What marketers need to know about activists' 'digital guillotine' on TikTok & Instagram The Drum
* This article was originally published here
Friday, May 31, 2024
Thursday, May 30, 2024
Social Media Automation: 8 Time-Saving Tools for 2024
If you’re like us, you prefer fun jobs over tedious tasks. (Actually, if you were into tedium, you probably wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place.) That’s why you’re going to love social media automation tools.
Social media automation tools allow you to automate boring, time-consuming tasks so you can get back to the fun stuff, like creating stunning content.
In this blog, you’ll learn how to automate tasks on social media with tools that help you improve response time, reduce the time spent on repetitive tasks, and give you the insights you need to create more engaging content.
What is social media automation?
Social media automation is the practice of using tools or software to manage repetitive marketing tasks on social media platforms. This includes posting content, replying to FAQs, tracking results, and building reports in less time, with less effort.
What can you automate in social media marketing?
You can automate many (but not all!) tedious social media marketing tasks. And don’t worry—we’ll get to the software tools that can take care of these tasks for you at the bottom of this post.
Content creation
Let’s face it: we can’t always be the Vincent Van Gogh-esque creative geniuses we often are. Sometimes, we’re more like Vincent Van No. But, if you need a hand brainstorming content ideas, you can always turn to a generative AI tool to help you out.
Look, you can (and should) automate text-based content, visuals, and videos using generative AI. But you absolutely need to review and edit AI-generated results. AI isn’t perfect (none of us are), but it’ll give you that get-up-and-Gogh boost you need.
Source: ChatGPT
Social media posting
Switching between different social accounts to publish multiple times per day can take up a lot of time. Especially because the best time to post and content marketing best practices vary by platform.
Automated social media posting saves time and increases efficiency without reducing content quality. Once your content is locked and loaded, you can use a social media automation tool to schedule the appropriate pieces and post times on each network. Then sit back, relax, and let the robots take your posts over the finish line.
Social customer service
A recent Hootsuite social trends report saw a massive dip in online customer satisfaction rates. But why are people so unhappy? Once the world officially reopened (bye-bye COVID), business owners stopped paying attention to online customer service.
So, what does this mean for your business? There’s a gaping hole in the ecommerce market, one you can fill with better customer service. And one way to do that is to use customer interaction automation.
You don’t need a human team member to answer common questions like “What are your hours?” and “Do you have any coupons available?” Likewise, you can automate service requests related to package tracking, refund status, and other issues tied to your CRM.
Conversational AI tools can handle more basic work without drastically affecting your business’s bottom line.
Social analytics
Automated data collection makes analytical reporting and decision-making a lot easier. Luckily, social media marketing automation was practically built to take care of the tedious number crunching you truly hate.
Automated data collection can include things like:
- Platform-specific social data, like the best time to post on Instagram vs. TikTok
- Post engagement stats, like likes, comments, shares, and more
- Keyword or hashtag tracking, which allows you to see exactly what people are saying about your brand, themes related to your industry, and your competitors
If you find the right tool, you can even automate your reporting, generating client-ready dashboards and reports with just a few clicks.
Tips for effective social media automation
Don’t use spammy bots
Just because some tools exist doesn’t mean you should use them. Remember: use bots for good, not evil. Embrace bots that help improve customers’ lives and your own.
AI tools that speed up customer service response times? Great. An inbox to manage DMs, comments, and tags from multiple networks in one place? Excellent.
But bots that automatically comment on or like social posts? Not such a good idea. They can cause lasting damage to your relationships with your audience. They can also land you in hot water with the social networks themselves.
Avoid cross-posting without making adjustments for specific networks
Cross-posting the same content to multiple social media accounts might seem like the easiest option. But it’s certainly not the most effective.
Some tools (including social media platforms) allow you to automatically cross-post to other platforms. Don’t be tempted.
Social platforms have different image display ratios, character count limits, and social features. Audiences on those platforms have different expectations, demographics, and word preferences. It’s highly unlikely that your link-heavy Facebook post, for example, will perform as well on linkless Instagram.
Instead, take the time to adjust your message for each platform’s audience. At the bare minimum, you’ll want to review:
- User handles, which can vary between platforms
- Image specs, like file type, size, cropping, etc.
- Text, including platform character count and platform-specific language
- Hashtags, including number and usage
Instead of cross-posting, use automated social media publishing at set times to use your time most efficiently.
Find a balance between human expertise and automation
A poor builder blames his hammer when the house falls down. When you publish a “Don’t worry, be happy” post the same day as a global tragedy, the same goes for you.
tl;dr? Don’t set it and forget it unless you want your house to topple. Automating social media marketing doesn’t mean you flip a switch and walk away.
It’s important to monitor any automated outputs, including your publishing schedule. That way, you can make any adjustments required in real time.
World-changing crises happen all the time on social media. A poorly timed post can make your brand look out of touch or tactless.
The best social media automation tools for 2024
1. Hootsuite
Number one on our list is Hootsuite (what, are you surprised?). Hootsuite provides a comprehensive social media management platform that offers a wide range of automation features. We’ve got so many features, in fact, that we broke them out one by one below.
