As a marketer, I must confess that I suffer from shiny object syndrome! I am always looking for the latest social media automation tools.
It is not strange. It is not weird. Most business owners and marketers in Lagos Nigeria and other places around the world also suffer from shiny object syndrome. We continuously seek tools and strategies to help our business grow.
Business owners or digital marketers need to know ways that will help save time and improve customer targeting and customer experience with your brand.
You need to know how to optimise your business strategies and tactics. You need to know how to optimise your marketing campaign and measure results.
Know what tools to invest in that will help you attract better sales leads, improve your accountability. You need to invest in marketing technology.
If your brand is lucky, there will come a time when you amass a massive following on social media and across different social networks where your follower’s hangout.
When you reach that stage, managing your social media accounts may be a burden. At this stage, some business owners may outsource social media management to a reputable and affordable social media agency.
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Other business owners on a tight budget may decide instead to look for ways and tools they can use to automate their social media. Especially the ongoing management and repetitive task associated with social media.
For business owners seeking to use social media automation tools or marketing automation tools, here are the advantages and disadvantages. These are the things that you need to know of before you dive into it.
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Advantages of Using Social Media Automation Tools
These are some benefits of using social media automation tools.
Social Media Management
Automation tools may help to relieve you of the daily repetitive tasks involved in managing a social media page. Automation helps to give you more free time to handle other areas of your business.
Content Calendar
With the aid of social media automation tools, you can create a content calendar. Then organise your social media post for the day, weeks, and even months ahead.
Some of these tools allow you to create posts in bulk and schedule postings to your various social media accounts.
A content calendar will help you keep abreast of the content you are posting to which social network and at what time.
It will also help you save a considerable amount of valuable time that you could invest in other essential activities in your business.
Post at the Right Time
Social media automation tools help you post at the right time when your fans and followers are most active. Then your post and tweets can generate the most interaction and engagement.
Most times, it’s better you use the inbuilt analytics provided by the social network where available. Using native analytics is much more precise than third-party automation tools.
Content Variety
With an automation tool, you will post a variety of content with ease, even on your mobile devices. Making it possible for you to have a well-crafted content mix that suits everyone in your social media community.
Re-use Content
Do you have evergreen content that you like to re-use from time to time? Reusing content becomes very easy when using automation tools.
Reusing is where social media automation tools shine. Because each time you want to re-use a piece of content, it becomes a breeze than a hassle.
For business owners seeking to use social media automation tools to grow and manage their social media here are the advantages and disadvantages Click To TweetMonitoring and Listening
Automation tools make it easy for you to engage in social media monitoring and listening. When you automate these tasks, you are sure that you will not miss a tweet or a post that relates to your brand or industry.
Monitoring and listening is another area where having the right automation tool will help outshine your competitors.
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Disadvantages of Using Social Media Automation Tools
Here are some problems with using social media automation tools.
No Personality
Relying on social media automation tools can make your brand lose its personality. Your post will be too mechanical. Your posts will not get much human engagement, which algorithms on many social networks take into consideration.
No Organic Growth
These days brands are usually in haste. They want to get more followers, attract more interaction with their social media posts and get mentioned by top influencers in their industry.
In the old days, this was reasonably easy to do. However, these days, things are not as simple. That’s why brands on social media resort to using automation tools to grow the number of their followers.
Dangerous Tools
Automating the growth of your social media accounts is a double-edged sword. There are some automation tools out there that run contrary to the privacy policies, terms, and conditions of social media sites.
Using these types of tools is dangerous because it may end up getting your account suspended or deleted from the social network!
Social media auto-follow tools, if not correctly implemented, can be detrimental to your brand image. Too much of it can make your brand seem ‘spammy’.
Fake Followers
If you use your social media account for business, you also stand the risk of accumulating counterfeit followers. These are persons that you would not like to associate with your brand.
If you’re not careful, you also risk-sharing or retweeting and posting pornographic content from your fake followers and bots to your social media community. Sharing such content causes severe damage to your brand. For corporate brands, these type of accidents can ruin your brand overnight. So be very careful.
Using some social media automation tools puts you in real danger of having your account terminated for going against the terms and policies of the social network!
Best Practices for Using Social Media Automation Tools
Monitor your social networks regularly to ensure that your posting schedule is on point. Daily monitoring also prevents your posts from being offensive for holidays and similar occasions.
Don’t automate everything primarily on your profile. Leave room for being spontaneous and interact with your community. Don’t get lazy and expect tools to do everything for you. They are to make your work easier not to take over your job.
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Conclusion
So what’s the best way to grow your social media community? My advice is simple! As much as possible, build your community on social media organically, i.e. the natural or manual way.
Learn to connect and engage with your fans and follower whenever they interact with your content through likes, comments, and shares.
Doing so can help you get a decent and active social media community. Remember the saying that ‘little drops of water make a mighty ocean’.
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Have you used any social media automation tools? Share your experience in the comment below.
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