media posts, it will be easier to tap into the more creative side of social media marketing. Additionally, you will allow yourself buffer room to check for typos, grammatical errors, or outdated information.
Social Media Automation Tips
Thinking about integrating social media automation into your marketing plan? Here are a few best practices to make sure you are still getting the most out of your social media marketing:
- Keep up with engagement: Although you can automate your social media posts, engagement should remain daily and genuine. Simply take 5-10 minutes every morning as you settle into work to answer private messages, shoutouts or comments. This will boost your profile and keep your audience happy.
- Stay authentic: While automation does provide the potential for heightened creativity, it can also turn into a stream of sales-y and recycled content. Make sure to use your dedicated social media time to also keep tabs on topics and trends relevant to your industry.
- Take advantage of automation tools: Automation tools can do so much more than schedule posts. Take advantage of them! These tools can offer a variety of features, including analytics reports, country targeting, UTM tracking, post previews, and more. Just make sure you do your research and choose the best tool for you.
Popular Social Media Automation Tools
Here is a list of some of the most popular automation tools on the market. Each of these offer analytics reports, ways to engage with your audience, cross-platform scheduling and more.
- AgoraPulse – This is the platform the marketing experts at Sweet Rose Studios use with all of our clients, price included! Plans start at 89$/month.
- Sprout Social – Plans start at $99/month
- Hootsuite – Plans start at $29/month
- CoSchedule – Plans start at $150/month