So, are you struggling around wondering how did you spend all of your days on Social Media? Most of your Social Media tasks are still not closed, and you obviously need to spend up to 2 hours in front of your PC again, every single day of the week? Are you frustrated from doing “log in” and “log out” every 5 minutes to share one simple post? Maybe you have heard about social media automation but you are still not sure what it really stands for? Then for sure, this post will help you understand, what is social media automation and what are the pros and cons using it.
What Is Social Media Automation All About?
We all know the winning feeling when we mark an accomplished task at the end of the day.
An age-old adage says “Don’t work harder, work smarter”. In other words, incorporate better time management skills in your daily routine, and start doing things efficiently in social media.
Now raises the question, what we need to fix and still be fully effective when doing our daily tasks on social media platforms? Even posting one single post per page, on 5 different Facebook pages can take up to 30 minutes a day. Typing headlines for Instagram photos is also time-consuming, especially if the headlines are longer and contain bullet lists. And there are many examples like these. If you thought how you can hurry up these activities a bit, the answer is using some of the social media automation platforms available on the market.
Let put it simply, social media automation platforms are all about cutting your time, by still doing all your social media tasks. Social media automation can be achieved by using social media platforms/tools.
On Wikipedia we have the following definition:
“Social Network Automation refers to tools that are used to semi/automate the process of posting content to social networking and social bookmarking websites. Tools can range from mostly manual and free to semi-automated tools which are either commercial standalone software or paid subscriptions.”
Having the right social media automation platform/tool and a presence on all the major networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn is a necessity these days for any business.
Important tip: Automating certain posts on social media platforms can free up your time so you can focus more on your other tasks during the day.
Despite Populizr which is a social media automation platform, today there are many other software/tools available on the market such as:
More or less, the pros and cons in this article are assumed to be general ones, and if you want to go into more details for each software or tool, you might find interesting the following articles:
- Read the Pros And Cons of HootSuite
- Read the Pros And Cons of Buffer
- Read the Pros And Cons of Sendible
- Read the Pros And Cons of SproutSocial
- Read the Pros And Cons of OnlyWire
- Read the Pros And Cons of SyndWire
What Are The PROS Of Using Social Media Automation Platforms?
- Exclude the boring “Log in” and “Log out” part
Even you’ve never thought never before, but you actually lose time while doing log in log out on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Instagram or any other network. Wouldn’t be great if you do this only once by synchronizing all profiles you manage with one platform from one place?
- Create Convenience
Working with one brand owning 3 social media profiles is not that scary and time-consuming. But when we have to manage the content of 20+ profiles for different brands, products or services then it’s definitely a time challenge. So, by using social media automation platform, you can schedule posts at a specific time, on a specific social media platform (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc…) for each brand from one place. In other words, distribution of your content has never been a more efficient process.
- Achieve content posting consistency
As we know, posting consistency is important for both, your social media presence and SEO. If you plan to post 5 times a week on Facebook, you should keep doing it consistently for a certain period of time. Otherwise, you will confuse your audience if you completely forget about them the next week. By using social automation platforms, your posting and choosing the exact times when to share will be an easy go process by which you will achieve engagement. Your audience will know when to expect posts on your Facebook profile, and start interacting and sharing your content.
- Extend the quality reach
By using social media automation platforms you can easily change your posting strategy on each social media site. It’s a way to work smarter towards your social media marketing goals. For example, by using Facebook Page insights, at a glance, you can see when your audience most of the time engages with your content and based on that insight you can schedule your future posts.
- Easily share the content from your communication plan
By creating a weekly communication plan for each brand, you can significantly save lots of time. Inspiration is not always available during working hours, so communication plans are definitely not time waste. Furthermore, each change in the content might require minor changes which can be easily fixed. With the plan, you will use the platform, and from one place in less than 5 minutes push all the same message differently packed for each social network separately.
- Great Social Connectivity
Most of the social media automation software’s have great social connectivity include the most used social media networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, Google +Feedly, Pinterest, Flickr, Youtube, SlideShare, etc.
- Create Analytics
Great Analytics can be generated from all of your social efforts. The analytics feature is different in every social media automation tool. These analytics features offer great reports and are different from Page insights which are generated from each social media network separately, such as Facebook Page Insights.
What Are The CONS Of Using Social Media Automation Platforms?
- Always find the right balance of content posting
The easiness of posting and scheduling your posts, may betray you, and make you automate all the activities. The idea of social media engagement is the two-way communication and the “human interaction” between businesses and followers. So you should think of, which posts can be automated and on which networks, and which require tailor-made messages.
- Create the right message for each audience and platform
The same exact content will not appeal to your audiences for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. Each network has a specific voice of tone and requires a different type of “language” even when sharing the same content. So, it can be fine to share some of the same content, but the content needs to be tailored so it is best received on that particular social network. For instance, Facebook posts can be longer, with interesting emoji, and on Instagram, you will want to add hashtags for more impressions and quality reach.
- Find a balance between automating your content and having a person reaching by creating communication plans.
No matter how cool social media automation looks alike, this will not exclude the possibility for the creation of weekly or monthly communication plans. As we mentioned above, each social network has a specific audience, voice, target, type of posting etc. So each message must be adapted to its specific audience and social network.
Conclusion
If a few years ago, businesses were looking for answers such as whether they should be present on social media, or not, and which platform is the best fit for their products or services. Today, marketers, especially social media managers are continuously searching for solutions, such as platforms/tools that will make easier their communication with their communities, and at the same time keep the consistency at the most efficient ways.
Furthermore, the balance between automating the content and having a person reaching by creating communication plans cannot be excluded.
The main idea of using social media automation through social media platforms is to cut your costs and, save your time while posting content at the ideal times. Time is money and time is assumed to be the most valuable currency. So use it wisely!
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