Hootsuite streamlines your social media marketing efforts, making it easier for you to manage all of your social accounts from one place. In our humble opinion, it’s the best social media automation tool.
Price: Free trial, followed by a tiered paid subscription starting at $99/month.
This tool is best for: Medium-to-large teams, social media marketers, and content creators.
Here’s a breakdown of Hootsuite’s key automation tools and why you should care about them.
OwlyWriter AI
OwlyWriter AI is Hootsuite’s AI-driven, social-media-specific content-generating tool. Use it to save major time generating and testing social media captions.
Key features:
- Rapid content generation. Create engaging and relevant social media posts in seconds, saving you time and creative energy.
- Instant insights. Automatically identify and repurpose your top-performing posts—without manually reviewing your past content.
Craft perfect posts in seconds
OwlyWriter AI instantly generates captions and content ideas for every social media network. It’s seriously easy.
Start free 30-day trialBest Time to Publish
Timing is crucial; you want to post when your audience is happily browsing. Hootsuite’s Best Time to Publish feature analyzes, optimizes, and automates your posting schedule.
Key features:
- Data analysis. Analyzes your audience’s online behavior to determine the ideal times for posting.
- Improved visibility. Automatically schedule content for maximum reach and engagement. Increases the chances of your content being seen by your target audience.
Analytics
Most social platforms offer native analytics tools. But it can be a huge drain on your time to analyze each platform separately and compile manual reports.
Hootsuite Analytics makes this process a lot simpler. Create custom boards that show you an at-a-glance view of the metrics you want to track. Then, use automated reporting to export and send data to clients, managers, or yourself without lifting a finger.
Once you’ve set up your reports, you can measure your content performance as often as you like. You’ll get real-time updates and high-level overviews for quarterly or annual reviews.
Key features:
- Customization. Generate reports tailored to your specific goals and metrics.
- Scheduled delivery. Set up automated report delivery to your inbox or team members.
- Data visualization. Presents data in easy-to-understand charts and graphs for quick insights.
Social Advertising
Hootsuite Social Advertising allows you to test hundreds of Facebook and Instagram ads and automatically reallocate your budget to the best-performing ones. It ensures you’re targeting the right audiences with the right metrics for maximum ROI.
You can automatically boost your budget or even start a new campaign based on pre-set triggers. This tool will even provide daily automatic ad performance recommendations.
Hootsuite Social Advertising also syncs your CRM or email list to your Facebook ad account, so you always have up-to-date custom audiences.
Key features:
- Campaign management. Create, launch, and manage social ad campaigns from one platform.
- Targeting options. Reach your ideal audience through advanced targeting capabilities.
- Budget control. Set and monitor ad budgets to optimize your ROI.
Inbox
Hootsuite Inbox allows you to manage conversations and mentions across all of your social platforms from one dashboard. You can also use the Saved Replies feature to address common interactions automatically.
Key features:
- Unified inbox. View and respond to messages from multiple social media platforms in one place.
- Workflow management. Assign tasks to team members and streamline your response process.
- Real-time engagement. Enhance customer service by quickly addressing queries and feedback.
- Customer feedback. Automatically trigger customer satisfaction surveys.
2. Meta Business Suite
If you primarily use Meta platforms, Meta Business Suite provides some great tools to help you automate your social media posts, Stories, ads, and analytics.
Just a note: You can create and schedule posts in the Business Suite, but only for your Meta accounts. If you’re a content creator or marketer on LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, or Twitter, you may want to use third-party social media automation software.
Meta Business Suite is a good tool for smaller teams who are only on Instagram and Facebook. If you’re a larger team with needs like content approval workflows, then you should consider Hootsuite.
Source: Meta Business Suite
Key features
- Scheduling. Scheduling capabilities for Facebook and Instagram
- Reporting. Analytics for Facebook and Instagram
- Media. Free music library
Price: Free
This tool is best for: Smaller teams only on Facebook or Instagram
3. Talkwalker
Talkwalker is a social listening and monitoring platform with a data library that includes more than 150 million sources.
With more than 50 advanced filters, you can use Talkwalker to analyze engagement, reach, comments, brand sentiment, important influencers, conversation clusters, and much more. It incorporates Blue Silk GPT for AI analysis.
Oh, and best of all, Hootsuite is set to acquire leading social listening platform Talkwalker VERY SOON. This means that you’ll be able to dig even deeper into brand mentions and customer intelligence, with Talkwalker’s AI-powered tools right in your Hootsuite dashboard!
Key features:
- Comprehensive data analysis. Talkwalk monitors 30 social networks and 150+ million websites in 187 languages for up-to-the-minute global insights into what’s happening in your industry or among your audience.
- Visual recognition. Talkwalker can identify your brand mentions in videos and images—even without accompanying text. This allows you to protect your business with robust crisis monitoring and competitor intelligence.
- Integration with Hootsuite. When you integrate Talkwalker into Hootsuite, you can tag, assign, and respond to Talkwalker-identified mentions up to two years old directly within the Hootsuite dashboard.
Price: Talkwalker offers various pricing tiers to suit the needs of different businesses, from small startups to large enterprises.
This tool is best for: Talkwalker is ideal for businesses looking for AI-powered social listening to help monitor their online reputation and stay ahead of trends and potential issues in real time.
