Smart retailers know that providing a successful in-store shopping experience isn’t enough to keep sales numbers where they used to be. Your online presence matters just as much, if not more. Social media marketing lets you engage with your local customers, spread positive word-of-mouth, and even increase sales. Unfortunately, running a small business doesn’t allow a lot of time to dedicate to social media management.
Social media automation saves time while distributing your content to the right audience. Social media automation uses software tools to automate the publication and distribution of content.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss how social media automation works and how retailers can use it to achieve their marketing goals.
First, let’s dive a little deeper into how social media works if you don’t automate the process. It might look something like this:
Even with great organization, it still takes a lot of time to create, publish, and monitor posts one by one. Compare this process to social media automation.
With social media automation, the process of creating and publishing content is much more streamlined. Here’s what it might look like:
You might take your social media automation a step further and work with the brands you carry to publish their content with a tool like ThumbStopper. With this strategy, you pull from a larger pool of great content — meaning less time spent creating it on your own — and tap into audiences you share with those brands.
Consistency matters with social media. In order to gain a following and garner engagement, both of which help ensure that social platforms will show your content in your followers’ feeds, you need to post on a regular basis. You will set the schedule that works best for your strategy — whether it’s a few times a day or a few times a week. Automation lets you stick to that rhythm effortlessly.
Social media automation can bring more customers to your website and physical store. 90% of shoppers buy from companies they follow on social media. Many customers research a store through social media first, then visit in person. You can also use social media to spread the word about in-store promotions and events.
You already have a lot on your plate to maintain and grow a successful business, lik bookkeeping, customer service, inventory, human resources, and so much more. Marketing is a job all on its own. There’s nothing wrong with having a friend or employee manage your social media accounts. However, that still requires input, planning, and supervising on your end. Automation helps ensure a steady flow of content and frees your time to devote to other areas of your business.
It can be a challenge to rise above the competition and get eyes on your post. With the massive amount of content people consume every day your strategy needs to consider timing as well. There are significant fluctuations between days or within the hours of a day when it comes to engagement. With social media automation, you can focus on your day to day activities and let the software take care of the rest.
Social media automation is a boon for business owners already juggling a lot of tasks. You spend less time (and money) worrying about when to post and where. ThumbStopper takes engaging, high-quality content from the brands you carry and directs it to your social media feeds, so you reap the benefits. In fact, ThumbStopper users have reported seeing 50% increases in in-store traffic and up to 10x customer growth!
Start automating your social media content using ThumbStopper today! We’ll take care of curating your social media feed by working with the brands you carry in your store. With ThumbStopper, you can leverage premium branded content to improve your business’s social media presence. Learn more about ThumbStopper’s solutions for retailers today!