Social media marketing automation can be the best tool in your business’s toolbox or the worst mistake you could make – it all depends on how you handle it. Automation has seen its ups and downs in the public’s eye lately, and with good reason. If done wrong, social media marketing automation can waste valuable resources, hurt your company’s reputation and bottom line, and leave you scrambling to undo mistakes that you never even intended to make in the first place.
Intro
In today’s world, social media has grown to become an essential part of the communication process. From Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram, all of these platforms are used by millions of people on a daily basis. However, as beneficial as social media can be to your business, it is also a major time-suck. With so many updates to monitor and content creation that needs to take place on a regular basis, running your own social media accounts can quickly become overwhelming without the right tools in place.
Definition
Automating your social media content to some degree is necessary. For example, if you post at the same time every day, at the same time every week, or on the same days of the month. In this way, you can be sure that someone will always be there to answer questions and engage with your customers. Automation is also a good idea if you have a lot of social media accounts because it saves a lot of time.
Benefits
Businesses have come to realize that social media is an integral part of their overall communication strategy. However, it’s not just a communication channel—it’s an opportunity to connect with potential and existing customers, build brand awareness and drive revenue. If done right, social-media can also be a great driver of traffic back to your website or blog content.
But there are only so many hours in a day. And the number of platforms is increasing all the time!
Disadvantages
Automating social media posts can make or break your business, depending on how you set up the system. It’s important to have a backup plan in place, in case something goes wrong with the system and there are no humans to save it. However, one of the most negative aspects of automating social media is that it takes away from time businesses could be spending interacting with their customers.
Conclusion
The truth is, social media is a time and energy suck. With so many platforms to post on, it’s hard to keep up. Automation tools can be the difference between success and failure on social media. Social Media Marketing Automation tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Buffer can make it much easier to manage your accounts without having to spend hours on each platform every day.