4. ChatGPT
Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can help with social automation in more ways than you think. Yes, this powerful tool will write captions for you, but it can also help you brainstorm content calendars, rewrite old content or strategies with a new lens, and kickstart your content ideation.
One small disclaimer: ChatGPT is a tool that needs to be trained. You’ll likely have to spend some time figuring out which prompts will work for your brand. It also doesn’t do much for big social pain points like automatic posting, changing formats, and understanding the algorithm. So, you’ll have to keep a keen eye on the outputs.
Source: ChatGPT
Key features:
- Personalization. You can use it to tailor your content to your brand’s voice and style, ensuring consistency, but it does take some experimenting with different prompts.
- Brainstorming. Receive fresh perspectives, new angles, and ideas for your social needs.
- Instant output. Immediate results can save you time and effort.
Price: Free! Paid accounts start at $20/month.
This tool is best for: Content creators, social media marketers, and teams of all sizes.
5. NapoleonCat
NapoleonCat offers a useful social inbox that allows you to manage comments and DMs, along with auto-moderation features to reduce workload. You can also use this tool to schedule social media content in advance.
Source: NapoleonCat
Price: Basic plans start at $32/month. DM automation requires the Pro plan, starting at $76/month.
This tool is best for: Teams focused on automated moderation of social comments and replies.
6. Later
Later is a social media scheduler with solid features for content planning and scheduling organic content (but not social ads). It also includes a social media inbox for managing social media comments.
See how Later compares to Hootsuite.
Source: Later
Price: Starting at $25/month
This tool is best for: Individuals and teams who use Instagram as their primary social media platform and focus on organic content
7. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a powerful enterprise-focused social management tool that offers good social media automation features for organic content (but not ads). You can monitor comments, DMs, mentions, and tags from a unified inbox that allows team members to collaborate effectively.
See how Sprout Social compares to Hootsuite.
Source: Sprout Social
Price: Starting at $249/month
This tool is best for: Enterprise-level teams with a primarily organic social media strategy
8. Tailwind
Tailwind is a social media management tool that really shines with its automated design and copy-creation tools. However, it does not include an inbox to manage or automate social media engagement. If you have the team resources to manage engagement manually but need help with content creation, this could be a good Instagram automation tool for your team.
Source: Tailwind
Price: Starting at $24.99/month
This tool is best for: Creatives and entrepreneurs looking to simplify copy and design but manage engagement manually
Save time managing your social media and get your content seen using Hootsuite. Schedule and publish content, engage your audience, and measure the performance of all your accounts, across multiple networks—all from a single dashboard. Try it free today.
With files from Christina Newberry.
Do it better with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media tool. Stay on top of things, grow, and beat the competition.
Free 30-Day TrialThe post Social Media Automation: 8 Time-Saving Tools for 2024 appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
* This article was originally published here
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
What Are Social Media KPIs? 25 Examples + How to Track Them
Social media KPIs (or key performance indicators) are data-based measures of your progress toward important business goals. Understanding which KPIs matter and how to track them allows you to build and refine an effective social media strategy that supports organizational success.
Bonus: Get a free social media report template to easily track and measure performance against your KPIs.
What are social media KPIs?
KPI stands for key performance indicator.
Social media KPIs are the metrics used to guide your social media marketing strategy and determine whether that strategy is working.
Social media KPIs are a strategic take on key social media metrics, with clear targets to indicate the level of performance.
Why is tracking KPIs on social media important?
Social media changes fast, and there’s a lot of performance data available. Those factors combined mean it’s easy to get bogged down in the measurement details and lose sight of the bigger picture.
Tracking KPIs keeps you focused on real business goals. Rather than the numbers alone, you’re looking at how the numbers impact the direction your business is going. You understand how you’re progressing toward your goals, and whether you need to make strategic changes along the way.
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Beautiful reports. Clear data. Actionable insights to help you grow faster.
Start free 30-day trialHow to set the right KPIs for social media
Understand your business objectives
Your social media KPIs should always be tied to an overall strategic goal. Ask yourself: what’s the end game?
For example, is the goal of your social campaigns to increase brand awareness? Drive website traffic? Or to get more conversions and sales?
Once you decide on a strategic direction, it’s time to break that down into individual goals and associated KPIs for social media. For example, if your end game is to drive website traffic, then one of your KPIs might be tied to the number of clicks from social media to your site.
But to set realistic KPI targets, you first need to…
Track competitors and industry benchmarks
What does success look like for social accounts similar to yours?
With Hootsuite’s social media benchmarking, you can find out how others in your industry are doing on social and compare your results for social media metrics like:
- Profile impressions
- Profile reach
- Followers
- Audience growth rate
- Engagement rate
- Video plays
- Posting frequency
- Clicks
- Shares
You can also get even more granular and compare your performance to specific competitors rather than your industry as a whole.
If measuring KPIs on social media is new to your team, make sure you collect your own benchmark data too, so you know where you’re starting from.
Set SMART goals
Comparing your current performance to that of your overall industry gives you a good framework for setting realistic KPI targets. Like your overall business goals, your social media KPIs should be SMART:
- Specific: Include a clear target. For example, do you aim to increase the brand’s Instagram follower count by 500 in the next month? Do you want to increase your click-through rates by 20% by the end of the year?
