The benefits of automation are well known in the financial world with tools like bill pay and the ability to automate everything from your savings to 401Ks. Now with the ease of marketing automation you are able to transfer those same valuable strategies to your social efforts.
Having a well-planned editorial calendar is key. When paired with social media automation you are able to schedule posts well in advance. This allows your team to develop a cohesive content strategy across all of your social channels.
Social media automation also helps to improve the reach and engagement of the content you post. Many marketing automation platforms not only allow you to schedule out posts weeks in advance but through algorithms also take into account the best times to post your content ensuring they go live to your audience at peak times.
But the greatest benefit of automation is being able to plan ahead, allowing a few great tools to do the work for you so that you and your team are able to concentrate on growing other areas of your business.
Here are a few do’s and don’ts to ensure success with your social media automation strategy.
Do: Be Consistent
Marketing automation helps to create consistency in a posting schedule. This is valuable not only for your team but also for your audience. Consistency allows your customer to know what to expect from you and when.
Consistency also helps your team to plan out content weeks in advance. Unexpected vacation or sick days don’t have to stall your content. And having your posts scheduled ahead of time removes the last-minute stress of composing the perfect tweet on a daily basis, in turn avoiding embarrassing mistakes or grammatical errors.
Don’t: Set It and Forget It
Although it’s tempting, no brand should automate 100% of the time. The best part of building a brand is the opportunity to engage with your customers directly on social media.
Be smart about automating to save you time but be careful not to lessen the engagement with your audience. Find the right tools, set the right schedule while still staying in the conversation, commenting and answering questions on a daily basis. Remember customers appreciate authenticity. They are engaging with your brand because of the people behind it.
Do: Focus on Overall Social Strategy
Automation frees up valuable time to be productive, creative and thoughtful when mapping out the content strategy for your brand. Set aside time early in the week or month to brainstorm and create well-planned content. This will help raise the level of content created and ensure that it is inline with your overall social media strategy.
Don’t: Schedule Posts Too Far In Advance
It’s important to keep in mind breaking news and current events. When social posts are scheduled ahead of time and not adapted to breaking news a brand can come off as appearing insensitive. Be sure to be aware of the posting days and times in order to modify the schedule due to unforeseen circumstances.
Overall, scheduling posts ahead of time allows your team to be more productive throughout the day. Gone are the mornings of “What should we post today?” With social media automation the posts are in the queue and ready to go, so that your team can concentrate efforts on creativity, strategy, analytics, testing and providing exceptional customer service.
Need help automating your brand’s social presence? Set up a time to meet with Filament today to create a cohesive editorial calendar that sets your social media apart from the rest.
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