Regularly posting on social media should be a critical part of any digital marketing strategy. But keeping up with multiple social networks can be very time-consuming. Tools for automatic Facebook posting can help you to save time and optimize your marketing tasks for better results.
Some businesses shy away from automation technology for fear that it will make their social accounts less authentic. But when used properly, post schedulers and other automation tools can free up more of your time for building real connections with your audience.
Why Should You Schedule Your Facebook Posts?
Social networks like Facebook require frequent interaction to get the most out of them.
You could literally employ someone to work 24/7 posting content, replying to comments, and engaging with other users. Forty-three percent of small businesses spend at least 6 hours per week on social media.
Source: Vertical Response
While many businesses employ social media managers to take over the work of managing their social accounts, there is another more cost-effective way to eliminate some of these time-consuming and repetitive tasks.
Facebook automation tools allow you to queue up content in advance and automatically post it on a schedule of your choosing. Instead of logging on multiple times a day to post, you can simply spend an hour or two at the beginning of the week or month planning all your content in advance.
The extra time that you’ll save by automating posting your content in this way means that you can spend more time engaging with other users and generally being social. This is what social networks are intended for after all!
Apart from saving you time, there are several other benefits that Facebook automation offers, including:
More consistent postings
You’ll be able to stick to a regular posting schedule, whatever comes up. If you’ve got a product launch coming up or just a couple of busy weeks, you might normally let your social media activity slide. But having a queue of posts ready to go means that your social accounts keep working even when you’re occupied with something else.
It’s also easier to ensure your brand voice and tone across your social posts are consistent, as you can bulk-write posts and create graphics or select images in advance.
Optimize your posting times for different time zones
If your audience is spread across several different countries and time zones, it can be tricky to make sure everyone sees your posts.
Automating your feed means that you can post at the optimal times to reach different audiences without having to manually post in the middle of the night.
Even better, some tools can calculate your best posting times for maximum engagement and automatically post at these times.
Get the most out of your existing content
Some tools also allow you to cross-post from other social networks and even recycle your old posts by re-posting them at a later date. This means you can get more value and reach a wider audience with your evergreen content.
Easily curate content to share
Automated content discovery and curation tools scour the accounts you follow as well as other pages in your industry and external sites.
By looking for certain keywords, they can find content that’s likely to be of interest to your audience.
It’s then a simple task to select which of these pieces of content you want to share with your own audience. By automating them to post alongside your own original content, you can fill out your feed, increase engagement, and build relationships with your peers.
Content curation can be incredibly time-consuming when you’re manually looking for content to share. But automation can save you hours each week.
Increased opportunities for engagement
The more active your Facebook feed is, the more likely you are to attract new followers, likes, and comments.
Automation gives you the power to be more active on social media without actually putting in the man-hours.
When Not to Use Facebook Automation
You can automate pretty much every task on Facebook, but that doesn’t mean you should.
Overuse of automation can result in social accounts that seem spammy and artificial. Automated comments and direct messages are usually instantly recognizable as fake and won’t win you any fans or followers.
Strategically automating the posting of your Facebook content is a great way to get the most out of the time you spend on social media. But there are a few things that you should never automate on Facebook. These include:
- Friending people or following pages
- Commenting on posts
- Sending direct messages
- Replying to direct messages
- Participating in group discussions
You should also take great care when automatically re-posting content from other social networks. A post formatted for Twitter, for example, doesn’t usually translate well when posted on Facebook.
It’s a good idea to keep a close eye on current news and events and pause your automatic posts in response to anything major. An automated post at a time when everyone is focused on a tragic event can seem incredibly insensitive and could even turn into a PR nightmare.
How to Get Started with Facebook Automation
To start automating your Facebook postings, you’ll need a tool designed for the purpose. While there are several social media scheduling tools out there, there are few platforms that offer tools for everything — from planning and content automation to analysis and optimization — in one place.
DivvyHQ is a fully integrated content marketing platform designed for enterprises and large teams. Our platform makes it easy for you to automate posting directly to Facebook and several other social media channels.
Our content analytics module also integrates with Facebook and almost 100 other data sources so you can compile reports and see all of your analytics data in one place.
Simply put, DivvyHQ is designed to streamline your content process and make your life easier. Want to take it for a spin? Just get in touch with our team to arrange a quick demo.