- Measurable: KPIs incorporate metrics to track and quantify your progress. You should always be able to determine how close you are to meeting the goal.
- Attainable: Keep it real. Set KPIs that are within an achievable scope based on the overall industry and your own resources.
- Relevant: Make sure each social media KPI connects to the business’s larger goals.
- Timely: What’s the timeframe for achieving this goal and determining whether success has been met? One month, six months, one year?
#1 Analytics Tool for Growth
Beautiful reports. Clear data. Actionable insights to help you grow faster.
Start free 30-day trialChoose the relevant metrics and structure your KPIs
Now that you know how your KPIs will support your business goals, decide on the specific metrics that will help you measure your progress.
For example, if your business is focused on growth and you want to build brand awareness on social media, you might want to measure and track Instagram Reels views.
For each KPI, craft a statement that incorporates all the SMART elements along with the relevant metrics. We’ll break down some examples later in this post.
Track and analyze your performance
KPIs include a set timeframe for success, but you can’t wait until that time has elapsed to check in on your progress. Choose a reporting pattern that will help you clearly see growth and developments, and react quickly when things aren’t working great.
This is where you’ll really dig into the metrics associated with your KPIs, and look for strategic ways to improve your results. Are things moving in the right direction? At the pace you’d planned?
You can also dig deeper here and analyze standout successes (or missteps) to see what lessons you can apply to your overall strategy as you work towards achieving your KPIs.
Review and recalibrate
Remember: No company’s business goals are set in stone—that means the social media KPIs you set will also need to evolve over time.
Schedule regular strategic reviews of your KPIs. Are they still relevant? Are they still helping you meet company goals? Should changes be made?
Remember: why and how you set KPIs for social media could change as the business changes. They could also change for external reasons, like algorithm updates or the emergence of new platforms.
25 important social media KPIs for 2024
We’ve broken the building blocks of social media KPIs down into five categories:
- Reach
- Engagement
- Conversion
- Social customer service
- Social commerce
Remember, your social media KPIs will incorporate SMART components like targets and timeframes. Think of the KPIs below as the foundation, and those SMART components as the building elements that make your KPIs unique to your business and your strategic goals.
Reach KPIs
Reach KPIs measure how many users come across your social media channels.
Think of reach as a quantity measurement—reach data demonstrates your existing and potential audience, growth over time, and brand awareness.
1. Impressions
This is the number of times your post was visible in someone’s feed or timeline. This doesn’t necessarily mean the person who viewed the post noticed it or watched it, but you know for sure it appeared on their screen.
2. Follower count
The number of followers your social channel has at a set time.
3. Audience growth rate
You want to make sure you’re gaining followers, not losing them. Audience growth rate demonstrates how your follower count is changing over time. To track this metric, divide your net new followers by your total follower count.
4. Reach
This is how many people see a post. Reach changes based on factors like when your audience is online and how good your content is. It gives you an idea of what your audience finds valuable and interesting.
Engagement KPIs
KPIs for social media engagement measure the quality of the interactions with your social followers. They show you whether your audience is connecting with what you have to say and is willing to interact with your brand.
5. Likes
The number of times followers interact with a social post by tapping the Like button within a given social media platform.
Source: @AirCanada
6. Comments
The number of times people comment on your posts. A comment requires more effort than a simple like and is generally considered to represent a higher level of engagement.
However, comments can have a positive or negative tone, so a high number of comments isn’t always a good thing! For this to be a meaningful engagement KPI, social media managers also need to track social sentiment.
Source: @botanygeek
7. Clicks
How many times users click the link in your post. This helps track how people are engaging with content beyond the social platform.
Using the Ow.ly URL shortener allows you to track clicks in Hootsuite Analytics, without setting up any additional tracking.
8. Shares
How many times your post has been shared from one user to another. This is a great measure of how engaging and viral your content is.
Source: @Versace
Shares are not necessarily a direct measurement of success, since the number of shares alone doesn’t tell you if people like or don’t like what they see. However, it provides a good indication of whether people are passionate enough to spread the word.
9. Saves
Saves (or bookmarks) generally indicate that people like your content and find it useful enough that they plan to return to it later. This is a good indication that you’ve provided something educational, entertaining, or otherwise valuable to your audience.
Source: @Hootsuite
10. Average engagement rate
This metric divides all the engagement a post receives — including likes, comments, saves and shares — by the total number of followers on your social account. It shows how engaging, on average, your content was.
If you don’t want to do the math yourself, try our free engagement rate calculator.
11. Amplification rate
This is a measure of how much your followers extend your reach by sharing your content with their own followers. A high amplification rate shows that your followers want to be associated with your brand or find your content valuable enough to pass along.
Here’s how to calculate it:
12. Social share of voice
This metric tracks how many people mentioned your brand, compared to the number of people mentioning your competitors. It shows how relevant your brand is within your industry.
You can use a social listening tool like Hootsuite to measure your own and your competitors’ mentions during a specific timeframe. To calculate social share of voice, divide your brand mentions by the total number of industry mentions.
