content automation - Express Writers

A Guide on What To Automate In Your Content Marketing (Step-by-Step Tool List Included)

June 19, 2024September 13, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Bill Gates was certainly right when he noted that content is king, back in 1996. Today, it’s easy for anyone to be an online publisher. But it’s a pretty daunting prospect. Thanks to an entire tool lineup of smart new tools, it’s also never been easier to create, promote, share, and market your stuff. However, there’s a trade-off between ease and effectiveness. For the true content marketer, who really wants to make a difference with their content, it comes to this balance: easy does not always equal effective. Yet, we live in a time when it is essential for brands to be communicating 24/7. Those that have a powerful online presence and engage their audience are the ones that aren’t afraid to experiment with the tools of content automation – but know how to strike the right balance and stay engaged, relevant, and consistent in original creation. What tools can you use to automate your content marketing… and where do you draw that line in creation vs. automation? I’m here with an intensive step-by-step list, based on what’s worked for me after a lot of trial and error. Keep reading! 4 Key Tools to Use In Automating Your Content Marketing, & What to Avoid How can you successfully balance time-saving automation with the necessities of creative, original creation? Here are the top four tools I recommend. Some come with a warning label, so tread carefully. Tool #1: Buffer I love Buffer. For all-around social media post scheduling, it can’t be beat. Their dashboard is easy, customizable, and so clean. I’ve tried Hootsuite and Buffer, and like this tool the most. There’s just more features, cleanliness, and organization here. Buffer, of course, requires manual work, unlike tools like Edgar that do the repurposing for you: but I honestly don’t like letting go of scheduling out my tweets myself. I share my login with our social media manager, Rachel, who helps schedule out our blogs as well. In Buffer, you can upload visuals and videos to your posts as well as schedule them out. As you can see on the left in the screenshot, we have a ton of accounts hooked up to our one Buffer Pro account. I also love that Buffer removed their “automation” feature–better known as the Suggestions area. They took away a huge crutch for the automation-happy users, and I applaud them for it. There is no “bad,” or “don’t use,” in Buffer’s features. Good work, @Buffer! Tool #2: Commun.it Approach this tool cautiously. Do not, do NOT utilize this tool to it’s fullest. This tool offers some serious social automation. It has good and bad points. If you’re considering this tool, here’s something you need to know about Commun.it right now. Don’t even go to their site and check them out: read this first. If you sign up for this tool, you’ll need to immediately go to the Schedule tab (this used to be called Campaigns)… and turn OFF all the scariness of automated tweets, DMs, etc., that are “ON,” in this list (click Edit > Pause OR Delete): I don’t have a screenshot of when I turned on my account, but I wish I did. There were 20+ automated things on. All the auto “tweets” you’ll find turned on I do not suggest even trying. (More on that in the do’s vs. don’ts list below.) @commun_it – if you’re listening, turn OFF these automation features for all new users! The automation ON is very, very dangerous… a new user could spam the heck out of everyone they know without even realizing. Now that we’ve clarified the bad and how to avoid it… There are some good features to this tool. I’ve hooked up about 6 accounts to my Commun.it and paid for a year of Business Pro, starting in January 2016. Here’s what my main dashboard looks like when logging in: After four months of using the program (only a few hours a week if that), the biggest benefits I’ve noticed are in the suggested “consider to follow,” and “consider to unfollow” lists. I’ve never been able to build such a targeted amount of Twitter followers before—with any tool. I can also “retweet” top tweets straight from here, to get the eye of an influencer, see all my notifications across the board (who interacted with me and said what), and more. My favorite area to go to every time I open the tool is the Community section: It’s very easy to just click through the tabs here and start engaging–real engagement, with some real users that align with your interests. Commun.it’s algorithm on who to follow is decently, but not always, helpful. Be sure to keep an eye on it, don’t just click-click-click and repeat: sometimes you’ll see an occasional follower not suited to your interests or audience type. Or, a 100% spam account will sneak in. DO use these features of Commun.it: Community-building feature Follow the “consider to follow” list, unfollow the suggested to unfollow, while keeping an eye on it as you do it “Leads” section to find strangers related to your interest and start building new connections Use the “monitoring” for brand mentions, hashtag mentions for reputation management/engagement building Set up your own well-written, reoccurring customized tweets or DMs to publicize your stuff – for example, a podcast you have, or a blog (no auto tweeting of their automated tweets – see below) DO NOT use these main two features: #1. Too much or non-personalized auto-DM’ing. Confession: I do have a few auto-DMs going. Here’s what I think about auto-DMs: Never do them with a free software. “Automated” or “by X tool,” inserted by the tool as the last line in the message, turns people off more than anything With my paid version, I can insert their name and a day of the week – this is ideal for personalization I check back and write replies, etc, when people answer them DM’s done in that way can be done well. I’ve been redoing them every month, but haven’t achieved any “clicks” – although I’ve seen replies from real people thanking me for the DM … Read more

