You've been saying it for over a year now - tomorrow will be the day you finally automate your twitter account. Not completely (we don't want you to become spam) - but intelligently mastering the social media tool. Automating it in a way that makes your twitter account even more exciting- even more engaging- than updates about what you ate for dinner last night.
But something keeps getting in the way. It's easy to blame "time" - as in, not having enough of that. But then again, isn't that actually an argument in favor of automating the redundant tasks in your life? Whatever your excuse has been - today is the day that you finally automate your twitter account.
Automate Your Tweets with Buffer
Buffer is quite possibly one of my favorite tools - you will see me write about it often. A little over a year ago I had about 100 Twitter followers. Then I started using buffer to schedule great posts at times when my audience was more engaged - and now I have over 2,000 followers. Nothing crazy - but it's a huge increase.
You log in to a dashboard that gives you suggestions on great content to publish out to your network. I routinely find amazing articles that I didn't even know existed - it's like a personal article discovery tool that also helps me share with my audience. Once I find some articles that seem relevant and that I enjoy - I just add them to my buffer feed for twitter. Then I walk away.
Even when I'm browsing the internet - when I run into something that I enjoy on a website, instead of emailing it to myself or logging into twitter to craft a post that will go out at 5:30 am - I can use the Chrome or Safari extension to add it to my buffer for later.
Estimated time I saved: 2 hours/week
Automate Thanking Your New Followers with Crowdfire
I love thanking people for everything. I Direct Message them to say thanks for following, I thank every single retweet (at least to the best of my ability), and even try to thank a lot of the favorites. I have been growing at almost 100 new followers each day - which would suck up a ton of my time if I didn't automate it.
Plus, by sending a direct message to every new follower you can include a great message that let's people know more about what you do and begin a good relationship with them. A couple of examples would be what I do for my personal twitter account and what we do for our eCommerce store, Dollar Hobbyz.
For my personal account I say, "Nice! I'm glad you followed me - now let's make some Twitter magic!" You'd be amazed at some of the great conversations that come from starting conversations with new followers like that. There are some very creative people that follow up with something amazing - and that seals our relationship.
The one we set up for Dollar Hobbyz says, "Hey - thanks for following us! Did you know you could save up to 95% off retail on our website: http://www.dollarhobbyz.com". Our Twitter traffic has skyrocketed because of that message. We are thanking them, and we are also letting them know that they can save a ton of money on their favorite hobby - it's a win-win.
I use Crowdfire to set that up. You can get it for free - or you can upgrade for $10/month and get rid of their branding in the message (which I highly recommend).
Estimated time I saved: 3 hours/week
Automate Posting From Instagram with IFTTT
Tweets are much more engaging if they have a photo that you can actually see instead of just a link to the photo. But I also like doing things with as few steps as possible - so whenever I posted a photo with Instagram, I just let Instagram post the photo to Twitter. Rookie Mistake. All it was doing was posting a link - that no one ever engaged with.
Now that I set up IFTTT (If This Then That), when I post something on Instagram, it automatically posts that photo on Twitter too - but as a photo, not as a link. It has made a huge difference in engagement - which is the whole reason I want to share it in the first place.
IFTTT is incredibly easy to set up. You just connect it to your instagram account and your twitter account, then turn on the recipe that does what you need it to do. There are a ton of great recipes already created, so you can just search for one that does what you need it to do instead of worrying about creating your own.
Estimated time I saved: 1 hours/week
Other great automations for Twitter:
Featured Image Credit: Pexels.com. Screenshots by William Harris
Have you set up twitter automations? Tell me about them in the comments below!