At the start of 2022, there were over 4.55 billion social media users worldwide, making social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn some of the best ways to build brand awareness and industry authority and engage with current and potential customers
When used with automation, social media posting enables businesses to be consistent, available, and relevant on social media and keep up with the trends.
In addition, automation lets your marketing team measure the performance of social media marketing efforts and frees them from routine tasks so they can focus on more value-added tasks,
That said, relying on social media automation tools alone doesn’t bring you the results you expect. Although social media automation certainly reduces the effort you need to put into your campaigns, you can’t completely get rid of the human touch.
So, how do you create campaigns driven by the perfect combination of technology and human intelligence?
Beware of the time zones
Automating social media publishing is far more convenient than doing it manually. It removes the need to constantly be alert about when to post and hustle across multiple social media accounts at once and reduces human errors like forgetting to post.
At the same time, however, it can be tricky when you’re trying to reach a global audience.
Whenever you’re reaching audiences outside your locale, it’s essential to be aware of these time zones. This includes identifying the time zone of each audience and configuring the correct time zones in your automation tools.
So, when you’re trying to optimise your social media campaigns, ask yourself questions like:
- What time zones are the majority of followers located in?
- What times do posts most often get clicked and shared?
- When are you available to engage with those who respond to your content?
Don’t forget to use the analytics tools of your social media marketing automation platforms to track and determine the best time to publish each type of post, which will help you reach your audience with the right message at the right time.
Experiment with different times for different types of content before setting up to get the best results.
Remember to interact with customers
Automated social media posting means that you don’t need to constantly hover over your computer or phone. But, leaving it all to your automation tools won’t guarantee the best results either.
Regularly monitoring your activities ensures a seamless engagement with your prospects and helps you get to know them better.
It also allows you to understand your audiences better and humanise the front-end of your social media campaigns by:
- Answering customer queries on social media comments
- Optimising the campaigns for audience preferences and behaviour
- Ensuring your content isn’t limited to promotional messages but also provides value
Automation should complement your social media activities instead of completely taking over your campaigns. If you’re not engaging enough with the audience and only sharing promotional content or brand messaging, your target audience will become disengaged.
Track automation performance and never miss tool updates
Social automation platforms are constantly upgraded based on changing requirements and social behaviours, which means new features are always around the corner.
When changes occur in functionalities and user interfaces, it’s essential to be aware of them so you can incorporate them into your campaigns and ensure your audiences are getting the most sophisticated experience when they interact with you on any platform.
Social media monitoring doesn’t end there; it’s also essential to make the best use of social media reports and analysis to optimise your campaign.
While scheduling and publishing content may be the most obvious benefit of social media automation, detailed reports created using the analytics tools provided by your automation software help determine your campaign performance based on engagement and outreach.
You can use this data to improve transparency about your campaign performance and make foolproof social media strategies for the future.
Make sure your posts are relevant and appropriate
While scheduling makes things easier for your marketing teams, it also has some risks.
For instance, your post may have lost its relevance by the time it’s up on your social media page. Planning too far in advance won’t bring you the engagement you need, given the short life of social media trends, buzzwords, or even hashtags. Social media is all about being available and relevant in real time.
What’s worse is if your post is inappropriate for the posting period. Imagine a situation where a natural disaster occurs in your country. A scheduled post about a sale run at this time is not only inappropriate but won’t get the kind of attention you’d want for your brand.
You can try out best practices like scheduling posts for delivery a week in advance unless there’s an opportunity for spontaneous updates when devising a posting schedule. This time window gives you the best opportunity to make the best out of popular culture references, current social issues, and other trends.
Best practices for automated social media posting: The takeaway
There’s never a one-size-fits-all kind of trick when it comes to automated social media posting.
That said, knowing these universal best practices helps you stay relevant with your posts, stay present when customers or potential customers have any enquiry and prevent any PR nightmares.
To discover more about how you can optimise your automated social media campaigns, schedule a free consultation with one of our specialists today!