As powerful as social media marketing can be for business owners, it is by far one of the most time consuming marketing strategies that exist. That being said, how do so many businesses consistently stay connected with their social media fan base?
Are they hiring an online marketer to post to their accounts daily (sometimes multiple times per day) or do they have a secret tool to help out along the way?
This is where new technology comes into play.
Social media automation software was introduced to the market several years ago and has since been fine-tuned and updated just as frequently as the social media networking sites themselves.
There are many different programs available and each have their own unique features to optimize your marketing efforts; however, they all have one aspect in common – they eliminate the option to log into your account and manually post updates! Here are some of the most commonly used social media automation software that have helped business owners, as well as online marketers, advance their success and time management skills effectively.
Using Universal Automation Tools to Increase Exposure and Production
While some of these social media automation software are specific to an individual platform such as Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) or Twitter, others offer a universal platform that can incorporate any social media account.
BufferApp has become one of the most popular software programs available because it enables business owners the ability to link multiple social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD) under one centralized dashboard.
This program gives users a powerful option to log in to one account that gives them access to each of their social media accounts simultaneously. The program also provides features such as customized scheduling for each individual account and the ability to track the success of each post through the analytics tab gives users plenty of ways to optimize each account.
For business owners that have multiple social media accounts (especially those that have multiple accounts for multiple businesses) this social media automation program can potentially save at least two hours per day that is usually spent on manual updates.
While BufferApp offers a completely free version of this automation software, the free version is limited to ten scheduled posts per social media account. However, there are several affordable membership programs that enable you with more features and unlimited posting!
SocialOomph is another popular universal automation software that enables users to control multiple social media accounts in a centralized place. This platform enables users to unify Facebook, Twitter and Blogger accounts as well as a few others.
SocialOomph allows businesses to create scheduled posts to multiple accounts and it also gives them the option to manage friends and followers effectively by offering features such as the Follower Automation tool.
This feature allows you to automatically follow those who follow you, as well as unfollow those who unfollow you! This can successfully reduce the annoying consequence on your page from those who follow you solely to increase their numbers (because you will customarily follow them back), but then unfollow you. This can create a large gap between your followers vs. follows that can deter potential customers for trusting your marketing tactics!
This program also has a free account option that offers effective automation and management of your Twitter accounts; however, in order to link a Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) or Blogger page, user must pay the monthly membership fee.
Results of Social Media Automation Software
Aside from the apparent time-saving factors of using social media automation tools, utilizing these types of software can also help you to increase production as well. Despite who your target market is, chances are that they do not appreciate a flood of posts showing up on their timelines from your pages.
Social media automation tools enable you to run a list of all posts scheduled to be published on a specific account. This can reduce the amount of duplicate links you post, excessive advertising or promotions, as well as a quick reference to the products and services that have already been scheduled and those that need to be scheduled.
Many business owners also find it helpful to throw in a healthy mix of non-business related posts such as famous quotes, statistics and motivational images!
