Managing multiple social media accounts for your brand can be hard work and time-consuming, especially if you’re a small business owner doing it all on your own.
And although social scheduling tools have made it easier to post more content on more platforms, it still requires a lot of effort.
Today, we’re delving deeper into the ways you can automate your Facebook Page to save time, increase engagement and help you deliver a better social media experience to your followers. Read on to find out more, and be sure to try out some of the techniques yourself.
Automatically post new content from your blog
If your website is powered by WordPress, then you can have new content automatically tweeted out as and when it’s published.
The chances are that you’ll want your followers to click through to your website as soon as you release new blog posts and updates on your business, and this is one of the very best ways to do it. All you’ll need is the Jetpack plugin, which is free to use.
Once you’ve downloaded and installed the plugin, head over to the Sharing menu, which is tucked away inside the Settings options.
Through Publicize, you can connect your Facebook Page, Twitter account, Google+ profile, LinkedIn page and Tumblr account – and set it so that new blog posts, pages and Media is pushed out to channels as soon as it has been published.
Jetpack auto posting takes just a couple of minutes to set up
On Jetpack’s standard settings, new posts will be published on your Facebook Page with an excerpt of the content.
On Twitter, the title of your post and its featured image will be posted, but these settings can be changed in the ‘Sharing’ pane of WordPress when writing new posts.
Publish content from other outlets to your Page
As well as sharing content from your own website, you’ll likely want to share news and updates from industry outlets, blogs you recommend and breaking news from within your niche.
You can use tools such as If This, Then That to create Applets that automatically post content from your favourite websites on your Twitter profile and Facebook Page. It only takes a minute to set up.
- First, click on the ‘New Applet’ button.
- Click on ‘+This’, ‘RSS feed’ and ‘New feed item’
- Enter the RSS feed of the website you’d like to automatically post content from. Most websites’ RSS feed is their URL followed by /RSS, but you can use this tool to scrape websites for RSS feeds if you’re struggling.
- Click ‘Create Trigger’, and then the ‘+That’ button
- Choose Facebook Pages, then connect your chosen Page to IFTTT
- Choose ‘Create a Link Post’ and optimise the template to suit your style
- Once you’re happy, click ‘Create Action’, and you’re done
Now, whenever the blog posts a new article, it will automatically be published on your Facebook Page.
This is a great option for business owners that are limited on time and want to keep their channels updated, and combining several of these auto-posting RSS feeds can create a super vibrant and engaging Facebook Page.
However, there are some downsides to auto-posting.
The biggest downside to this method is that you won’t be able to review the content before it’s published on your Page.
Therefore, you must be certain that the blog is reputable and aligns with your company values.
Secondly, you’ll never be sure when bloggers will publish material, so new posts may show up in the middle of the night or while you’re posting other content.
Connect your Page with your Instagram Business account
If you’ve got an Instagram account for your business and you’ve converted it to an Instagram Business profile, you’ll be able to connect the two and automatically have new images posted to your feed.
Go to Settings and Instagram on your Facebook Page to connect the two profiles.
As well as posting our your new snaps as and when they’re published on Instagram, connecting the accounts will give you access to other features.
First is the ability to edit your Instagram profile from Facebook, second is managing Instagram comments from your Facebook profile, and third is running ads on the Facebook and Instagram network. All super useful benefits.
Schedule additional content using Buffer
Social media scheduling tools like Buffer allow you to automate your content calendar and push out new posts, even when you’re in bed. Signing up for a free account and adding your favourite blog posts, images of your products and links to useful resources can help to keep your Facebook Page ticking over – and the best news is that you can recycle your best-performing posts.
On Buffer’s Pro and Business plans, just click on the ‘Analytics’ button to see your most popular posts, and choose which ones you’d like to recycle using ‘Re-Buffer’.
Then, at the next available spot, those posts will be regurgitated to your audience and have a second chance to shine.
Find your most popular posts and share them again
See also: How to save time and speed up your social media scheduling
Automate Messenger responses
Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular channels of communication online – in fact, more people have Messenger on their smartphones (1.3 billion) than Twitter and Instagram combined, so it’s essential that you have a presence if you want to keep customers engaged.
Delivering great customer service on Messenger makes sense, as it reduces the effort from a customer standpoint, and it makes it easier to resolve issues.
Oh, and don’t forget that manning a Facebook Page and answering customer questions is much cheaper than paying for a dedicated customer phone line and service representative.
See also: Why content marketing should be part of your customer service strategy
Data suggests that speedy responses on social media and via messaging apps can encourage customers to spend more with your brand, so setting up automatic responses can help to speed up your responses and help answer your customer’s questions quicker.
Automated responses improve your customer experience and increase engagement
Don’t forget that you can play around with different messages to see which are the most effective, and you can include emoji and links in your responses to boost engagement.
You can use Facebook Messenger’s tools to send automatic greeting messages to customers visiting your pages, send responses when you’re away from the computer, and schedule times of the day when you’re going to be away from Messenger.
These messages and greetings can be customised to your requirements, so go to Settings then Messenger to get started.
Wrapping up
The tools and features we have suggested in today’s post will save you time and help you create a more consistent, engaging social media strategy.
However, it’s essential that you look at the wider picture; effective social media strategies can’t be set up and left to run themselves.
Combine the techniques we have mentioned with original content, respond to comments and shares from your customers, and monitor your Page manually to maximise on engagement.