Automation gets a bad wrap - and in a lot of cases, justifiably so. Done wrong, automation can look spammy, robotic and really, just unprofessional. But done right, automation tools can save you a heap of time and effort, and make a huge difference to your digital marketing process.

Now, we're not talking about automating social media interactions or mass-sending tweets - the former overlooking the 'social' element of 'social media' and the latter being banned by Twitter. No, the automation we're talking here is scheduling, sending your posts out at the right time to catch your audience when they're most likely online, planning your content calendar to maintain activity and tapping into analytics to maximize performance.

There are many ways that such tools can be used to great effect. If you're not tapping into such, this listing of social management tools from Infographic Design Team will help.

A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.