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Social media marketing

By Zapier • Published March 1, 2021

Social media must be consistent to be effective. Without a way to easily manage it, social media marketing can instead become a scattered, time-wasting activity for time-strapped small businesses. That's even more likely to happen if you don't have a social media strategy.


Luckily, there are tools to make it easier to promote your business on social media. Once you've chosen the social media platforms that are right for your business, pick a social media management tool to centralize your efforts, schedule posts in advance, and view metrics on how your posts perform—all with automation.

Table of contents

How to maximize your social media presence with business automation

Automating your social media can help reduce the manual load on your marketing team, and it can reduce the time teammates spend on those tasks who slot that work in alongside their primary responsibilities.

Don't see your software here? Zapier works with thousands of apps, so there's a good chance that your tools work on our platform. Visit the Zapier App Directory to learn more about the social media networks and social media management tools on the Zapier platform.

Cross-post to other platforms


Instead of manually copying and pasting the same message onto all your social accounts, save time by cross-posting: Automatically sharing the same thing you post in one platform to another, like a Zap that tweets your latest Instagram post or posts your latest tweeted images to Facebook.


Teleport your marketing from one platform to another:

Cross-posting is best for saving time during a crunch, but keep in mind that a super-long Facebook post will get cut off at 240 characters on Twitter and that not all messages are meant to be shared everywhere. You can add a filter step to make sure only posts with photos make their way to Instagram, for example, and that long posts don't get cut off on Twitter.


Listen in


One of the best ways to use social media for your business is to listen to conversations that are relevant to your industry. Whether that's keeping tabs on your competitors, responding to mentions, or following certain key phrases or hashtags, social media can help you stay informed. Automate notifications so you can take action when something important happens online and respond in a timely manner.


Keep track of what matters to your brand:

If you're looking to track mentions of your brand, try Zapier's Brand Mention Monitoring Zap, which can send you alerts via email or chat whenever your brand or keyword is mentioned on any number of social media platforms or the web.

See your stats


Posts may fade from view quickly, but the impact remains. Analytics can tell you how your social media efforts are delivering results over time, and automation can help you track your success. Get reports delivered to you via email, text message, or Slack, or store new followers in a spreadsheet.


Stay on top of important metrics:

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