What Is Facebook Automation & How Does It Work?
Facebook Automation
Facebook automation is the process of using online tools and software to simplify some of the tasks involved with managing a Facebook Page. A great example of Facebook automation done well is scheduling digital posts in advance or leveraging automation to help analyze A/B testing results.
Think of automation as having an extra pair of hands that helps the day-to-day of running your Facebook business page. That will leave you with more free time to focus on the other aspects of building a successful Facebook marketing strategy.
What Does Facebook Automation Mean to Your Brand?
In fact, modern marketers have a distinct choice to make in regard to how they manage their social channels. Removing the personal touch of your Facebook presence could be a perilous decision for brands who strive for legitimate engagement.
On the flip side, proven strategies such as scheduling and messenger bots serve as smart alternatives to full-blown automation that saves brands time. These sorts of tools not only streamline your social presence but also allow you to spend more time focusing on getting to know your followers.
The Benefits of Facebook Automation
You Save Time
Perhaps the most obvious benefit of automation is that marketers can focus less on the “small stuff” and more on the big picture of their social marketing.
Through Facebook automation, marketers can focus more on promoting that killer piece of content. Or conducting outreach versus breaking their backs leaving comment after comment that may never actually be seen.
Your Brand Never Sleeps
Brands should respond to questions, comments and inquiries in a timely manner, regardless of industry or time zone. If you can’t get back to your commenters or critiques within a matter of hours, such inaction could translate to a lost customer or sales opportunity. The idea of automated responses is appealing to marketers who want their marketing business to be “on” 24/7.
You Can Grow Your Follower Count
While there are many moving pieces of growing your Facebook presence, finding opportunities to engage your followers is an absolute must. Beyond sharing and replying to content to make a Facebook page more visible, automation helps create the illusion of a more active presence. Brands that post regularly and appear to connect with their followers are obviously poised for bigger numbers than a page gathering cobwebs.
Bad Facebook Automation
Bad Facebook automation is easy to spot, and that’s because it often looks and feels like spam. Implementing automation into your brand or business’ social media strategy isn’t something you should take lightly. Make sure you do your research and only trust reliable and tested tools.
When it comes to automation, as a rule, avoid the following:
- Buying followers
- Automating likes and comments
- Automated direct messages
- Cross-platform sharing
Good Facebook Automation
The reason your brand or business is on Facebook is to connect with your existing audience and reach new ones. Sounds pretty familiar, right? Good Facebook automation allows you to save time with all the tedious (but necessary) tasks. So, you can spend more time making content and focusing on your community.
Here are some examples:
- Re purposing content from other social networks
- Chatbots for initial (and we mean initial) digital customer service interactions
- A/B testing your Facebook ads
- Creating performance reports
- Scheduling messages
- Saving replies to FAQs