Sharing posts on social media networks via all platforms at all times can be exhausting. Large businesses and marketing firms have a team (or teams) to monitor all activity, but this isn’t always feasible for smaller businesses, and entrepreneurs (and influencers). Automation is possible at little to no cost.
Automation is key to digital marketing success. Unless you’re able to stay up 24/7/365 and create content that converts every single minute of every hour of that day, you must automate your strategy.
From email marketing to social media posts, your digital strategy hits your clients (and future clients) where they’re active when they’re active, which is difficult to execute as you build a global brand.
What’s the fix?
The fix here is to find tools and systems that allow you to be always ‘on’ without sacrificing your sleep and sanity. Always ‘on’ doesn’t mean false or inauthentic, but a means to provide your clients and followers with the support they need as they need it.
One way to do this is to hire an agency or hire the individuals in-house (like IBM recently did). If you don’t have the budget for that, looking into a 3rd-party tool, like Sprout Social, might be the way to go.
It not only provides reports, listening tools, customer service options and the ability to schedule posts, but it also highlights emerging trends that helps users strategize and exceed KPIs. Sprout Social costs $99/month for up to 20 social media profiles, making it the most value-packed buy for any budget.
Below are three reasons why Sprout Social is the best tool for brands of all sizes:
Reports
Three years ago, the reporting feature in Sprout Social would not have been the highlight of the offering. Why? Because many clients and brand stakeholders were not interested in reports — they wanted the vanity metrics: followers, likes and shares. While those numbers ARE still important, the growing trend on social media and in social media marketing is a focus on conversion and on actual engagement. Sprout Social’s reports show trends across all platforms, including Instagram. They provide top posts for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and show most used/engaged hashtags. If you’re a small digital agency providing these services to clients, you can even customize the reports (at the entry level pricing model) with your logo and branding.
Trends
If you’re trying to create buzz around a brand, offering or service, the “discovery” dashboard and the “feeds” dashboard are your best friends. The reports section also provides detailed feedback on hashtags across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but it also allows you to reshare content directly to your feed (or feeds) and schedule posts for later. Facebook is best served when scheduled from directly inside their platform, but Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Instagram can all be automated through the desktop and mobile app. You can also respond to any requests and decide which posts you see — and which you don’t — for max productivity within the app itself.
Scheduling
Scheduling posts for when your audience is most active is the best part of Sprout Social. The second best thing? The fact that you can schedule on so many networks! Google+ may not be on your day-to-day radar, but it should be — it’s helpful for brands building their blogs and always good for SEO. You also never know when you might want to use YouTube as a means to reach your clients and these two are connected.
There are many, many more reasons why Sprout Social is the best tool for brands of all shapes and sizes, but these are three of my favorites. I’ll continue to explore automation topics, trends and best practices as I firmly believe this is the key to staying productive AND building a brand that converts.