Conversion KPIs
Conversion KPIs on social media reveal whether your social strategy is leading to real-world outcomes beyond the social sphere.
13. Click-through rate (CTR)
CTR is the percentage of people who viewed your post and clicked on the CTA (call to action) it included. This provides insight into whether your content captures your audience’s attention and inspires them to act.
Here’s how to calculate it:
14. Conversion rate
This is the number of users who perform the action in your social media CTA (visit your website or landing page, subscribe to a mailing list, make a purchase, etc.) compared to the total number of clicks on a given post.
A high conversion rate indicates your content is contributing to your sales funnel or otherwise supporting business growth.
Here’s how to calculate it:
15. Bounce rate
Not everyone who clicks on your social media links will follow through, reading the full article you shared or completing a purchase.
Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who clicked on a link in your social post, but then quickly left that page without taking any action. You want this to be low—it signals the user experience you provided didn’t match expectations.
16. Cost per click (CPC)
CPC is the amount you pay for each individual click on your social media ad. Track this to see if the amount you’re spending is a worthwhile investment.
17. Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)
This is the amount you pay every time 1,000 people are served your social media ad. Since this is all about awareness rather than conversion, you want the cost to stay relatively low. Make sure you understand your sales funnel so you can tie the value of exposure to real business growth.
Social customer service KPIs
Customer service KPIs track how social media users feel about their experiences with your brand.
18. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)
This metric shows how happy your customers are with their experience following an interaction with your social customer service team.
To get this data, you need to send users a survey after their customer service experience asking them to rate their level of satisfaction with the interaction. A tool like Hootsuite Inbox can send CSAT surveys automatically and pull the data into Hootsuite Analytics for reporting.
19. Net promoter score (NPS)
Your net promoter score measures your followers’ brand loyalty. After someone makes a purchase or has an interaction with your customer service team, ask them one question: How likely would you be to recommend this product to a friend?
Give respondents the chance to answer using a numerical scale, usually of 1 to 10.
20. Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Customer lifetime value refers to the total amount of money that a customer will spend on your product or service over their entire lifetime as a customer. Understanding your CLV gives you a sense of how much you can afford to invest on individual customer acquisition.
Here’s how to calculate CLV:
CLV = Average purchase value x Average purchase frequency x Average customer lifespan
21. Average response time
This is a measure of how long it takes for a customer service agent to respond to a customer after their first contact. You want to get this number down as low as possible. A social media chatbot can help by resolving many basic customer queries without agent intervention.
You can calculate your response time by dividing the total time spent on initial customer queries by the total number of queries addressed. Or, you can use a tool like Hootsuite Inbox to track response time automatically.
22. First contact resolution rate
This measures how often customers get resolution from the first agent they speak to. If you’re using an automated assignment tool, this measures how well the tool understands customer requests and which team member can answer them.
Customers get increasingly frustrated each time they are passed along to another team member, especially if they have to keep explaining their problem, so a higher first contact rate will generally lead to higher customer satisfaction.
Again, tools like Hootsuite Inbox can track this for you automatically. Or, you can contact your first contact resolution rate manually by dividing the number of cases resolved by the first agent by the total number of resolved cases.
Social commerce KPIs
If you’re using social media to sell products directly, you also need to measure the impact of social as a sales channel.
23. Revenue
Revenue shows how much money you’ve made through your social channels.
You can find this number in Google Analytics or by looking at your shop analytics, depending on whether your network offers e-commerce transactions directly on the platform.
24. Average order value
This is a simple calculation of how much the average customer spends on a single purchase through your social commerce channels.
Like customer lifetime value, this helps you understand how much to spend on customer acquisition. However, this is a more short-term view of customer value that allows you to make on-the-fly decisions about budget allocation in social commerce campaigns.
25. Return on Investment (ROI)
Understanding your costs is important, but even more important is understanding the return you get on the money you pay for social ads and your social marketing strategy in general.
Each brand will define “value” differently. You might specifically mean income from sales tied to your social strategy, but you could also want to assign value to brand awareness or growing your social following.
You can also use a tool like Hootsuite Advanced Analytics to calculate ROI for you.
Social media KPI examples
As we mentioned up at the top, effective KPIs include clear targets based on the SMART methodology for setting realistic goals. This allows you to ensure that your KPIs are aligned with organizational needs and capabilities. Let’s look at a couple of KPI examples for social media.
KPI example 1:
Increase engagement rate on organic Instagram posts by 12% in Q3
Here’s you’ve got a clear metric (engagement rate), a specific platform (organic Instagram), a goal for the result (12% improvement), and a timeframe (Q3).
Since this KPI has a three-month timeframe (one quarter), you’ll likely want to check your progress biweekly or even weekly. You never want your KPI results to be a surprise—you need to check in regularly to see how you’re progressing and whether you need to adjust your strategy to get closer to achieving your goal.
KPI example 2:
Reduce average first response time by 10% year-over-year
Sometimes, rather than achieving a KPI within a set time, it makes sense to compare apples to apples by aiming for year-over-year changes. This allows you to account for regular ebbs and flows tied to busier periods like holidays and sales.
