When choosing to automate your social media, you need to look into what will help you, and what won’t help you. As a marketer, you need to find the right tools that will create the best experience possible. Here, we’ll tell you how to choose these, and any extra factors worth considering.
Why Automate?
This should be super simple and obvious, but people do ask. Well, do you want to save time and resources when working on digital marketing? Well, the best way to do it is with social media automation. You should use this because it will allow you to spend time and resources correctly. You should look into automating this since you won’t have to sit around and bother with answering every single Facebook message out there.
But, it’s more than just that. It’s not a hands-off process, it really makes it easier for you to just compile everything together so that you’re not missing out on customer response time. Some common ways to utilize this is to schedule and optimize posts, create content that you’ll love, look at insights, and create responses with chatbots.
However, social media automation is really limited, since you can’t create meaningful chats with others, and it sometimes can’t take into account any sudden changes, and it also requires you to share content. A lot of marketers think that just telling Hootsuite to post your social media will solve everything, but people don’t want to see the same images time and time again, they don’t want to see boring content. You need to keep it fresh, but using social media automaton does make the job a little bit easier.
So how do you choose the right one that works for you? Well, here are a few ways to do so.
Figure Out How Automaton You Want this?
This is a big one. Figure out how automaton you want this to be. Do you need it just to schedule posts so you’re not spending countless hours hashtagging stuff? Or do you want the chatbots to answer customer questions?
Some of these are more automaton than others, and that is a huge factor to consider when choosing this. It really depends on how much work you want to put in yourself.
For example, I actually handle all customer queries myself, since they’re usually few and far between, and people know how to read. But, I hate scheduling and writing outposts, so I use Hootsuite to have everything all in one place. That way, I can create content, and then just ship it out across all channels. You’d be surprised at how effective this is for me. With this, I’ve been able to create and cultivate worthwhile content, and from there, people get to see it. I still get people coming to my site, but I don’t have to spend thirty minutes each day posting the same thing on social media. So figure out what level you want to automate everything, and go from there.
How many channels do you have?
Now for some people, maintaining a singular piece of social media and keeping that updated isn’t all that hard. I know lots of people who are cool with just working on Facebook or Instagram. But, if you start working on other sites, such as LinkedIn and Google+, putting out that much content multiple times is honestly quite annoying, and frustrating to deal with, and you probably will hate doing it multiple times.
That is a huge factor in choosing social media automation software. Do you want Hootsuite, which supports all social media outlets, and also provides insights, or do you want something else? This can help you choose which path you’d like to take, and any other kinks you want to work out on any of these. By choosing the channels to go down, you’ll be able to create a better campaign for yourself, and for others as well.
Are you Willing to Schedule?
Scheduling is a big part of social media. I can’t tell you how many times scheduling plays a role in what I do each day. Spending time churning out content, scheduling it, and then posting it, takes time. If you’re managing one site, it’s doable, but multiple sites can be a nightmare.
That’s why I decide on my social media software based on how many posts I can schedule. What I do, is create a content calendar, and from there, I put together everything that I want for the next week, month, or whatever. From there, when I log into Hootsuite, I can keep my posts in draft until the day of, and schedule posts for the time they should be shared, and from there, I can post as needed. Scheduling posts changes the game completely, and if you are willing to schedule, it saves you a ton of time.
The big thing here is to think about how much you need it. Sometimes, some people don’t need to schedule, but if you’re busy, or if content creation is really where all of your eggs are, you probably don’t want to spend more time than you already are putting things on multiple channels, so consider a tool that allows you to schedule effectively.
Can You Still Engage with Others?
Engagement is something that you probably will want to consider as well when figuring out hat social media tools to use. Some software will allow you to automatically engage with posts, and how much you want to talk to others. For example, Agora’s pulse is probably one of the best that allows you to engage with followers, and it allows you to not only set up schedules for evergreen content on multiple channels, but you can also engage with all of your followers in one place.
It is super annoying to have to look at five different social media channels and try to interact with every single one of them on each channel. You could miss out on some invaluable communication, and it does play a major factor in customer response time. Some social media tools allow you to put everything into one place, which means all of the content is there, and all of the followers are in one place. So, you can talk to them, and answer any questions or comments. It’s great, and it does make it much easier.
Do you want to Republish Content?
Some marketers like to do this, because sometimes, some people may miss out on this. If you need that, you should look into social media software that does this, because it saves you a ton of time when it comes to searching for the post in hopes of finding it, reposting it, and publishing it with the same hashtags and description.
As a word of caution though, don’t try to do this too many times. Followers don’t want to see boring content, nor do they want to see rehashed content every day. Be creative, and to create new content whenever possible.
How much are you willing to spend?
Spending money is a big factor when it comes to automation. Some sites have free trials, other ones you need to pay a small monthly fee. Some of them are completely free. As a marketer, you need to determine how much of your budget will go to this, and how much shouldn’t be spent here. It does play a factor in choosing software, because you may not need that 10-dollar a month software with extra bells and whistles if you’re willing to do that yourself.
But, the best thing to do in this instance is to shop around. There’s a lot of software out there, and it can be a bit overwhelming to deal with, and you should look into the right one that works for your business. By shopping about, you can choose the perfect automaton software that works for you.
Do You want Chatbots Period?
Finally, let’s talk chatbots. Love them or hate them, they are a part of automating social media, but they can be super helpful in some situations.
Chatbots are usually used when people open up a social media site, and the message is usually “hi, welcome! Do you need help” and they can generate automatic responses that work well for your users.
This is good because sometimes, people will answer these. Facebook Messenger chatbots have a 60-80% open rate and while that may not bring about conversions every single time, it’s still a decent set of numbers period. It is a good investment if you’re thinking about potentially trying to get more customers active.
Chatbots are sometimes used to answer customer questions, and here’s my one issue with it. If it’s a common question, personally I love them, and they can be quite helpful for getting general queries answered, but they’re kind of bad for complaints, because if your customer complains, and the chatbot just says some canned message, this can upset a lot of customers, and makes you feel disingenuine.
Personally, I feel chatbots are good if you’re looking to have the means to create answers to questions in a simple, yet effective manner. They’re helpful if you get questions all the time, and the customer seems to not read the FAQ, or they can tell others orders. But, if you’re using that to answer complaints, they’re not good.
Some tools include the chatbots feature, and honestly, I do base whether or not you need it on if you’re going to use this, or if it’s just going to annoy people. Remember, you can always automate emails too, especially if someone has a question. You can redirect people to forms, support emails, and the like. Automating usually has that feeling of being disingenuine, and this should never be used in place of an actual conversation, but I do like them if you want to get answers to questions done fast, because customer response time plays a role in the way people look at your brand, so it can be a factor to consider.
Social media automation tools are both helpful, and in some cases, they can generate great success with your customers. If you’re having trouble maintaining all of your social media accounts, or just don’t want to have to deal with posting, SEO gold coast recommends that you do this. But, do be forewarned that if you do this, it doesn’t substitute actual human contact and engagement, so you’ll want to make sure that, if possible, you give them the attention and communication that they need. With social media automation, you can focus on what really matters, which is talking to others, conversing, and truly working to market to others what you are, and the awesome items that you have, and your brand’s image.
