Social media has undoubtedly become a pillar in the marketing drives of many companies. This is because most of the major platforms have specific offerings that allow businesses to target specific audiences without substantial overhead costs.
Unfortunately, managing all your social media accounts and marketing campaigns can be a daunting task when done manually. This piece takes a look at how you can effectively automate your social media marketing.
First, what is social media marketing?
Social media marketing refers to the use of social media as a means to draw traffic to your business. When done correctly, social media marketing can introduce your brand to millions of people every month.
What is the Relationship between Search & Social Media Marketing?
Search and social media marketing are closely interwoven. The social signals generated when dozens of people are interacting with your social media posts, for example, can trickle over to the search engine results pages in several ways.
Firstly, re-shares of a post can generate tons of healthy backlinks for your blog. This will further enhance the reputation of your website in the eyes of the search engine algorithms.
Secondly, since social media posts also appear in search results, it is not uncommon to find your brand ranking for a keyword because of a social media post instead of specific website content.
It is no surprise that savvy marketers run concurrent search and social media marketing campaigns.
The Best Social Media Upgrades
Your current usage of social media may be delivering results, but you can always do better. One way to achieve this is by using some of the best social media upgrades available to marketers in recent times. They include the following:
IGTV
Instagram TV (IGTV) is a feature on Instagram that allows you to upload longer videos on the platform. Using this feature, you can share more in-depth content that will resonate with your target audience. This feature has been put to use by thousands of brands. When you consider the fact that more than 50% of consumers want to see videos from brands more than any other type of content, you will get on board quickly as well!
Custom-made Chatbots
Customers don’t want to wait more than an hour for responses to queries. This makes it difficult for businesses to deliver satisfactory customer service at all times. However, the introduction of custom-made Chatbots has changed the game. An adequately customized Chatbot can reduce your workload by directly answering most of the more direct queries posed by customers. Some Chatbots can also execute orders and recommend services and products to customers.
With these two social media upgrades, your brand will most certainly become more competitive.
So what are the best tools for social media marketing automation in 2019?
Sendinblue Facebook Ads
The Sendinblue service is an excellent tool for email marketing. However, their automated Facebook campaign management is one of the best in the industry. To run your Facebook ads hands-free with Sendinblue, all you need to do is to design the ad and then choose to target your existing customers or a completely new group. You also get to decide how long you want to run the campaigns and your budget.
Designing your Facebook ad on Sendinblue is straightforward as the interface is intuitive. You also get in-depth reporting and analytics to ensure you can track your campaigns.
Sharpspring
Sharpspring Social is a highly versatile social media marketing automation tool that combines your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn profiles in one place. When prospect interacts with any of your social media posts, Sharpspring Social can automatically execute a range of actions (pre-determined by you) such as notifying you or sending a message to the lead. The platform also makes it easy to run many campaigns concurrently.
Buffer
If you deal with a lot of content and manage multiple social media handles, this is the tool for you. Buffer is an excellent social media scheduler for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Apart from the standard features, the main reason why Buffer stands out is that they will tell you the best time to post your content for the best results. You will also see how your social media marketing campaigns are measuring up when compared to the competition.
Statusbrew
Statusbrew is another social media marketing automation tool that combines all your accounts under one platform. Using it, you can bring your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google Plus under one platform. Using the software’s “Engage” section, you can monitor conversations around your brand and respond directly to customers and prospects. Statusbrew also has an analytics section that shows you the overall performance of your posts and social media campaigns.
Agora Pulse
With Agora Pulse, you can plan your posts, schedule them, run promotions, collaborate with your staff and run an analysis. It is also an excellent tool for comparing your campaigns to your competitor’s campaigns to see possible areas for improvement. Agora Pulse works with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Mention
As the name implies, Mention is one of the best automation tools for listening to social media conversations around your brand. With the data from this tool, you can run competitor analysis, monitor specific brands and accomplish a whole lot more.
Using Mention, you will be able to get in touch directly with anyone discussing your brand in real-time. With this, you won’t miss out on any queries or commendations hence keeping your engagement levels high. Of course, maintaining such a level of engagement increases your chances of generating new leads and completing more sales.
These are some of the best tools for social media marketing automation. Go through them and decide what works best for your brand. As you use them, however, there are some Dos and Don’ts of social media automation to keep in mind.
The Dos and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing Automation
Dos
- Post quality content at the most optimal times.
- Even when using automation, you need to still engage personally with your target audience. A thoughtful, personalized response will resonate more than automated responses.
- Measure all your campaigns. Make sure they all serve clearly defined purposes. This is the best way to ensure results.
Don’ts
- Don’t buy followers. Legitimately grow your follower base. Quality trumps quantity in most things in life and social media marketing is no different.
- Don’t buy the set-it-and-forget mantra. It is a poor way of running a social media campaign.
- Don’t use automated messages on social media. EVERYONE frowns at them. Brands that use automated DMs are regarded as spammy.
The Bottom Line
Using the best social media marketing automation tools is an excellent way to control the narrative around your brand. It is also an excellent way to enhance the overall reputation and popularity of your business. Regardless of the scope of your business, you can find the automation tool for you.