Am I now spending my precious time scheduling a few posts on social media channels?? So that new readers come to my blog?
Or do I have the time for something else like working with clients that makes me money?
I don’t know how many times I’ve asked myself this question especially at the beginning of my self-employment have put!
Somehow I loved social media because it’s a great and especially fast (unlike SEO) way to get reach especially when starting a blog. But it also costs a lot of time..
Until I found the solution: automate social media! But not mindlessly, so that everyone notices and is annoyed. No, but smart and with as little effort as possible.
If you have just as little time for social media and want to automate your channels as well, here’s what to look out for. You’ll still end up wondering what to do with all that free time…
Disclaimer: in this blog article I will also introduce you to my social media scheduling tool smarterqueue* and how I have been using it for several years to automate social media. I am not paid for this article, but the links to smarterqueue are affiliate links. That means I get a commission if you decide to use the tool as well. Of course there are no additional costs for you.
What does automating social media mean anyway??
Again and again I get asked the question: "how do I automatically post on my social media channels when I have written a new blog article"??"
This is already a good example of automation, how it does not work.
Automating social media doesn’t mean that you write one blog article and the rest magically happens by itself.
You still have to work – but less.
Automating social media means (at least for me), that you sit down once and prepare and schedule posts. So that these are then played out automatically, without having to click on the "publish" button every day.
There are also a number of other ways to automate social media:
- Social listening
- Follow/unfollow
- ..
But since we’re focusing on blogging here, I’ll leave the above points out and focus on the ones that are relevant to us.
How you can use social media automation for your blog?
so let’s take a look at how you can use social media automation to benefit your blog. Or let’s call a spade a spade: to generate traffic.
There are 2 important points:
1. Publish external content
This might sound absurd at first, because you want to get traffic for your have blog? Sharing the content of other bloggers actually helps you to do so.
Because if you post blog articles that are interesting to your readers, they will visit you more often. And of course they see when you have written a new article..
And also in a roundabout way this is a good way to gain traffic. because also here the principle applies: "tit for tat"."that means the chances that one of your articles will be shared in return increases.
2. Post blog articles regularly
I keep saying it:
the biggest mistake is to share your blog articles only once on social media.
This is one of the 4 big blog promotion mistakes that cost you traffic. And yet many self-employed people do it because they are afraid of annoying their readers. The key is to have the blog articles for a longer period of time always share and for that different posting texts use.
Especially with evergreen content, so blog articles that aren’t date sensitive, it’s important that you promote them over and over again. Because it would be too bad if they just languish in your archive, or?
of course, you can make a note in your calendar when you want to publish something. But why not just schedule it and have it play out automatically?
Make tools make it even easier for you to share your articles over and over again. By playing out different variations of your blog article over time. Like smarterqueue, the tool I use to promote my blog articles on facebook.
Automate social media for the blog with smarterqueue
get the full tutorial on how to use the tool "smarterqueue" to get more traffic for your blog automatically. Exclusively for blogothek members!
But is it worth it at all? So automate, if you still have to do something for it and not everything goes by itself?
but hello – in any case! To make this clear to you, let’s look at the pros and cons first.
Advantages of automation
1. Automating social media saves time
This is probably the most important reason why you want to automate social media: to finally have more time for blog articles, your customers, your free time, … again.
As I said, not everything happens by itself, but if you automate, then you set yourself z.B. Once a month and think in advance which posts you will publish when and schedule them already.
It will take you a few hours or maybe a day to do it. But you are fully focused and have all the documents you need at hand (like launch plans, editorial plan, overview of action days and holidays …).
But if you would sit down every day instead, you would have to dig out those documents again and again to get the overview. And no matter how well organized you are (believe me, I know what I’m talking about) – it always takes time to get into planning mode.
Speaking of mode: there is another effect when you work on a task for a long time: you are in the flow. If you don’t constantly switch from one task to another, then you z.B. writing posts is much easier than if you squeeze it in between accounting and the next customer appointment.
2. Automate for regular publishing
Before I automated my social media channels, there were always periods when I published a lot (because I had the time). And then again those where I haven’t posted for weeks at all. Simply because I was so busy with work that I didn’t get around to it.
But posting irregularly on social media is anything but optimal.
On the one hand, the algorithms of the various networks do not like it at all. What counts there is continuity.
And on the other side you can not build a following and community. If you are only present every few months, then it will be nothing. This is much more effective with social media channels than with blog articles.
3. Sharing at different times is simplified
When are you online on facebook? When on pinterest? And when on instagram?
Let me guess, you have one for each channel preferred time.
For me it is like this
- in the morning and early evening i check the facebook community of the blogothek, my member area. Of course I see there then also other postings.
- I usually take time for pinterest in the evening, when the kids are in bed and I can browse and read articles in peace and quiet.
- And I’m on instagram every now and then in between.
As you can see, if you want to z.B. If you post on facebook only at noon, because you have time then, you will never reach me. This is actually logical, and yet many bloggers forget this. For more tips like this, check out my article "4 effective ways to get more traffic via social media, guaranteed".
if you automate your social media channels, then you can make the postings schedule different times on different channels. Even if these are times when you will never sit in front of the PC.
for more tips on what you need to know about facebook in order to promote your blog there, check out my article "4 facebook basics you should know as a blogger".
Disadvantages of automating (& the solutions)
Unfortunately, besides all the advantages, there are also disadvantages that need to be considered.
But don’t worry, there is always a solution, which I have brought for you right away!
1. Impersonal posts& less reach
If you schedule a posting today that will go out in 2 months, then it’s relatively difficult to respond to the then current situation. Or would you have thought in january 2020 that there would be a lockdown in april and no one would go out the front door anymore??