Since this is a year-over-year comparison, you’ll need a tool that allows you to pull data from the current period as well as the same period a year ago. You can then do a direct comparison. So, even though this is structured as an annual goal, you can check your progress by doing a y-o-y comparison at any time.
How to track social media KPIs
Now that you know what to measure, let’s look at how to track KPIs on social media.
Native solutions
Tracking KPI social media marketing progress natively—meaning, using the built-in analytics features of individual social media platforms—is one option. They’re free, easy to use, and can be a good option for social media managers who are only tracking KPIs for one or two social accounts.
Social media managers can track KPIs using Instagram Insights, Meta Business Suite, X (formerly Twitter) Analytics, etc. All major social media platforms offer basic solutions for tracking social media performance.
Keep in mind, however, that native solutions are limited to tracking metrics for one platform. This makes it difficult to compare and analyze data over multiple networks at once. You will also have to do a fair bit of math for more advanced KPIs.
If you go this route, you can make your reporting easier with our free social media KPI report template.
Tracking social media KPIs with Hootsuite
Hootsuite makes it much easier to collect, crunch, and share social media KPI data. Hootsuite Analytics tracks performance data for all of your social channels and organizes the KPIs into comprehensive reports that are easy to understand.
Hootsuite’s analytics reports are fully customizable to calculate and showcase the exact data you need. You can create reports for individual social accounts or for all the social platforms your brand uses. Think of it as your custom social media KPI dashboard.
With Advanced Analytics and Hootsuite Inbox you can track more complex KPIs relating to conversions, ROI, and service response results.
The interactive interface does not require any manual data input. It pulls the numbers in automatically, and you can simply drag and drop all of the elements to arrange a unique report based on your needs.
Here’s how to create a social media KPIs report in Hootsuite:
- In your Hootsuite dashboard, go to Analytics and click Create a report.
- Choose an existing report template, or select Custom report to build your own social media KPI report by selecting from the metrics library.
That’s it! You’ll get a custom graphical report with all the social media KPI data you need. You can also set the report to auto-update on a set schedule so it appears in your inbox in line with your KPI check-in cadence.
Use Hootsuite to do all your social media reporting from a single dashboard. Choose what to track, get compelling visuals, and easily share reports with stakeholders. Try it free today.
All your social media analytics in one place. Use Hootsuite to see what’s working and where to improve performance.
Free 30-Day TrialThe post What Are Social Media KPIs? 25 Examples + How to Track Them appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
* This article was originally published here
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Instagram Automation: What You Should Automate + Tools [2024]
Instagram automation: Should you try it? Will it get you in trouble with the algorithms, or will it help grow your audience?
The answer is: It depends. There are perfectly legitimate ways to automate Instagram posts. But there are also shady tools that can result in warnings about automated behavior.
Here, we’ll show you how to automate Instagram posting in safe and legitimate ways. This will save you time without causing problems for your account (or annoying your followers).
Bonus: Claim your free pack of 15 Instagram ad templates created by Hootsuite’s professional graphic designers. Easily customize them in Canva, and start stopping thumbs and selling more today.
What is Instagram automation?
Instagram automation is the practice of automating Instagram tasks to save you time.
Automation allows you to spend more time thinking about your Instagram marketing strategy and creating great content. That means you spend less time on chores like manually posting content and retyping the same replies to dms over and over.
Is Instagram automation illegal?
There are two kinds of Instagram automation. One involves legitimate, ethical strategies for saving time on Instagram by automating routine daily tasks. This improves the experience for both you and your followers. In this post, we’ll show you how to use these strategies and talk about the tools that can help.
Then, there’s the ugly kind of Instagram automation. The kind that involves bots attempting to automate Instagram followers by liking posts, following accounts, and auto-posting spammy comments on your behalf. We don’t recommend this type of Instagram automation. And we’re not going to cover these black-hat strategies here.
Neither type of Instagram automation is illegal, but the latter can certainly get you into trouble, because:
- People don’t like Instagram bot accounts, and they can tell when a like, follow or comment is fake.
- Instagram actively works against practices that degrade the user experience.
- Shady social media automation tools regularly get shut down (leaving you out of luck if you’ve purchased services)
- Using unauthorized bots goes against Instagram’s terms and community guidelines, so you could be putting your account at risk.
What can you automate on Instagram?
Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s look at the tasks you can legitimately automate on Instagram. We’ll show you the different types of automation tools to help with these tasks at the end of this post.
Publishing and scheduling Instagram posts
The biggest waste of time on any app is constantly opening and closing it throughout the day to create and post new content.
Being able to create multiple posts, Reels, and Stories in advance is a major time saver. Scheduling them to post automatically at the ideal times is even better.
You can maximize your creativity by planning and creating your content in dedicated chunks of time. Then use a scheduling tool to slot content into your content calendar. It will post automatically at the designated time without any further input from you or your team.
Responses
Responding to messages in the Instagram app in real time requires you to be on constant alert for push notifications. You have to open the app over and over again throughout the day.
Instagram automation can help in a couple of ways here. First, for Instagram DM automation, you can set up an AI-powered chatbot.
Source: @maisonsimons
Alternatively, you can set up Instagram automated messages based on specific keywords or phrases.
