Social Media Automation
One of the newest weapons in the arsenal of an online marketer is the social media marketing automation service. Used properly, the right tool can help online marketers expertly craft their company’s social media presence and reach millions of users across different social media platforms. However, not all social media automation tools are made equal. Here are a few that offer awesome benefits and great functionality that can help online marketers to fully leverage the potential of social media.
Hootsuite
Perhaps the market leader in social media automation, Hootsuite classifies its offerings mainly into two categories. The first is publishing aides. Hootsuite allows users to post to many different social media platforms at once, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more. You can even schedule posts to be published in the future. This means that you can target optimal posting times without actually having to be online at those times! Also useful is the built-in link-shortening tool that helps to free up more space for your posts, especially with Twitter’s 140-character limit. (Hint: you can tell that a link has been shortened by Hootsuite if it starts with “owl.ly”)
The other set of Hootsuite’s offerings fall under the category of “listening”. This is where Hootsuite really differentiates itself. It allows you to build a dashboard that features interactions with your posts across all of your connected platforms. It is this function that tends to be the key consideration for Hootsuite users.
Spredfast
Another of our favorite social media automation tools is the Austin, Texas native, Spredfast. This service allows you to schedule posts across a wide array of different social media platforms, and even integrates with LinkedIn Groups, which is a rare feature. Another of Spredfast’s best offerings is that it allows you to schedule posts to be published on multiple dates all in one go. This lets you plan reposts for your content and ensure that you don’t miss any of your social media audience. The downside here is that you must only post to one social media network at a time, so be sure to weigh the benefit of easy reposting against the cost of having to schedule each social media channel separately!
This social media automation tool also features a calendar so you can visualize scheduled posts and discover any blank spots where you might want to schedule a post.
Buffer
Buffer is a social media automation tool that takes a slightly different approach in its offerings. It allows scheduling of posts for future publication, just like most other leading social media automation tools. It also integrates with an array of social media platforms, and will likely integrate with all of your social accounts. However, how Buffer really sets itself apart is by performing analytics on engagement levels on your social media channel. It notes the optimal times to publish posts and engage with the most possible social media users. Simply tell the tool how many posts you would like to make in a week and it creates a schedule to map out your posts. All you have to do is fill in the schedule!
It is not uncommon for marketers who depend heavily on social media automation to use both Buffer and Hootsuite together to take advantage of the particular strengths of each marketing automation tool.
Klout
Klout is a social media automation tool that has created a complex formula for evaluating your impact on social media. It takes note of engagement levels on different social media profiles and, based on these results, develops a so-called “Klout Score” ranging from 1-100. An average Klout Score falls into the range of around a 40, while Barack Obama’s score of 99 makes him one of the most influential people online, by Klout’s metrics. While many marketers see this as a bit of a gimmick, Klout also has robust offerings that allow you to identify which topics have the most social media success. Furthermore, it has a function that offers suggestions for posts you can share to strengthen your social media impact.
Which social media automation tools do you use, and why? Let us know in the comments below!