The ongoing change in consumer behavior has led many businesses to reimagine and rebuild their digital marketing efforts, as social media now makes up for a majority of online interaction and digital communication between brands and consumers.
Advancements in tech gave access to consumers for social media
Advancements in technology and software gave way to the widespread adoption of several innovative digital tools. These tools include the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile networks, and technologies that once seemed foreign to consumers. On the back of this upgrade, we now see businesses having better access to markets and consumers previously considered remote or out of reach.
Many more consumers are online, working from home
As a growing number of consumers move their work, studies, and leisure interests online — the same majority of online users are being shaped into social media users at the same time.
Social media has perhaps surpassed its original definition; today, it’s become an online ecosystem that brings users closer to each other. But at the same time, users are in direct contact with the brands or businesses they would interact with regularly.
Social media is the way forward for small businesses
Today we see more than 4.26 billion social media users worldwide, according to recent figures by Statista. This figure is set to increase over the coming years, visiting more than 6 billion global citizens using social media by 2027.
Against this backdrop, we’re seeing businesses taking better advantage of social media and what it can do for their business growth prospects.
Social media is a fantastic marketing tool
Social media has become a marketing tool, a consumer-focused platform that utilizes several advanced tech capabilities. For example, deep machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI), among other business tools, help businesses to reach the right target audience and to get deeper analytical insight into their growing customer base.
Social media has proven its business success, and it’s talking loud and clear.
According to a Harris Poll on behalf of Sprout Social, around 55% of consumers are learning about new brands online or through social media. Additionally, 43% of consumers are increasing their social media activity to discover new products and services.
More so, around 80% of company executives believe investing in social media tools and tactics is crucial for business growth and development.
With more than 160 million businesses already using popular social media sites such as Facebook and now Meta, consumers remain interested in the brands and companies that can add a human personality to the business or organization.
While growth has remained steady, and consumer interest remains elevated, keeping social engagement online means that businesses will need to upscale their efforts with the right automation tools while at the same time ensuring proper marketing budget allocation that will build strong brand loyalty among the online community.
For many small business owners, thoughts of “When are the best times to post on YouTube?” Or “What content to create for Instagram stories?”
Each question helps build a loyal following through constant engagement — but requires having the right automation tools to bring the brand to life.
Aside from this, automated social media tools — you’ll want to ensure ongoing commitment to mundane social and digital marketing tasks.
The digital ad options for social media
With an array of digital ad options, choosing an automation software tool that fits your small business needs can seem daunting.
In the following list, we briefly discuss the most popular and widely used automation tools being used by businesses across a spectrum of different industries.
SocialPilot
SocialPilot offers small to medium enterprises a simple yet versatile social media automation tool that provides them with a full range of features, from calendar and client management to content curation and media scheduling.
On top of the basic features included within the SocialPilot product offering, businesses will see a range of scheduling features that automate reels, stories, images, text, and video posting from a single launching pad.
Perhaps one of the more striking features is the helpful analytics business owners can download onto their computers in PDF format. Any growing business must consider the analytical aspects of its social media engagement to build a strong performing social media marketing strategy.
Sprout Social
One of the more familiar names when it comes to social media automation tools, SproutSocial has a broad range of capabilities, including engagement analytics and various publishing features.
Although considered one of the more advanced automation options on the market, Sprout Social has become a trusted household name among digital marketers and small business owners. Sprout Social gives businesses more leverage to utilize several publishing and automation tools to help build robust engagement.
At the core of Sprout Social is Sprout Queue, simple software that makes it possible for any person to line up several posts at preset times.
On top of this, the Sprout Queue features also give users better insight into when their audience is most active online, allowing them to line up their posts according to these times.
Buffer
Buffer is affordable and straightforward enough for any small business owner or entrepreneur to use and requires a minimal workforce when getting started.
Like similar automation tools, Buffer makes it easy for users to schedule and publish their online content and preset times or days.
The automated publishing features can work across multiple accounts, making it much less tedious to keep track of content management and reporting across various social media accounts.
Basic features that come with their lower-tier pricing include automated publishing, content management, and post-scheduling, among others.
Another robust feature integrated within the platform is machine learning which automatically detects when a post receives a question or comment to help users prioritize swift responses.
Buffer is nimble, but some more advanced features will have users paying somewhat more, but even at that price point, it’s still more affordable than other popular automated tools.
BuzzSumo
While not primarily seen as an automated posting tool, BuzzSumo gives business owners a more extensive understanding of managing their content marketing strategies.
