8 Social Media Automation Hacks To Save Your Time

8 Social media marketing tasks you can automate to free up your mind and clear your to-do list.

Trà Nguyễn

22.8.2024

As a social media marketer, you're constantly juggling multiple tasks at once: brainstorming content ideas, scheduling posts, responding to comments, analyzing marketing performance, adjusting your strategy based on data, and repeating all these tasks daily across various social platforms. It can be exhausting to keep everything running smoothly.

But what if you didn't have to do all these tasks every day? What if you could automate the mundane, repetitive tasks and focus on the core activities that actually move you closer to your return on investment (ROI)?

This article will share 8 social media marketing tasks you can automate to free up your mind and clear your to-do list.

I. What is social media automation? And why should you automate?

If the word "automation" immediately makes you think of corporate jargon, you're not alone. Simply put, social media automation involves handing over repetitive, manual, and sometimes tedious tasks from your to-do list to software.

Integrating software into your workflow not only reduces costs but also helps you maintain a strong social media presence without burning out.

Of course, automation also makes you more efficient and reduces the chances of human error (like forgetting to hit "Post"). But the real beauty of automation is that it frees you up to focus on more exciting tasks (like creating content and engaging with your target audience) because the software takes care of the mundane jobs (like posting content and tracking performance). And isn't that the ideal scenario? Automation helps you steer all your social media efforts smoothly.

II. 8 Tips to Automate Your Social Media

1. Use social listening tools to track trends in your field

Social listening means monitoring what your audience is saying online and creating content based on that. But how do you know what's trending in your industry?

You can track your Facebook competitors using SO9's Facebook Competitor Analytics tool. Naturally, when you work in a specific field, you'll have some idea of what's happening. However, you might still miss out on some trends. With this automation tool, you'll always stay updated on the latest trends, your competitors' updates, and what their customers are looking for, struggling with, and most interested in. Many software tools also include trending topics with detailed data on what's currently popular—similar to Google Trends for social media.

⚡ Pro Tip: Many social networks also help you do this for their specific channels, like Pinterest's trend forecasts and Instagram's “Reel Trends” feature.

Follow individual social media trends to succeed on that platform. Combine this with what you learn from social listening tools.

2. Use scheduling tools to automate your posts

This is the easiest and most common social media task to automate. Many social platforms, like Instagram and Facebook, offer built-in content scheduling features. But I don't recommend automating directly within the platform's app. Consider the following reasons:

You can't see an overview of your content calendar across all platforms, and you'll need a separate file to track it all. This also means you can't drag and drop posts to adjust based on trends, your new updates, and other external factors.
Scheduling across multiple platforms can be time-consuming because one piece of content may need to be cross-posted multiple times on the platforms you manage. You can use a scheduling tool to post to multiple social media accounts from one window. And you can see the overall posting schedule for all posts on a single screen.

The recommended social media scheduling tool is SO9:

Easy to use with a simple user experience
Allows you to create custom posts for each social network (if you want)
The tool quickly adapts to the latest platform updates
Affordable for small businesses

It’s a full-featured social media management tool, so you can handle many social media tasks with just one software, SO9. If you're just starting with a social media automation strategy, begin by automating your post scheduling, as it’s the easiest task to automate.

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3. Use social media analytics tool to analyze your performance

How many likes did your recent post get? What's your engagement rate? Which content format is performing best? The questions keep coming.

Social media analytics tools automate the collection of all the metrics related to your performance data so you don’t have to do the math yourself. You still need to analyze the data to achieve your social media goals, but you can easily delegate the task of "collecting my post performance" to the software.

With SO9, you can select a timeframe and not only view basic metrics like impressions and likes, but also get answers to crucial questions — such as "What type of post is best for my social media channel?"

And if you need to report to your boss or client about the work you've done in a month, SO9 provides a comprehensive analysis so you don't have to manually enter each number into a spreadsheet. ⚡ Pro Tip: Some social media analytics tools, like SO9, even tell you when to post and which posts are performing best.

⚡ Pro Tip: Some social media analytics tools, like SO9, even tell you when to post and which posts are performing best.

>> Related Article: Top 15 công cụ phân tích social media thịnh hành 2023

4. Automate repetitive interactions to save time

Use chatbot software or social media chat tools to automate repetitive tasks such as typing the same response. This makes it possible for you to express your gratitude to people who have mentioned you without having to spend a lot of time on it. Of course, setting up pre-written responses will also help you keep the tone consistent with your brand.

For frequent comments like "Thanks for sharing!" or "What do you think of [product or service name]?" or "We love what you've done with [product name]," you can compile a list of fast responses.

With SO9, you can set this up right in the SO9 HUB Campaign feature. When someone comments on your post, a response is immediately sent, and it can even automatically send a message right after the comment replies. This will save you a lot of time.

5. Use brand monitoring tools to see who's talking about you

Brand monitoring is one of the most basic but crucial tasks that every business needs to do. You need to know what your customers are saying about you, but this can be time-consuming if you have to manually search for mentions of your brand across all social media platforms and external websites.

With brand monitoring tools, you’ll automatically receive alerts whenever someone mentions your brand on any platform you choose to monitor. This keeps you updated and allows you to respond quickly when necessary.

⚡ Pro Tip: Use brand monitoring tools in combination with the chat or chatbot tools you’ve set up earlier to automatically respond when someone mentions your brand.

Social media automation tools I recommend for this task: Mention, Brandwatch.

6. Automate the search for user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is one of the most effective types of content on social media because it demonstrates authenticity and builds trust in your brand. But finding the right UGC can be time-consuming if you have to manually search across all platforms.

You can automate the search for UGC by using content discovery tools to find content users have created related to your brand. You can also set up alerts to notify you when new content is created and shared.

Social media automation tools I recommend for this task: Taggbox, Curate.

7. Use advertising tools to automate social media ads

If you're running social media ad campaigns, automating advertising tasks like scheduling and optimizing campaigns can save you a lot of time. Ad tools allow you to automate tasks such as targeting audiences, managing budgets, and optimizing campaigns based on performance.

⚡ Pro Tip: Use advertising tools with auto-optimization features to ensure your ads are always adjusted for the best performance.

Social media automation tools I recommend for this task: AdEspresso, Smartly.io.

8. Automate the collection and analysis of customer feedback

Customer feedback is a valuable source of information for improving your products and services. You can automate the collection and analysis of customer feedback by using survey and feedback analysis tools. These tools will help you easily gather feedback from customers and automatically analyze it to find areas for improvement.

⚡ Pro Tip: Combine survey tools with data analytics tools to automatically analyze and provide detailed reports on customer feedback.

Social media automation tools I recommend for this task: SurveyMonkey, Typeform.

Conclusion

Social media automation not only saves you time but also helps you focus on core and strategic tasks. By automating repetitive and mundane tasks, you can focus on creating high-quality content, engaging with your audience, and achieving your business goals. I hope the above tips from SO9 will help you in your journey to build and manage social media pages. Additionally, don’t forget to visit SO9.IO to learn more about the latest business operation insights! Wishing you success!

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