GaggleAMP, dlvr.it, Buffer, Viraltag can be huge time-savers
Target audience: Marketing professionals, businesses, brand managers, PR professionals, SEO specialists, nonprofits, Web publishers.
Guest post by Mary Hiers
Auto-sharing is an important tool in the social media management toolbox. Having convenient sharing buttons next to your website’s content and blog posts eliminates the friction that can cause people who love a piece of content not to bother sharing it. And when you use social media to make announcements or update followers of your brand, auto-sharing tools make it easier to get the information out there and in front of those who are interested in your products and services so they can consume or share the information with others.
A hypothetical social sharing scenario
Suppose I’m writing blog content for an important new client. It’s not enough to write a well-researched blog post and leave it at that. I need to make sure that as many interested parties as possible see that blog post in hopes they’ll want to learn more.
It’s not easy to find time to post and promote announcements on multiple social media sites, and the client certainly doesn’t have time to do it. That’s where auto-sharing tools come in. Here are a few of the tools and platforms you should consider.
dlvr.it
Using dlvr.it is very simple. Just enter your blog or feed URL to get started.
1dlvr.it is a tool that lets me automate blog post delivery to social networks. All I have to do is specify the source the content is coming from and the social media destination I want it to go to as soon as it’s published. dlvr.it monitors the blog feed and as soon as a new post is detected, it delivers the link to a specified social media account automatically. It’s great for making sure every new blog post gets tweeted promptly.
“dlvr.it isn’t a social media management tool like HootSuite, for example,” says founder Bill Flitter. “We focus simply on sharing content. Our category doesn’t have a common bucket or category to fit into. It is broader than social media.”
Whatever you call it — a sharing automation platform? — dlvr.it is a winner. An account at the free tier lets users designate up to five blogs and up to three different social accounts.
Buffer
2For success in social media management, timing is critical. However, the moment you have content to share may not be the best moment to share it. Say it’s Sunday evening and you’ve found something you want to share on your brand’s Facebook page. Not that many people will see it if you post it then. Buffer lets you queue your content for posting at predetermined times, like lunch hour Monday when Facebook traffic is higher.
Viraltag
3Suppose you’re managing social media for a brand that has a healthy following on Pinterest. With the browser plugin Viraltag, you can pick multiple images right off the web and schedule them for sharing on Pinterest. You specify which Pinterest board you want the pins to appear on, schedule a start time for pinning them, plus a gap period between pins. This keeps you from pinning too many things at once, which can dilute the power of each posting.
SocialOomph
4SocialOomph offers a range of free and paid social media enhancements for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and your blog. You can schedule tweets, track Twitter keywords and retweets, and set auto-follow parameters. The auto-follow feature alone can save major time over logging in and reciprocating followers on Twitter.
GaggleAMP
5GaggleAMP works a bit differently, but it’s extremely powerful for auto-sharing. With GaggleAMP, you or your client creates a network of people (a Gaggle), which may include employers, partners, sellers, or particularly valued customers. They can share and post client messages and content, amplifying its effects far more than simply sharing it on social media sites.
Here is what you’ll see as a Gaggle manager:
This dashboard lets you send out messages and links to be shared by members of a particular Gaggle.
And here’s what you’ll see as the member of a Gaggle:
This dashboard shows you messages ready for you to share as a member of a Gaggle.
Not only that, GaggleAMP has built-in analytics and automatically shortens links you share, adding campaign parameters for Google Analytics. These parameters let you track several types of lead attributes automatically through your Google Analytics account.
Auto-sharing etiquette
While these tools are excellent time savers as far as getting the word out, human oversight of social media accounts is still essential for building a loyal, engaged social media following.
Auto-sharing etiquette is similar to overall social media etiquette. Bombarding followers with an endless stream of sales pitches is not cool. You still have to take time to interact with social media followers and listen to what they have to say. Your auto-share tasks should be set up to take basic social media etiquette into account.
If you manage social media accounts for your employer or for outside clients, auto-sharing tools are great for automating many of the more mundane tasks of content sharing. GaggleAMP takes it a step further by letting you leverage your most loyal followers and making it easier for them to spread the word effectively.
These tools, in the hands of a knowledgeable and conscientious social media manager, can make social media management far more effective and rewarding while cutting out a lot of the time-consuming mundane tasks.