Yes, this is an extreme situation, but it illustrates pretty well what the problem is:
If you plan far ahead, you can’t respond to the current situation. This often makes posts less exciting and more impersonal.
Which leads to less comments and therefore less reach – because the word "social" is not in social-media for nothing..
The solution: check your scheduled postings regularly, e.g.B. Every week or at least every month and adjust them to fit the current situation.
2. Less contact with the community
Automating has a big disadvantage in terms of community-building. Because when a post is published and comments coming in that never get answered, then your followers will soon lose the desire to comment on facebook.
It’s usually not necessary that you reply in the same second, but leaving it completely uncommented is not very helpful either.
The solution: "don’t post and ghost" is what the americans call it so nicely. Make sure that you z.B. notifications when people comment on your posts, and respond to each comment as much as possible.
3. On-the-nose danger for your followers
I already mentioned it above: you can save a lot of time and generate a lot of traffic if you promote a blog article more often on social media.
But you can also lose your followers be a pain in the ass, if you don’t do it right.
I’ve been looking for a solution to this problem for a long time and finally got stuck with my social media tool smarterequeue*. This offers all the features I need to avoid annoying my readers:
- Use different posting texts for one blog article.
- Leave enough time between repetitions
- Play out only a limited number of repetitions
4. Channel-unique content
Every social media channel has its peculiarities: on instagram you can’t post links, on twitter only a limited number of characters, on pinterest mainly portrait format images work, …
And that’s exactly why we love our social media channels, isn’t it??
But that also means: it will be noticed immediately if you simply share a posting on all channels.
The solution: the basic message can remain the same, but adapt each post to fit the social network in question!
Requirements for automating
So you’re convinced that you need to automate, and you want to get started right away?
In fact, there are a few things you need to be aware of you should think about before or. What you have to do before. Namely, this one:
1. You need to know how the social media channels work
I already mentioned the peculiarities of the social media channels earlier. And how important it is that you adapt the postings to the channels.
Well, you can only do that if you also know what the platforms’ idiosyncrasies are like. That means, before you automate a channel, you should first post "normally" for a while, so you can get to know the platform.
2. you need to know what works on your social media channels
posting manually has another advantage: you know what’s going on in your channels is well received by your target group.
social media is like blogging: there are no (or less) universal rules about what works and what doesn’t. Because that depends very much on your target group.
- When should you post?
- What kind of posts get the most interaction?
- How to best reach your target audience?
- ..
you can only find all this out if you are active on the platform. Only when you know how things work, should you start automating social media postings.
3. You need an automation tool
Need is perhaps a bit of an exaggeration. most social networks now allow you to post at a later time rather than immediately, as I showed you above.
Nevertheless, tools have one or two advantages. in this article i have already introduced my tool smarterqueue* to you. Many of the functions (especially repeating posts) are not possible without the tool.
So if you run your blog to become visible online as an expert and earn money, you should invest a few euros per month in such a social media scheduling tool.
My social media scheduling tools
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a "beast of burden" when it comes to social media tools. each one has its advantages and disadvantages and offers different functions. I would like to introduce you to my automation tools here.
I use several different tools to automate my social media channels:
* for facebook, facebook groups and twitter (and earlier also for instagram) for instagram * for pinterest
1. Later
With later i can schedule not only posts but also stories for instagram. Also visual preview of my feed see – and we know how important that is these days…
the advantage of later compared to many other tools (also smarterqueue) is that posts are automatically posted become. Many others only send a notification to the smartphone and the text has to be copied in afterwards by yourself.
2. Tailwind
if you are on pinterest, i highly recommend tailwind. Because especially with pinterest, it’s important to pinned regularly, as pinterest pro alexandra polunin of pinterest confirmed.
scheduling pins is also possible with smarterqueue, but tailwind is an official pinterest partner and very close to the latest developments. Besides, there are nice features in the tool like analytics or tribes, which you can benefit from even more.
Alternatives to tailwind: I don’t know any at the moment
(update: barbara from kaleidocom pointed out to me that recurpost is not a pinterest partner and therefore should not be used for pinning)
3. Smarterqueue
And here it is, the tool that, for me, comes very close to being the egg-laying wollmilchsau. With it you can cover most social media channels and even create and use several of the same social media profiles (e.g.B. Multiple facebook pages).
Some of the features that I actively use, I have already presented to you. Here are a few more:
- you can divide your postings into categories
- You set up a schedule for your posting categories and the postings are then automatically posted at the right time
- You can recycle posts, i.e. play them out several times
- You have detailed analytics on each posting
And these are still not all features, you can find the whole list here.
Automate social media for the blog with smarterqueue
get the full tutorial on how to use the smarterqueue tool to automatically get more traffic for your blog. Exclusively for blogothek members!
Conclusion
Automating social media is a big deal for some marketers controversial. But if you follow these most important rules, you can only benefit:
- Adapt the postings to the platform
- Be online and answer comments (don’t post and ghost)
- parts content on the various channels time-shifted
- Leave longer pauses between the same posts so you don’t annoy your readers
This way you can exploit the potential of social media channels and gain regular readers right from the start, when you are still waiting for your SEO optimization to bear fruit.
A tool is not absolutely necessary, but it can save you valuable time and make your life easier with features like repetition of posts and bring you more traffic. My absolute recommendation for this is smarterqueue, but it’s best to try out a few tools and see which one suits you best.
You have automated your social media channels? What experience have you had with it? Do you have any questions? Then leave me a comment!