Or, you can partially automate your Instagram responses by directing messages to the best team member. Providing templates and auto-replies further reduces manual typing tasks while improving response times.
You can also use keyword filters to automatically hide comments that contain offensive or derogatory language. This makes things much easier for your content moderators.
Reduce response time (and your workload)
Manage all your messages stress-free with easy routing, saved replies, and friendly chatbots. Try Hootsuite’s Inbox today.
Book a DemoAds
You can automate several elements of your Instagram ads campaigns, like:
- performance measurement
- reporting
- budget optimization, and
- creating multiple ad variations.
The simplest strategy is to set triggers that automatically convert your best organic content into ads. This is essentially a hands-free Instagram advertising strategy to reach new audiences.
Data collection and reporting
Instagram provides loads of data natively within the Insights feature. However, it can be time consuming to tap through the screens and copy and paste data into your social media report.
Fortunately, you can automate the process of analytics and reporting. Simply set up customized reports with the precise data you need. The data is automatically sent to you on your schedule in a format optimized for sharing with your team and stakeholders.
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Start free 30-day trialHashtag tracking and research
There’s no need to waste your time typing in and tapping on multiple hashtags each day.
Instead, you can use social monitoring to track hashtags automatically, including:
- branded hashtags
- trending hashtags
- UGC contest hashtags, and
- industry hashtags you want to keep an eye on.
Instagram automation tools like Hootsuite Analytics and OwlyWriter AI also automate hashtag research to maximize engagement.
Video caption creation
Transcribing speech manually is slow going. But it can be done automatically in just a few taps with Instagram automation. Simply place the Captions sticker on any video Story or Reel for auto-generated captions.
Since speech to text is not always perfect, you can review the captions before posting. (Although the automated captions are usually quite good.)
You can also add automatic captions to your Instagram Reels on the Accessibility Tab under Advanced Options.
How to automate Instagram posts
Use AI to brainstorm ideas
Coming up with ideas for your Instagram content can take even more time than creating the content itself. Fortunately, AI can help you brainstorm ideas based on your existing content assets, or from scratch.
For example, Hootsuite’s OwlyWriter AI can create post ideas and captions based on a general topic or keyword. Or, you can give OwlyWriter a link to existing content on your website or blog and it will create a relevant post. You can even use it to repurpose your top posts with new captions to reach even more people.
Craft perfect posts in seconds
OwlyWriter AI instantly generates captions and content ideas for every social media network. It’s seriously easy.
Start free 30-day trialPick the best time to post
Posting at the best time is critical to getting early engagement from your fans. You could try to figure out your best time to post manually by analyzing past results. Or, you could use a social media tool like Hootsuite to automate these calculations.
Head to Hootsuite’s Best Time To Publish view. You’ll see the recommended posting times for your specific account based on the results you’ve achieved over the past 30 days.
You can choose to see best time suggestions based on three different goals:
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Traffic
No more mental math required.
Schedule your posts
Once you know the best time to post, you can schedule your content with just a click directly from the recommendations screen. Or, you can select your own time to schedule a post directly from the composer.
If you post and schedule a lot of Instagram content, you can upload up to 350 posts at once with Hootsuite’s Bulk Upload feature.
Set up automatic boosting
To automate your Instagram ads strategy, set up automated triggers for boosted posts. You can choose to boost posts that meet your minimum number of likes, shares, reach, comments, or video views.
You set your budget and target audience just like you would for any other ad strategy. But in this case, it all happens automatically. You know your budget is always extending the reach of your top-performing content.
Automatically track performance
You could manually dig through Instagram Insights. Or, you could use Instagram automation tools like Hootsuite to get a ready-to-go report with your selected metrics. This sets you up for easier strategic planning and reporting to stakeholders.
Hootsuite delivers customized Instagram analytics reports with the data that matters most to you. This is a great way of automating your Instagram data collection and reporting.
What does “We suspect automated behavior” mean on Instagram?
Have you received the dreaded warning from Instagram: We suspect automated behavior?
This warning is usually accompanied by instructions to disconnect third-party automation tools. If you don’t, you risk having your account disabled.
Note that this refers specifically to unauthorized bots and other tools that use black-hat techniques. You don’t have to disconnect authorized third-party tools like Hootsuite. Hootsuite complies with Instagram’s policies (and even has FedRAMP certification).
Like we said above, using black-hat automation tools and services goes against Instagram’s terms of service and puts your account at risk. When Instagram detects that you’re using such tools, you’ll get a warning. At this point, you really have no choice but to stop using any unauthorized Instagram automation tools, or you might permanently lose your account.
However, sometimes you might get a warning like this even if you’re not using spammy tools. For instance, some people have reported getting these messages just for using a VPN with their Facebook or Instagram account.
In this case, your best bet is to turn off your VPN before accessing Instagram. You might also get a warning if you go on a spree of liking tons of content or following or unfollowing accounts (even manually) to the point that Instagram thinks you’re using bots. In this case, taking a break from the platform should generally resolve the issue.
9 Instagram automation tools for 2024
1. Hootsuite
Cost: Plans start at $99/month
Best for: Entrepreneurs, small teams, and enterprise-level organizations looking to automate multiple Instagram functions alongside other social platforms.
