The days when businesses worked based on gut feelings and trial methods are behind us as developers continue to create business software to automate as many processes as possible. McKinsey and Co. claim that 66% of businesses plan to automate processes to ease their work and assure more favorable and consistent results. Unsurprisingly, marketers are among the top benefactors of these tools.
While social media is a powerful tool for reaching audiences, the platforms can be resource-intensive with a manual approach to posting content, running ads, etc. On the other hand, content automation helps marketers be more efficient with time and money. It also reduces the costs of running businesses and improves brands’ interactions with customers.
When social media marketers properly automate their processes, they can study their customers’ journey and optimize it. You could spend the entire day learning how automation can improve your business generally. But if you are interested in how automating social media marketing can help you save time, this article will break it down for you.
Automation tools help marketers multitask efficiently
Social media marketers often have overlapping deadlines, especially in the aspect of uploading content on platforms. Different business strategies and industries have ideal posting times for optimal user interactions. And depending on your business, you may have to post content on various social media simultaneously.
The situations above can be tasking on you while robbing time you could have used for creative work. But with content marketing automation apps, you can schedule social media posts, plan your time better and develop weeks’ worth of content on the go. After that, you can add your content to the apps and schedule the best posting times.
Research the time of day that your target audience is most active on your active social platforms and set your automation app to post content at those times. This approach will free up time for you to learn, interact with prospects on and offline and follow industry trends to grow your following. Eventually, you will start meeting other business goals while an automation tool helps you reach consumers.
SMM automation helps marketers create better plans
Planning is a crucial aspect of project management, and marketers often execute mini projects in the workplace. Brands need to maintain a consistent brand image online and marketers are key players in determining if the brands successfully build an image. These social media marketers control the quality, frequency, and uniformity of content businesses put out in public.
If you lack planning skills, your content strategies will fall apart at the seams. Even if you are as creative as Steve Jobs, you need to consolidate your ideas and create a realistic posting schedule. Without proper planning skills, you will run out of ideas, upload sub-par content or lose inconsistency, thereby harming your brand image and discouraging prospects. Utilizing a daily planner app can mitigate these challenges, facilitating efficient task management and time-saving measures. Additionally, making use of daily planner templates can streamline the planning process. So while running Twitter ads for an essay writing service or brainstorming LinkedIn posts, remember to leverage the scheduler features in automation apps to create better plans.
SMM automation strategies encourage marketers to pick up new skills
Although related, we don’t often mention a marketing automation strategy and skill acquisition in the same breath. Many online marketers are witty writers and careful planners, but few can deftly manipulate images and graphics to spice up their copies. You don’t want to get stranded while waiting for an unreliable graphic designer for your social media images.
One of the benefits of marketing automation is its ability to push us to learn new skills. As a marketer, you may have an Instagram post idea. But instead of wasting time explaining it to an editor, imagine you could create the image or design the graphics. It would save time while ensuring that no part of your creative idea is lost in translation. The right strategies can free up time for you to learn how to design ad banners, play with templates and manipulate images to draw prospects to you.
Automating CTAs help marketers attract online prospects
In the bid to not sound too salesy, many marketers omit CTAs (calls to action) in their social media posts. Yet, these CTAs are vital as they nudge online consumers to take a specific step after interacting with a brand’s social media post. In fact, studies show that people pay more attention to CTAs in posts than the primary content.
These tools can help you generate compelling and unique CTAs for your posts and websites. The best ones allow you to personalize your CTAs and implement them as HTML+CSS on your blog or website. You can also use call-to-action apps to convert more visitors to leads.
Personalized content in automated SMM keeps leads hooked
Since companies regularly bombard customers with information and ads, these clients can learn to grow tough skin to sales content they see online. They can also develop little patience for content that looks like it is trying to get them to buy a product or service. This situation leads to a problem where potential leads have a short attention span and don’t respond favorably to your marketing tactics.
Research shows that 74% of people are upset when web pages they click on don’t have the content they expected based on the descriptions and CTAs. If the customer clicks on your link and doesn’t see valuable content, they will associate your brand with low-quality content and mentally blocklist you. In the end, you will waste time that you could have used to nurture your leads properly.
Fortunately, SMM automation encourages marketers to leverage their data on leads and send them personalized content along with targeted ads. For example, you can use personalization tokens and customized visuals in your newsletters and ads. When you show leads the content they are looking for, you etch your brand in their minds, build trust and push them further down the sales funnel.
Conclusion
While tools shouldn’t replace human social media handlers, the apps can complement our social media marketing efforts. Automation tools can help marketers increase conversions through assisted planning, simultaneous posting, CTA-generation, etc. So, if you haven’t automated your SMM workflow, you should do that soon as it will help you push prospects further down the sales funnel.