Social Media is absolutely vital when it comes to running a successful business. Entrepreneurs use social media for a large number of aspects in their work. These can be anything from marketing, posting content, or handling purchases from customers. Customer service is a big part of social media, as 20-40% of customers want to engage with a company through social media.
Sometimes, working with social media can cause most of our focus to gravitate there. Some parts of our business may become neglected, and we want to avoid that as much as possible. If your budget is small, automating certain aspects of your social media can help free up a lot of time for other tasks. So, if you are looking to take some of the focus off social media, check out what you can, and can’t, start automating today.
Making sure your social media customer service is excellent takes a lot of work. You may be tempted to have an automated reply be sent out when a customer sends you a message or comment. While this is a good idea in theory, you should try to avoid overusing it. It could be something like sending an automatic reply to a Twitter or Facebook comment when it just looks more awkward than helpful.
If you use automated replies to customer inquiries, try using it in a private message. Avoid using it throughout your social media platform as a whole.
It’s important to post on a schedule. Your customers expect to see your content in their mailbox or newsfeed on a certain day and time. Automating your posting schedule can free up a lot of your time. However, we suggest taking the time to research the best times for your audience to see your content. Reading the latest studies is just a generalized view of the best times. Every industry has a different day and time that fits best. You can find out the best times to post but checking out your social media’s analytics data.
We are always trying to create new and exciting content, but your new subscribers or followers don’t know what you have already done. Most audiences don’t have the time to scroll through blog archives. You can easily automate posting older content by using scheduling services like Buffer.
Every social media platform is different. Many platforms have built in automation for you, like a Facebook Business page. Before spending any money on fancy automation tools, look into your preferred platforms and utilize their tools first.
…it comes to customer service. If a customer leaves some feedback, whether it’s positive or negative, respond to them in a timely manner. Feedback requires that you respond thoughtfully and “in person”. This is the pinnacle of great customer service.
You can see how easy it can be to get carried away with automating every aspect of social media. By utilizing automation in certain places, you can save time and money. And, who wouldn’t want that?
Do you have an amazing automation tool for social media? Let us know in the comments!
