How Communication Automation Can Streamline Your Business

Building a brand online takes more than just spewing out content from time to time.

It doesn’t matter if you produce the best content in the world. What you need is to focus on the interactions that connect you with your audience and the influencers in your niche.

While online services make it easier to be in-tune with your market, a lot of businesses underutilize them as communication platforms.

Social media, for example, is typically used solely as a content distribution channel, when it can be used for so much more. Email communications are also often mishandled by taking too long to respond to leads.

This is understandable for smaller businesses, particularly those without a social media or PR arm to handle interactions on the side.

The good news is, there are many ways to automate certain forms of communication to streamline the customer journey and accelerate business growth.

Let’s jump right into it.

1. Automating Twitter Customer Interactions

Without a doubt, Twitter is one of the most accessible social media platforms to date.

Its primary purpose is simple: to enable users to receive tidbits of news as they occur.

By limiting the number of characters in each post or “tweet,” the user experience is incredibly fast-paced.

Even if they do mention or respond to your brand, it only takes a few seconds for them to move on to the next tweet.

This results in missed opportunities to engage or perhaps even close a warm prospect. And if you’re in with some aggressive competitors, then you might be letting false information regarding your brand float about.

Long story short, there is a huge need for a Twitter automation platform so you can capitalize these interactions.

Narrow.io, for example, allows you to automate specific Twitter actions based on keyword or hashtag mentions.

For example, with Narrow.io, you can automatically follow users who tweet your brand’s official hashtag. These represent users who could be interested in learning about or purchasing from your brand.

To make sure that Narrow auto follows other profiles, be sure to head over to “Settings,” then make sure that the box for “Auto Follow” is ticked.

Keep in mind that following leads is a reliable way to get their attention, especially once they’ve already expressed their interest in your brand. With Narrow.io, you can focus on other aspects of your online marketing as your Twitter follower base grows itself.

2. Automating Messages and Responses

Finally, you can utilize automation tools for your customer service and sales experience fronts. It doesn’t matter if you offer support via live chat or email — there’ll always be a tool that can help you automate interactions through those channels.

Autoresponders, for example, are perfect when it comes to automating how you interact with your audience. Through autoresponders, you’d be able to create workflows and funnels.

You can put together a pre-set action that your autoresponder will execute based on how your audience will respond to your materials.

When it comes to live chat services, the automation platforms can vary significantly based on the platform you chose. That said, it’ll be more productive for you to check out the platforms yourself.

Here is a short list of the best chatbots you can learn about and use today:

• ChattyPeople
• Botsify
• MEOKAY
• Facebook Messenger
• Chatfuel

3. Automating Content on Social Media

With communication automation, you can take full advantage of social media’s fundamental role in marketing — promoting your brand’s content.

Ask yourself this: How much time do I spend manually sharing new content to my social media followers?

Under normal circumstances, you may need a few minutes for each network.

With a couple of automation tools, namely IFTTT and Buffer, you can allot this time and effort for more meaningful tasks. Here’s how they work:

• Buffer — A social media scheduling tool that adds new content to a calendar or “queue” of posts.
• IFTTT — A pure automation platform that connects two or more services into one workflow.

The good news is, both platforms are really easy to use, and IFTTT has a myriad of tools/apps that you can connect to your buffer account.

Final Words

Regardless of your niche, remember that a trustworthy brand needs more than just quality content. It also needs effective communication that resonates with the preferences and needs of your target audience.

The tactics above should help you grease out certain nodes in your communication with your customers and the influencers in your industry. They may just be the tip of the iceberg, but they should help you better grasp the potential benefits of communication automation for any business.