Hootsuite is a full-feature social management dashboard with extensive Instagram automation functionality.
First, Hootsuite Composer and Planner allow you to automate your Instagram publishing and scheduling, from brainstorming content ideas through to choosing the best time to publish. (Tip: Want to try out Hootsuite’s AI content tools? Check out the free versions of our Instagram caption generator, Instagram SEO tool, and content ideas generator.)
Once you schedule your Instagram content, you’ll see it in a comprehensive content calendar that shows your Instagram posts in the context of your larger social strategy.
Meanwhile, Hootsuite Inbox allows you to view, track, and respond to all Instagram direct messages and Story mentions in one place, with built-in automations to reduce the manual input required.
For hashtag and mentions tracking automation, Hootsuite streams work to surface the conversations your brand wants to be a part of (or just keep on top of).
You can set up streams to automatically track all content posted to a relevant hashtag within your Hootsuite dashboard. You can then track and respond to posts on all hashtags from one screen.
Hootsuite’s Social Advertising features are integrated tools for managing organic and paid content side by side, including automatically boosting posts. Within the dashboard, you can easily pull actionable analytics and build custom reports to prove the ROI of all your social campaigns.
Finally, Hootsuite Analytics provides in-depth, custom Instagram reports generated automatically and sent on your designated schedule to all relevant stakeholders.
2. Meta Business Suite
Source: Meta Business Suite
Cost: Free
Best for: Creators and small social teams who focus primarily on Meta platforms
Meta Business Suite offers some basic automation features for Instagram. First, you can schedule posts and Stories using the built-in planner. You can use this feature to schedule either organic or paid Instagram posts.
Second, you can set up automated responses in Meta Business Suite Inbox to send automatic replies when someone contacts your business on Instagram. You can add up to five keywords or phrases to trigger different responses. So, for example, if you get a lot of DMs about shipping, you could set up Instagram automated messages with links to shipping details on your website.
Learn more about how to use Meta Business Suite.
3. NapoleonCat
Source: NapoleonCat
Cost: Basic plans start at $32/month. Instagram DM automation requires the Pro plan, starting at $76/month.
Best for: Teams focused on automated moderation of Instagram comments and replies.
NapoleonCat offers a useful social inbox that allows you to manage Instagram comments and DMs, along with auto-moderation features to reduce workload. You can also use this tool to schedule Instagram content in advance.
4. Later
Source: Later
Cost: Starting at $25/month
Best for: Individuals and teams who use Instagram as their primary social media platform and focus on organic content
Later is an Instagram scheduler with solid features for content planning and scheduling organic content (but not Instagram ads). It also includes a social media inbox for managing Instagram comments, but not DMs.
See how Later compares to Hootsuite.
5. Sprout Social
Source: Sprout Social
Cost: Starting at $249/month
Best for: Enterprise-level teams with a primarily organic social media strategy
Sprout Social is a powerful enterprise-focused social management tool that offers good Instagram automation features for organic content (but not ads). You can monitor comments, DMs, mentions, and tags from a unified inbox that allows team members to collaborate effectively.
See how Sprout Social compares to Hootsuite.
6. Iconosquare
Source: Iconosquare
Cost: Starting at $79/month
Best for: Teams with a cross-platform organic social media marketing strategy
Iconosquare offers lots of useful Instagram scheduling features – including the option to schedule the first comment on your Instagram posts. Again, it does not allow for Instagram ad scheduling, although it does offer solid reporting for organic vs. paid content performance.
7. Tailwind
Source: Tailwind
Cost: Starting at $24.99/month
Best for: Creatives and entrepreneurs looking to simplify copy and design but manage engagement manually
Tailwind is a social media management tool that really shines with its automated design and copy-creation tools. However, it does not include an inbox to manage or automate Instagram engagement. If you have the team resources to manage engagement manually but need help with content creation, this could be a good Instagram automation tool for you.
8. Brandfort
Source: Brandfort
Cost: Basic free plan. Paid plans with Instagram automated messages filtering start at $19.99/month
Best for: Meta platform users that see a high level of engagement, especially those in regulated industries
Brandfort is an AI-powered comment moderation system that automatically flags and hides inappropriate comments on your Facebook and Instagram organic posts and ads. It’s specifically designed to detect spam, negativity, hate, and profanity. It can also detect political comments and personally identifiable information, and it works in multiple languages.
Brandfort integrates with Hootsuite.
9. Panoramiq Watch
Source: Synaptive
Cost: Starting at $8/month (free for Hootsuite Enterprise users)
Best for: Brands with complex hashtag and competitor monitoring needs
Panoramiq Watch allows brands to automate complex Instagram hashtag and competitor monitoring with custom streams and post management tools. You can save your results to tools like Evernote OneNote, and Pocket.
Panoramiq Watch integrates with Hootsuite.
Manage your Instagram presence alongside your other social channels and save time using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts, engage the audience, and measure performance. Try it free today.
Grow on Instagram
Easily create, analyze, and schedule Instagram posts, Stories, Reels, and Threads with Hootsuite. Save time and get results.
Free 30-Day TrialThe post Instagram Automation: What You Should Automate + Tools [2024] appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.
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