Automation Archives - Bold Red Creative

If you’re looking to step-up your social media presence to promote your message more consistently, you’ll likely need to schedule posts in advance unless you plan to be on social media 24/7. And who has time for that?! If you’re hesitant to add automation to your social media strategy because it seems impersonal, read 5 Ways to Humanize Social Media Automation.

Some social media platforms have native scheduling capabilities, like Facebook and more recently Twitter (via Twitter Dashboard iOS app). There are other social sharing tools that can assist with publishing posts at a later time. This allows for batch scheduling and can save time during the day or week, depending on how far out you will be planning your posts.

If you’re exploring your options or focusing on growing just one or two platforms right now, I recommend starting off with a free plan. Below is a comparison of free plans from scheduling tools that I’m familiar with.

Note: some less familiar third-party apps are not in compliance with the guidelines of certain platforms and could result in the suspension of your account, so be careful about what you use. The ones on this list follow guidelines to use for posting. Also, at the time of this writing there aren’t any approved tools that I’m aware of that allow direct scheduling to Instagram. Instead these tools allow you to set up your posts and then alert you when it’s time to publish directly to the network.

Free Social Scheduling Plans

Buffer

Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram

Number of Social Accounts: One account per network

Number of Scheduled Posts: 10 posts per profile

Analytics: No report, but will show top tweets and posts

Link Shortening: Yes

Pros: Browser extension for adding articles easily to content queue, available on desktop and mobile app, Pablo image creator, and video and GIF uploader, ability to “re-buffer” previously shared content.

Hootsuite

Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, and Instagram

Number of Social Accounts: 3 social profiles

Number of Scheduled Posts: Unlimited

Analytics: Basic report that shows follower growth

Link Shortening: Yes

Pros: Ability to interact and monitor mentions, people, and topics from the Hootsuite dashboard, Hootlet add-on for Chrome to share articles, available on desktop and mobile app

Post Planner

Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Facebook and Twitter

Number of Social Accounts: 1 profile

Number of Scheduled Posts: 5 per day and 25 total

Analytics: None

Link Shortening: No

Pros: Gives status ideas and shows viral photos and top articles to help boost engagement on posts

Later

Free Scheduling Available for These Social Networks: Instagram

Number of Social Accounts: 1 User, 2 social profiles

Number of Scheduled Posts: 30 photo posts per month

Analytics: No

Link Shortening: N/A

Pros: Schedule posts on desktop or mobile app, view overall layout of scheduled grams with rest of Instagram feed, search and re-post

Summary

Buffer and Hootsuite are great as overall social media management tools for multiple channels. I personally think that Buffer’s format is more user-friendly and find the browser extension to be extremely useful. I also love the “re-buffer” option. However, Hootsuite’s ability to monitor keywords, hashtags, and other conversations is very valuable.

Post Planner is a handy supplement to a more robust scheduling tool to find out what articles and photos are getting great engagement, so you can share the relevant ones to your niche and message. Even though you can plan Instagram posts in Hootsuite and Buffer, I love how you can preview your feed in the Later app.

What’s your favorite scheduling tool? Which features do you find to be the most valuable?

For more tips on how to Streamline Your Social. Get my FREE Quick-Start Guide here!

Last week, I participated in PostPlanner’s #ViralChat on Twitter where the topic centered on Social Media Automation. As usual during Twitter Chats, there were several great tips contributed by social marketing professionals, but the one concern throughout the chat was that scheduling tweets and posts can be more like broadcasting as opposed to engaging in conversation with followers.

Since my plan for the blog over the next month is to tackle automation, I thought it would be good to kick off this topic with ways to “humanize” scheduled posts so that your voice is present and encouraging interaction with your content. Automation, or “strategic scheduling” as #ViralChat participant Chris Barrows refers to it, is a great time-saving tool and is very valuable when done correctly.

5 Tips for Social Media Automation

Post valuable content at times most convenient for your audience.
Be sure that what you’re sharing with your community on social media is providing some sort of educational or entertainment value. Then, make sure you’re scheduling posts for times when the majority of your audience tends to be online. We can’t all be online 24/7, but automation definitely helps to provide consistent visibility. Take a look at your platform’s analytics to get some helpful information regarding this.

Add something to curated content.
When sharing an article, be sure to include your thoughts on it. It could be as simple as, “I love tip #4” or “I agree 100%.” This shows that you read the article and find it worthy to share with your community. It is also a chance to add your brand’s voice to keep posts consistent with your mission.

Ask questions.
In order to keep from broadcasting and, instead, encourage engagement, ask your followers for their opinions. Be prepared, though, to be able to reply and discuss comments once the scheduled post or tweet is published. Automation cannot replace the real-time interaction that helps grow a dedicated and passionate community.

Don’t schedule posts too far in advance.
We never know what each day holds. Current events and tragedies could make a scheduled joke or post untimely and in poor taste. If you schedule too far in advance, you’re likely to forget what is supposed to be published when. A good rule of thumb is to not automate more than a week or two out, and that may even be stretching it in some cases.

Consider the type of content you are sharing. The more “controversial” it is, the wiser it may be to schedule more frequently. Also, it’s possible that what you are sharing could be out-of-date by the time it publishes. This gives the appearance that you are out-of-touch with what’s going on in the world and your community. Evergreen content may be best to be shared via automation.

For further reading on how brands should address tragedies, check out Jay Baer’s post.

Incorporate live tweeting with your automation strategy.
Participating in Twitter Chats, replying to and sharing others’ content in real-time, and using relevant hashtags for live events can all be good ways to engage and build relationships on Twitter. This is what I personally love best about the platform. Scheduling posts in advance should hopefully afford you more time to interact this way.

Even if you’re scheduling posts for other social channels, be sure to set aside time to communicate with influencers and followers.

Automation can be a great tool for busy entrepreneurs, but it definitely can’t be the only piece of a successful social media strategy.

Do you have a favorite tip for automating your social media posts? Please share in the comments below or send me a shout on Twitter!

For more social media tips, get my FREE Streamline Your Social Quick-Start Guide!