On occasion I enjoy listening to podcasts, both to provide me with relevant marketing information and to break up the usual music that I listen to during the day. During one such time, I heard an important tip: consistency is key.
This is true for everything from posting on your blog, or posting online to your social media channels. While it may be easier for jewelry artists to take photos of their workbench and tweet those, or post them to Instagram, it’s also important to post back to your website occasionally. However, I’ve found this takes much more time and willpower to do.
I have good news for you! Technology now makes it easy to auto-post or do specific actions automatically for you. This means less time in front of a computer, and more time in your studio making jewelry.
Here are four paid and free automated social media posting tools you can use for your jewelry business:
IFTTT
IFTTT stands for If This Then That and the whole website consists of different applets that will create follow-up actions every time you do something. A few examples:
Tweet a photo post when you post to Instagram
Post WordPress blog posts to Facebook
Selectively post Instagram photos to Facebook when you use a specific hashtag
I love IFTTT; it’s a great way for me to set up actions that I don’t have to think about later and maximizes my social presence with minimal effort. If you’re looking for a way to concentrate on the platforms you want, with a way to automatically take care of other platforms, IFTTT is the answer you’ve been looking for.
Zapier
Like IFTTT, Zapier is a platform that will make certain actions for you when other things happen. These “zaps” are robust and incorporate not only social media platforms, but a wide range of other websites. If you can’t find what you need on IFTTT, check Zapier to see if there is an action there.
Some helpful Zapier actions include:
Integrating actions if you host a website on WordPress (think posting to various social platforms)
Getting started automating Facebook Lead Ads
Automating with MailChimp
Zapier is a bit more robust than IFTTT, so once you get comfortable with that program you may want to see what Zapier can do to help you.
Specially Designed Plugin
If you use WordPress as your content management system, then you’re in luck; there are a wide number of different plugins you can install and format to automatically post your content to your different social accounts. If you’re looking for a paid option, CoSchedule is trusted by several of my friends. I personally opted to use NextScripts because it was a trusted free option.
As with all plugins, be sure to do some research before you hit install. Many of these will involve a bit more website knowledge than either Zapier or IFTTT, so if you opt for this option, make sure you feel comfortable with the development needed (or have a friend on call who is!). As with all plugins, make sure it’s updated regularly.
Social Posting Platform
If you’re ready to take your social media posting to the next level, there are a wide range of platforms dedicated to providing you a single dashboard to achieve this from. HootSuite, Buffer and Sprout Social are just three of the big giants that will let you synch your different accounts, track engagement, respond to comments, and schedule content. If you want to put all your social posts in one place and manually manage them instead of setting some actions and forgetting about it, then these may be the best option for you.
How do you make social media posting easier for your jewelry business? Share your techniques below in the comments!