BuzzSumo helps users discover different ways to research popular and trending keywords that can be included within their posts.
For those only starting with their social media marketing strategies, BuzzSumo might initially seem a bit too intimidating. Still, with integrated analytic tools that work across popular social media platforms, users will have a deeper insight into the performance of their posts.
While it may take a bit more time to become comfortable with the range of features and tools, BuzzSumo helps business owners research the proper online and social media trends within their respective industries.
Sendible
Working on Sendible helps users manage their content and social media campaigns from a single dashboard while simultaneously ensuring one-by-one campaign scheduling for various social media accounts.
A prominent drawing point of Sendible is that it allows users to schedule their content a week or month in advance; more so, it’s possible to automate scheduling for as long as one needs.
Additionally, there is space for users to seamlessly curate content according to different social media platforms and include several striking features such as emojis, attachments, and more.
Although there is a robust offering of services and features, pricing might seem a bit out of range for the average small business owner. This is perhaps one of the most significant drawbacks, but if one can look past the higher subscription costs, Sendible is a powerful tool nonetheless.
CoSchedule
To help small business owners streamline their projects better and organize all their social media content more seamlessly, CoSchedule combines conventional features and advanced capabilities on a core management dashboard.
With CoSchedule, users can focus on various social media projects at once while at the same time working across several social channels.
As with some other automation tools, CoSchedule allows one to upload and schedule up to 365 social media posts at once, translating into roughly one year worth of planning that can be done in a single sitting.
Running recurring campaigns and top-performing content is also a bit easier as the platform’s ReQueue features allow for ongoing analytics insight and content automation.
Meetedgar
Perhaps not the most widely known social media automation tool out there, Meetedgar offers a unique service offering that makes it a lot simpler and easier to schedule posts across different platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Although their relatively unique offering isn’t that different from what one will get on other platforms, it does come with a category-based option, allowing users to schedule posts according to different categories and arrange them as needed.
While Meetedgar is simple enough for anyone to use, it does mean that some other vital features might not be included, making scheduling posts harder to manage as the business and social media grow.
PromoRepublic
PromoRepublic does hit all the spots regarding social media management and calendar scheduling. Still, on top of this, it includes an attractive design feature that allows users to access a library of more than 100,000 visual templates.
The emphasis on design means that users will constantly have access to creative and exciting templates that they can incorporate with their social media strategies, making it much easier to publish engaging posts.
There are some other interesting features, such as graphics editor tools and analytic reports. Still, seeing as the design takes up a sizable portion of PromoRepublic’s base, it does make it harder to integrate with other apps seamlessly, and there are no collaboration features that can be used with other businesses and clients.
NapoleonCat
Think of NapoleonCat as the deep machine and AI-rich automation tool that helps users to set predetermined responses for repetitive questions in comments or private messages. Although social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram already allow business owners to set up automated responses, NapoleonCat does that and makes room for post automation all in one simple dashboard.
Among its robust features, users can enjoy post scheduling for multiple platforms and profiles while also managing several platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and Google My Business, among other popular platforms. There is also a report feature, which can give more analytical insight into post and strategy performance.
Despite the weight NapoleonCat carries, it does come with a 24-hour wait period to download data from new profiles. On top of this, users may feel that the user interface is somewhat outdated in terms of what the program can do.
SocialBee
For bloggers, journalists and writers, SocialBee is a straightforward social media publishing tool that helps users to construct a posting strategy around new blog posts. This is done through the RSS functionality that automatically allows users to create new posts whenever they publish online content.
There is also a feature that gives the option to organize different posts into several categories, which means that social media feeds will be more diversified and remain engaging at all times.
Like other previously mentioned tools, SocialBee has a robust analytics feature, and there is an option to set up time-sensitive posts that can be removed after a preset time. All-in-all, it’s a decently priced automation tool, but some business owners might not find all the right tools they are looking for from the get-go.
To finish off
As a business owner, there is a lot to consider in terms of social media marketing and building an online reputation through social interaction and constantly keeping followers engaged with creative yet high-quality content.
For busy business owners, there is an array of social media automation tools that makes the posting and engagement work a lot more manageable while at the same time helping them build a striking image and online brand.
These tools are only at the very start of their existence. We can expect in the near future that similar platforms will become more advanced.
Delivering innovative features is a current quest from many social media automation tools.
The future will see better and more advanced tools and social media strategies that will take us to the next level –all within one simplified ecosystem.
