What part of Social Media management can I automate?

What I can automate

Whether you are an entrepreneur or a Social Media Manager, you certainly know it already, a good Social Media strategy requires a good distribution of your content at specific time slots. For example, you would certainly receive more "likes" on Facebook between 8pm and 10pm than between 3am and 5am.

It is, therefore, important to know and constantly test best posting times for your various accounts.
Similarly, you should know the best distribution dates - should you avoid or focus on weekends?

If you have correctly defined your optimal calendar, you have necessarily noticed that it isn't possible to manually post efficiently as it would require 24/7 shifts. You consequently need to use tools that will give you better control over your distribution calendar. Here comes the first element of automation: the distribution calendar.

The second layer of automation you must consider concerns engagement. On Twitter, for example, you could create conversations based on tweets posted by other users - you could reply their questions, their comments, their complaints to generate traction and interest. An important aspect of this strategy can be automated as well, through specific tools.

The last element you must automate concerns series - it is especially true if you are active on Twitter where your tweets' lives is very short. Consequently, if you wish to reach your target, you will certainly need to post frequently. Unfortunately, creating valuable content isn't easy and takes time.
Creating series enables you to automate this process. You could, for example, create a series of the 10 nicest hotels in Australia in you were in the tourism industry, or the 20 most healthy vegetables if you were in F&B industry. Creating series is a simple yet efficient method to create short and valuable posts, easy to distribute, that can be automated.

Louis-Serge Real del Sarte, Social Media Expert and Founder at YLFLY, recommends:

" In regards to publication timing, the best schedule for LinkedIn is between 6am and 8am (in France). If you are targeting an english market, you should consider 2.30pm to 3pm. Your best schedule depends on the region and on your readers. "

How to automate? Which tools can I use?

Luckily, there are many tools on the internet enabling the automation of part of your Social Media strategy.

The free version of the tools presented below is often sufficient for small companies and startups.

Post at the right time with Buffer

Buffer is a platform that helps you schedule your posts according to your own editorial calendar. This tool is compatible with the 5 most popular social media platforms for businesses: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+.

The free version enables you to schedule up to 10 posts per accounts, which should give you about 5 to 10 days buffer on LinkedIn and 2 to 3 days on Twitter.

What I really like about Buffer is that it also helps you analyze the best posting time for your content based on global data and your past results.

I personally have been using Buffer through multiple companies and strongly recommend it.

Louis-Serge Real del Sarte, Social Media Expert and Founder at YLFLY, recommends:

" This tool will save you time and the advice is right. However, I recommend to customize everything and to adapt publication to each Social network specificity. A simple example: identifying someone on LinkedIn is rarely the same as Twitter or Facebook and identifying an influencer is an important part of success. Twitter is limited to 140 characters, LinkedIn 200, groups 400 and Facebook... much more! Consequently, writing the same text for all platforms will not have the right impact. The number of visuals you can add is also different from one channel to the other. You should priviledge 4 images on Facebook, then capture the screen with the 4 pictures and use it on the other channels. "

Jump into conversations with Hootsuite

Hootsuite offers tools very similar to Buffer but its interface is much less intuitive.

However, HootSuite provides one tool that is especially efficient if you use Twitter and that is called "Streams". This tool enables you to create threads of posts related to a specific set of keywords you have defined in order to discover, in live time, what people are talking about around these terms.

I also regularly use this tool to find out who talks about my favorite topics and start a conversation. For example, when I used to work in hospitality, I used this feature to discover tweets from people looking for information about a specific city, or tweets from people complaining about their hotel room or looking for holiday deals, etc. By doing so, I was then able to start conversations with these people, gain new followers, answer their questions and, eventually, acquire new customers.

Automate your series with dlvr or Social Unicorn

Dlvr allows you to post automatically on Social Media from your RSS feed.

If you have a blog, you certainly also have RSS feeds for your blog posts, comments, news, images, etc.

Dlvr transforms these feeds into posts automatically, on your favorite Social Media platforms.

The downside with this tool is that you have very little control over publication date & time, as it is done automatically when your feed is updated.

There is also the excellent Social Unicorn to automate your social media strategy with valuable unique content. The approach is very unique: you upload series of content (say a series a tips, a series of best practices, a series of quotes, a series of "bestof", etc.) that you can directly copy/paste from an excel sheet, you add a few tags, mentions, handles, titles, photos, etc. The machine mixes it all up and posts it on your behalf based on your calendar. That way, you can have your "Tuesday marketing tips" or your "Friday quote" that is posted automatically without any effort. The beauty of it is that each post is unique so you don't risk duplicating content each week.

What should absolutely remain manual

Automation is great and can save you countless hours of work. It is even truer if you are an entrepreneur - everything that can be automated should be automated to save your precious time.

Everything? Not really. There's a part of your Social Media strategy that must absolutely remain manual.

I am talking about the human aspect of Social Media. Do not forget that "Social Media" contains the word "Social" - you should never cut the human aspect of your execution.

Automate everything operational, but keep the relation-building part manual.

Louis-Serge Real del Sarte, Social Media Expert and Founder at YLFLY, recommends:

" This article emphasizes the upside of automization. Yet, after 10 years publishing 30 to 40 posts a day for other companies, I realize how important it is to be present when you publish a post so you could analyze its impact. Of course, a great article published during the night brings little results and should be delayed to the next morning. It is easy to plan! "

To learn more, I invite you to read "Building up Social Media Marketing Strategy".

How to use my newly available free time?

If you aren't doing it yet, your new free time will enable you to contact and engage directly with your fans, thank them when they share, answer their questions, ask them open questions to start conversations, etc.

Louis-Serge Real del Sarte, Social Media Expert and Founder at YLFLY, recommends:

" The upside of these tools is to anticipate publications at times when you wouldn't be available to do it manually.
Another strategy is to thank people on Twitter using the #FF hashtag. To do so, you should spend some time studying your follower and retweeting his content according to your own editorial rules. It shows that you care and decide to give him additional visibility. "

This is an essential aspect of a good social media strategy that could not be automated - it is your job to do it properly, and automating the operational aspect of your tasks should free you sufficient to switch your focus.

Keep in mind that Social Media are not a direct sales marketplace. It is about constructing relationships, establishing trust, getting visibility, not about aggressive sales.

Louis-Serge Real del Sarte, Social Media Expert and Founder at YLFLY, recommends:

" Absolutely. On Social Media, people are looking for information and entertainment. They are not looking for purchasing anything. Buying is often impulsive and unexpected. Social Media influence purchase decisions but it takes time to transform a prospect into a customer through such channel. "

I encourage you to read "The truth about the impact of Social Media strategies" to find out more.

If you wish to automate your campaigns further, I can help you build a distribution system, especially for Twitter or LinkedIn, specific to your needs and strategy, for an independent and efficient distribution. Contact me today to discuss it further.

Julien Rio.