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A while ago, mentioning social media marketing automation regularly caused an indignant outcry „How can you do that“ in some social media discussion forums and groups – especially here in Germany.

While I long ago discovered that real social media marketing results will be very tough to reach without at least some marketing automation, it seems to me that slowly the table turns and more people learn to accept that some automation is not necessarily bad.

But the truth is when you are serious about marketing and are looking for considerable results from social media you will have to consider automating some of your processes. Especially for solopreneuers and small businesses where the people who are active on social media have other tasks to do, marketing automation can well be the key to unlocking social media marketing power.

I admit, that we here at The SocialMs would never be able to do all that we do, without marketing automation. I could not run several social media accounts, drive tons of free traffic and leads while at the same time work on client projects, create ebooks, online courses, create videos and free stuff for our subscribers. Without marketing automation and the aid of tools, I would spend all my days on boring, recurring tasks; I would be stuck in an endless social media marketing rat race.

So, if you are still doubtful about social media marketing automation, here are my top 9 reasons why I think social media marketing automation is a gift from heaven.

1. Allows you to do marketing while you are working on something else

As said above, without marketing automation I would be stuck with tasks like tweeting multiple times per day on several accounts, I would have to pin and repin for hours and in between, I would have to keep in mind to update our Facebook page.

Scheduling allows me to set the recurring tasks of tweeting and pinning with a tool. I can schedule the Facebook posts for several days in advance – and then I can turn to writing a blog post, or talking to a client.

When I start using a „new“ social network, I usually start out with manual work, to get a feeling for the network and understand what is happening. But when I realize I am getting stuck in an endless succession of „boring“ tasks, that is when I turn to automation and set up tools to do the tasks that I can gladly hand over to a tool.

Automation gives me back time so that I can work on other things.

2. Get more done in less time

Starting with social media marketing and trying to be active on several social networks often leads to total social media overwhelm. With automation, you can set up tools to do part of your daily social media tasks and this will allow you to be much more efficient with your social media marketing.

Automation simply takes the recurring and boring tasks from your plate and allows you to concentrate on more challenging tasks that need input from you or that include personal conversations.

3. Allow better timing

In most social networks it is not only important that you post at all, it is crucial for success WHEN you post. Marketing automation allows you to always post at the best possible time, no matter what your schedule says or if your working hours are long over when a post should go out.

Whether you should post several times a day or a couple of times a week, scheduling tools allow you to send tweets, pins and Facebook posts at optimal times when a large number of your target audience might see them.

4. Get better results

None of us can be on social media and post at optimal times 24/7. That is not possible. But a tool can. With the right automation tool, you can get better results from social media by simply posting at optimal times and often enough.

But you can only get better results from social media via automation if you know exactly what you should be doing. If you are just starting out, know nothing about how to get it right, and automate everything because you can: That will probably result in frustration and failure.

5. Make things measurable

Many automation tools come with analytics. In fact, automation can give you more data and numbers about what is going on than posting manually. That can be a huge advantage.

If you use automation, you should absolutely make use of the additional information you get. Analytics should be an integral part of all your social media activity especially when you automate.

6. Work on creativity and communication instead of repetition

I have been stuck in the endless rut of repeatedly posting on social media. I have see my creativity drop and seemingly I never had enough time for anything apart from keeping things active.

That is exactly the moment when you should think about automation. If you are stuck in endless recurring and boring tasks, you should automate these so that you can focus on creativity, client work or other tasks.

7. Reduce the „forgotten“ or „did not get to it“ tasks

I admit it happens to me from time to time. Oh gosh, I did not update the Facebook page for a couple of days. Or I was going to send some tweets for this new piece of content we have – bummer, totally forgot it.

While some of this may still happen, automation can help you to keep your accounts going on a steady pace. I still have some manual posting on my agenda, but if I am totally stuck in a client project and simply cannot get to posting on social media, automation will make sure that tweets, pins, and posts are still going out and out accounts are still active and sending traffic our way.

8. Allows you to scale

We usually recommend to start a Twitter account with around 10 tweets per day. Once your audience is growing and you want to scale, you will have to tweet more – the same goes for Pinterest. Scaling your results requires you to post often.

But be honest, can you afford to tweet 30 times a day, pin 50 to 100 pins per day manually? I could, but that would be all I would be doing and that cannot be the goal.

Scaling social media results without using some automation is very hard – and often even impossible.

9. Be MORE Personal by Having More Time For Everyone

One of the main arguments against social media automation is often that it would take the social out of the social media and it would be like talking to a machine. But in truth, you can get back a ton of time to actually have conversations and engage with people on social media if you use automation. You can automate the endless and impersonal tasks and use some of the time that you win back to talk to people.

Because when you try to get results from soial media and want to scale you will have a ton of recurring tasks that have nothing to do with engaging an audience or being personal. Instead of being stuck in an endless rat race you can focus on building relationships and conversations.

Final words on social media marketing automation

I am a fan of social media marketing automation. Not because I don’t want to have anything to do with social media. But because automation allows all of us, even the ones that cannot afford to totally focus on social media, to participate in the huge opportunities that social media gives us.

Automation allows small businesses to scale and see huge results by automating the time-consuming tasks with the right tools.

But there is a danger of doing too much automation too early. You should not jump into social media and automate everything right from the start. You need to understand the processes before you can hand them to tools. Understanding social media marketing is crucial to success and will come with doing social media yourself – at least for a while. Automation should come later when you know what you are doing.

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