Marketers can’t be everywhere at once, and it’s impossible to try. Doing so leads to burnout. What many do now, is purchase/use small tools which help them get the same job done, but in a more clever and time-efficient way. Many are still trying to do it the hard way, however, and we think maybe it’s because automation is still somewhat new in some places of the world.


Facebook

Began allowing chatbots to reply to people after people’s websites had instant reply options that helped their business drastically. They test the chatbot from multiple dummy accounts and when they can verify that you didn’t mess up the coding or programming and that it works as well as you, they’ll turn on your button that says you reply instantly, which is great for business. Facebook has – by allowing chatbots, also enabled businesses to make sales directly from Facebook Messenger. They’ll also let you schedule posts for an entire week, month, whenever you need to be away.

Pinterest

Is a social network which is distinctly anti-social if looked at through the same lens as Facebook or Twitter. What they’ve done right, however, is enabled marketers to sell from the start. By giving people access, tools, and help to market their goods and services on Pinterest – but done in an artful or visual way, they’ve cemented their place in marketing. From our latest social media moment posts, you’ll see that they’re poised for huge success in the future, and it’s one place to utilize as a marketer. Pinterest also lets you schedule a Pin, but you need to use a program like Magi.Social to do so. Luckily these programs are out there for free, or mostly free and offer a TON of great benefits.

These are just two social media giants who are offering people a way to automate or help get more business quickly, with a click or a Pin. This says nothing for the massive amount of companies out there who offer automation in a far different way. There are cosmetics companies out there and hair colorists who offer a way to digitally ‘try on’ their makeup or hair colors to see how it looks before purchase. Paint stores offer a way to paint your walls in various colors to give a person a sense of sureness before buying paint. Then there are the millions of chat filters for a bit of fun with faces, backgrounds and more to help keep engagement.

Other Programs

There are programs which can do this for you as well, as a marketer who isn’t interested in having people try on makeup, or paint. There are auto-posters like Magi.Social which can help you to post images you can create within it or those you make yourself as well as post text, links, emojis and more. This can save you time when you have a different time zone than your audience, are planning to be away, or are the only person in your department and are pressed to do many things with little time.

There is also a program called TextDeliver which brings you into this century in terms of direct marketing. People may still do email marketing, but what does YOUR email inbox look like? Most are cluttered, messy, there are no labels or folders to divide them up and if there are, they’re out of date and useless. How much spam do you get a day? This is the reason most people ignore all but the MOST important emails they get every day. The world is becoming a lot less likely to want to talk to someone who is invading their privacy, the passing of the GDPR and a LOT of other privacy concerns this year alone means, people are really sick of spam. What they have a harder time doing, however, is ignoring their phone. There are some seriously compelling stats on people from a psychological angle – they actually CANNOT resist checking the message, even if it appears to be spam. It’s something they’re compelled to do, out of curiosity, habit, and anxiety. When that message turns out to be something that will help them out, and it’s delivered privately, and not in your face a thousand times a day like emailing – it seems more personal.

There are chatbots out there you don’t have to program either, like the Chatfuel bot which is pretty easy to figure out how to use but does take a rather large time investment to do so for the initial setup. It’s the bot we chose to use when we can’t always be there to answer. Chatbots are great because they are there when you’re not and the world’s become a ‘give it to me now’ generation, where people have a question or a need, and expect it to be resolved right then and there. When you’re not around, don’t have a chat option, live chat, or any other way to reach you immediately, it could be a lost sale. People move on to a competitor who DOES offer this, and who can answer their question.

There is no question that every business needs some form of automation to keep up these days, because as we become ever connected in closer degrees of separation, we require a lot more to do the same job, because the reach is exponential, or could be. That depends on you, and the things listed above!