One of our 2023 New Year’s Resolutions is to save more time within our business. After all, time is money. One time-saving hack we’ve found extremely valuable is automating our social media posts. If you’re not sure what this is or how to use it or why it’s such an amazing resource for your digital marketing strategy, then keep reading!
Benefits of automating your social media posts
Before you integrate a new tool into your digital marketing strategy such as social media post automation, you’re probably curious about what benefits you can expect after using it. Some of the top advantages we have found include:
1. Saving more time
One thing we can always use more of is time. Automating your social media posts is an option that will allow you or your marketing team to create more time for other important marketing projects or simply a better work-life balance. Because most social media scheduling tools allow you to write your posts ahead of time and then post them for you, you won’t have to waste time trying to remember to post on the right days at the right times across multiple platforms, according to Autymate.
Pro Tip: Don’t “set it and forget it” as there can be real-time changes that need to be made as you get closer to the post(s) you had scheduled (HootSuite Blog).
2. Increasing consistency and brand awareness
When you successfully create consistency across your social media platforms, you will be able to increase your brand awareness. Wrike notes that by utilizing social automation, you’re able to cut out the tedious duty of working to maintain and post to each account on a regular basis while still being able to give your brand consistency and awareness a boost.
Studies have shown that with consistency in your branding, you’re able to increase your revenue by as much as 23%. By posting regular, useful, and fresh content that’s in line with your brand and organization across your social media platforms, you’ll be able to achieve better brand consistency. A social media automation tool is here to simply make that goal easier for you to achieve.
Pro Tip: Create posts unique to each platform and not simply the exact same thing when “cross-posting to multiple social media accounts,” for accuracy and to ensure you’re reaching the necessary demographics.
3. Easier performance tracking
In order to ensure your content and social media strategy is effective, you need to track your performance metrics. Tracking these metrics allow you to:
- Get a better idea of what is working and what isn’t
- Find the best days and times to post for your target audience
- Discover which platforms are benefiting you the most
- See where you are generating new business
By skipping this step, you risk posting content that’s not generating any traction whether it is because it’s not useful, at the wrong time, or on the wrong platforms and prevents you from growing and meeting your goals. Fruitless efforts will simply mean wasted time and, therefore, wasted money.
4. More flexibility
With every social media marketing strategy, there will be things you need to be posting and things you would like to be posting. There will also be content that you can plan ahead for and content that will contain more real-time information. When you automate your social media posting, you can review what you already have to ensure it’s still accurate and relevant for the time it’s going to be posted.
You’ll also have more time to post content as it comes up when you’re no longer worried about the content that needs to be posted by a certain time. By automating your social media posts, you can create more time. When you have more time, you have more flexibility with your strategy, content, and the way you structure your day.
Pro Tip: Avoid using bots to automatically respond to comments on your social media posts.
Top social media automation tools of 2023
Sprout Social notes that some of the best platforms for social media automation include:
Sprout Social
Sprout Social has worked to create an effective social media automation tool for businesses and users to make the most of their digital marketing efforts. Some of their key features include:
- Support creating and managing content by scheduling up to “350 posts and campaigns” across multiple platforms
- Smart Inbox that holds all of your messages from multiple platforms in one space where you can respond or assign to another team member.
- Creating reports and graphics that allow you to easily see your performance
While these are some of their top features, they also have a variety of other features that are geared toward helping you reach your marketing goals and experience new growth. This platform is perfect for “Enterprise companies, mid-size brands, small businesses and agencies” that want the full package.
Sendible
Sendible also has a variety of awesome features that will help you successfully run your social media marketing strategy, including:
- A content calendar you can schedule your posts on
- Data analytics that will allow you to see what’s working and what isn’t
- Social listing that will inform you of “industry keywords, hashtags and trends”
Sprout Social notes that this platform works great for “agencies, brand managers or social media marketers” that are in charge of clients’ social media presence management or their own.
Agorapulse
While you can sign up for premium features, Agorapulse does allow you to use a free version, so it’s perfect for those just getting started and still working to grow their social presence. Some of the main features of this tool include:
- A social media inbox that comes with an “Inbox Assistant” that will help you manage your messages
- A content calendar where you can schedule and approve content both on the website and on a mobile-friendly app
- Social listening and reporting elements to help you see “conversations about your brand and competitors” as well as receive analytics of gained/lost followers and other “social media interactions”
This tool is recommended for organizations such as “freelancers, agencies, small businesses and [enterprises]” who only have one social media platform to manage.
CoSchedule
While your social media and content strategy is the main focus of this article, there are likely other marketing efforts that you and your team are working on. CoSchedule is a tool that will help you “organize, schedule and publish” everything you have going on from one tool. Some of their features include:
- A centralized location for all of your marketing strategies so you can organize, schedule, and assign with ease
- Free tools like a “Headline Analyzer,” “Email Subject Liner Tester,” and a “Social Message Optimizer.”
This platform is a great tool for “agencies, small businesses, and solopreneurs” that are looking for individualized support for their content and management.
Loomly
One thing we love about Loomly is that it’s designed to help you manage organic posts as well as promotional. It will even give you tips to help you optimize your content in real time. Some of their other top features include:
- Assistance with organic and promoted social media publishing
- Support in creating your ad campaigns
- Individualized analytics sent to you about your social media posts
Loomly is a great tool for “enterprise companies, agencies, and small businesses” that are looking for an easy tool to help them with social media presence management.
The key takeaway
Automating your social media posting is a great way to save you time, give you more flexibility, help give your efforts a boost, and generate stronger brand consistency for your organization. There are a variety of tools that will help you accomplish your goals that are unique to your industry, organization, and target audience.
It may feel overwhelming trying to find the best one for you, but luckily most platforms come with a 30-day free trial. So, you likely won’t actually need to spend any money until you find the right tool for you!