How to Balance Automation with Creation The Right Way In Your Social Media

June 19, 2024May 5, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Today, one of the greatest challenges facing the content marketer is the balance between automation and creation. With all of the fantastic automated platforms available for use today, it can be tough to determine where, exactly, the line needs to be drawn. Too much automation kills conversation. But too little automation means a lot of monkey work, lost time and excess stress for the busy marketer. So, where’s the happy medium? Your Guide to Effectively Balancing Automation With Creation In A Social Media Strategy Let’s delve in. Why a Mix of Creation with Automation? Create: While automation may make life easier, creation makes life much more fun. Creating content for your social media platforms is a deeply creative, interactive experience; it’s here that brands and individuals alike get to exercise their voices and styles. It’s also here that relationships are built and authority is made. People who take an active role in the creation of their social media content often enjoy closer relationships with followers and fans as well as a more intimate grasp about the state of their social media presence overall. Unfortunately, full creation zaps your time and creates distractions. Push notifications, pings, comments, messages, and re-tweets all demand our attention… if we’re not careful, it’s easy to get pulled away from the important tasks at hand to go engage on Facebook or Twitter. While this may help strengthen relationships in the long run, it’s not ultimately awesome for productivity. Automate: There are dozens of great reasons to automate your social media posting, like this Buffer resource. In addition to increased traffic and more consistent interaction, automating social media can also help you get more done with less stress. Because social media requires a large time and energy commitment, automating things like posts and promotions can give you a break from the Internet and free up some space for you to worry about other things, which is a huge draw for busy people that need social media-free space to focus. Additionally, automation is often a more efficient way to interact with social media. While it’s possible to lose some of the “human factor” behind social media when you begin to automate, it also makes all of your social media interactions much more deliberate and saves you from getting tied up with trolls or comment chains, which is yet another way to save your precious time. Striking a Balance: 5 Tips for Using Creation and Automation Together As is true with most things, the sweet spot between creation and automation is somewhere in the middle. To lean too much to either side is to sacrifice the benefits of one or both things, so it’s important to walk that middle line. Here are some tips to help you do that: 1. Keep a human eye involved Some marketers would love to turn all of their social media dealings over to automated platforms and never look at them again. Unfortunately, this will only spell trouble for your brand eventually. The reason for this is that, while a large portion of your social media interaction can be automated, it’s pivotal to keep the human touch intact. This keeps social media personal and helps you avoid automated disasters like the one the New England Patriots endured when their automated platform retweeted a racial slur. The takeaway? Feel free to automate, but keep the human oversight intact. 2. If you’re going to reach out, do it personally Some brands do things like send auto-generated messages to people who follow them. While this may seem like an efficient and personalized way to reach out to fans, it’s not. More often than not, this comes off as vacuous and more than a bit creepy, and it may actually turn fans off more than it helps to engage them. Instead of sending out auto-messages for the purpose of building relationships, dedicate some time each week to batch-checking and responding to social media messages. This can help keep your social relationships intact without derailing you on a daily basis. 3. Use automation to distribute content evenly If you don’t use an automation service, you’re limited to posting content only when you’re awake, working, and free. This often leads to “blasts” that overwhelm your followers’ feeds and lead to much of your content being skipped over. Avoid this by using automation to distribute your hard-won content evenly throughout the day and night. In addition to avoiding content traffic jams, this also increases the likelihood that your readers will fully engage with your content and keeps you from becoming a spammy social media presence. 4. Keep an eye on current events Social media moves quickly, and is one of the main news sources for people around the world. In light of this, I can promise you that you’re going to do your brand some serious damage if your automation platform is buzzing away while a national or global disaster unfolds. While it can be tough to stay on top of daily news and disasters all of the time, the best practice here is to cut off automation when there’s a known disaster at work. The exception is if you can use your automation to dispense content that is sensitive and directly related to the disaster in an intelligent and sophisticated way. 5. Keep testing your automation Automation is the way of the future, but you need to be sure it’s working well in order to keep using it. Test your automation times, days, headlines, and activity levels often in order to ensure that you’re still in that sweet spot between automation and creation. Adjust anything that’s not working and move forward. Conclusion Automation and creation. They’re like two peas in a pod when they’re used correctly: essential to each other, but not as effective or even as good-looking without each other. These five tips can help you ensure that your social media displays the best of both worlds, and that you’re using automation and creation to the full extent and advantage of … Read more