Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 1 Social media is the largest growing sector for company marketing and customer support. The internet has enabled instant responses and up-to-date advertising campaigns. However, as any person that has run social media professionally, whether it be for their company or your own professional profile, the instantaneousness of this new era has brought about a daunting task for social media operators: constant management of these accounts. Although many of these tasks require personal touches and specific care and attention, some are very menial. Growing your community, timing of posts, as well as analytics can all be now done easily through online software programs. Known as “bots” or automation tools, these programs can help target potential new online community members, schedule posts, and show metrics that aid in the overall social media campaign. Bots can be highly effective, especially when nearly 30% of users assume that messages they receive or actions done by bots as those done by a ‘real’ user. Think of the automated message you sometimes receive on Twitter when you follow someone new. This is a great and often misused tool by many tweeters out there. We’ve all been on the receiving end of a poorly executed automated response and it can often leave a bad taste in our mouths when it comes to the idea of utilizing some of the automation tools ourselves. But, before you go running and screaming in the other direction in fear of losing your personalized touch on social media, we’ve got a few recommendations for tools to try out, integrate into your social media strategy, and maybe even learn to love! 8 Tools for your social media automation: Below is the ultimate starter’s guide to social media automation broken down by social medium: Instagram Analytics: Instagram Business Suite Instagram just rolled out its handy set of analytics this past summer to all of its users, and it is absolutely essential to efficiently utilize Instagram as a marketing tool. The suite includes summary of your overall profile as well as individual posts’ reach, engagement, and views. The suite also breaks down followers by gender, age, and location, further aiding even the most specific advertising campaigns on the social platform. Finally, the best feature is showing which time of whichever day your followers are most active, making timing of posts easier than ever. Community Building: Instagress Instagress makes community building for Instagram precise and efficient. Rather than just following and engaging with any users, Instagress gives plenty of filters to use for who to engage with; location, users they follow and who follow them, posting recently, and so forth. One handy filter is the option to focus on building community based on what is in users’ profile bios. Instagress is a paid for software. Auto-Messaging: Holr Posting sometimes only does half the job, and this is where a messaging bot is useful. Holr allows users to send a customized message template to all of their followers, for example to promote an event or new product. The messages are not sent instantaneously but gradually. Be cautious of sending messages with links as Instagram has yet to allow for hyperlinks in its direct messages. Twitter Analytics and Community Building: Audiense Audience is one of the most comprehensive tools for Twitter out there. From analytics to messaging to community building, this suite does it all besides schedule the actual tweets. With Audiense, you will be able to find new people with a simple tag, location, keyword, and more, while easily and efficiently engaging with them. Pinterest Analytics: Pinterest Business Suite Pinterest’s Business Suite features insightful statistics upon profile views, board views, and amount of clicks pins receive. On top of gender, region, country, and language, enabling marketers to have a global reach. The best feature is the statistics on what profile viewer’s top interests are. In other words, with this feature, marketers are able to see what particular subjects provoke the most engagement from their Pinterest audience. If connected to a promotional website, the business suite is able to track how much traffic, not just from your own profile, but in general from Pinterest is being directed to your website. Community building: Autopin Autopin is truly the only automation software for Pinterest in terms of fluidity as well as functionality Based on set filter restrictions, Autopin auto-follows and engages with users through likes and board invites. Autopin also features content scheduling, which is even more powerful when used with information from the audience interests statistics from Pinterest’s Business profile. With the ultimate goal of driving traffic to your website, Autopin’s features will elevate your Pinterest game to the next level. Facebook Analytics: Facebook Business Suite Like other business suites, Facebook’s Business Manager helps give insights into how many views and much engagement as well as which posts are most popular. Especially as paid advertisements are growing ever more popular on the social medium, the business manager integrates and shows all advertisement performances, resulting in a more efficient use of monetary resources on paid advertising campaigns. Scheduling for all types of social media Buffer Buffer acts like a the ultimate assistant for your social media calendar. The most basic account is free and includes more than enough to organize your social campaigns with queues for each social medium as well as guidelines for each post. A new feature, called Pablo, helps create pictures for posts easily and with a professional touch. Step your social media into high gear with these automation tools, and once the initial setup is complete, sit back and watch the results. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on The Contactually Blog and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Kane Pepi <p>Kane Pepi is an experienced financial and cryptocurrency writer with over 2,000+ published articles, guides, and market insights in the public domain. Expert niche subjects include asset valuation and analysis, portfolio management, and the prevention of financial crime. Kane is particularly skilled in explaining complex financial topics in a user-friendly … View full profile ›More by this author:VoIP Basics: Everything Beginners Should Know!Bitcoin Investment, Trading & Mining: The Ultimate Guide for BeginnersIs This a Better Way to Set Your 2020 Goals and Resolutions?