When you master social media marketing, you’re like the king of all fishermen. Your competitors throw out their lines and bring in a couple dirty soda cans while you pull in net after net of precious, valuable, yummy fish.
You smile and wave goodbye to your seasick enemies as you end the day before sunset, having won the treasure hunt early on. Again.
If you’re like most business people today, you’re identifying a lot more with the seasick suckers than the champion fisherman. In fact, you know exactly who that puffed up social media expert is, and you envy her. She makes it look so easy!!
Well, she may have a few tricks up her sleeve, and this article is about to expose several of them!
One amazing tool I’ve discovered in my Gbox social media endeavors is Zapier. With Zapier you get like a thousand tools in one (literally). With more than 400 apps that connect with the platform, it’s an incredibly powerful and customizable tool.
Zapier calls their functions “Zaps.”
I don’t work with/for Zapier or have any reason to promote it to you except that it really is one of a kind when it comes to Social Media tools.
As you know, it’s never enough to lazily schedule posts and hope for a return of some sort. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use automation to your advantage. YOU SHOULD.
In addition to quick automating functions, Zapier offers more unique “relationship building” zaps. Try them out yourself and you may just find yourself amongst the highly effective social gurus you used to resent.
There are tons of zaps, but below are twelve that I find particularly useful and just, well, awesome.
All for One: Social Media Automation Zaps
Zapier describes their zaps as a connection between two apps that automates time-consuming tasks.
Here are the top six automated social media posting options that I’ve found to be extremely valuable for Gbox.
Connect with Buffer
When you connect Zapier to your Buffer, you can choose to send any messages to your Buffer queue. If you’re using Buffer, you’ve already set up the social media channels that you want to post to. This is an easy way to send a post to your queue.
Connect to multiple accounts on one platform
Have two (or five) different Facebook or Twitter accounts? With this zap you can post to both at once. You can also retweet your tweets from one account to another.
Facebook + LinkedIn
Choose this zap and all your Facebook posts will be sent out via your selected LinkedIn account, as well!
Instagram + Twitter
When you’re in the Instagram app and you choose to share your photo with your Twitter audience simultaneously, your Twitter followers see a link instead of the photo.
With a zap, you can choose to automatically share Instagram photos to your twitter as photos rather than links. Photos are attention grabbers, so you don’t want to miss out on this one!
Instagram + Facebook
Choose this zap and your Insta photos will be automatically posted on the Facebook page of your choice. Again, this is just another time saver.
You don’t always have to queue everything in Buffer or Hootsuite (or God forbid, go and post the photo to multiple places, one at a time). If you want to be able to randomly post to two or more places with just one click, these types of zaps are a must.
Instagram + Buffer Queue
Maybe you don’t want your Instagram photo being posted immediately to your Facebook or Twitter. Instead, you might want to send it to your Buffer queue, where it will be smart-posted at peak view time.
Sending to your queue is great if you’re worried about sending too many posts at once, also. Why? Because Buffer will space out your posts effectively.
YouTube/Vimeo + Buffer
Zap your uploaded videos from your YouTube or Vimeo channel to your Buffer queue. This is a great tool for video professionals and enthusiasts!
From WordPress to Social Channels
If you’re posting regular blogs via WordPress, there’s an easy zap for sharing these with your selected social media channels. As soon as you hit “Publish,” your hot-off-the-press article will be seen by your audiences all around the web!
Never Miss Out on Being Real: Relationship building Zaps
In my search for effective Social Media strategies, I’ve found that placing a high value on real relationships is key to being the care-free fisherman rather than the green-faced bystander.
With Gbox’s social media, we use the following six relationship zaps to help save time and maximize our efforts.
Track Twitter mentions
If someone mentions @joinGbox, Zapier automatically adds these to a list. The list includes the date and time of the tweet, the number of followers that account has, their location, and the link to the tweet.
With this zap, I am able to wisely identify people that are already talking about Gbox. These are likely to be good people to relationship with.
Send LinkedIn invites to those who email you
How social savvy will you look when someone emails you for the first time and quickly gets a LinkedIn invite from you? How easy will it be to get new connections when you don’t have to do it manually? This is the power of the LinkedIn invite zap!
LinkedIn connections to Google contacts
In addition to helping you get more LinkedIn contacts from your email, you can also use Zapier to do the opposite. Turn on this zap and all of your new LinkedIn connections will be added to your Google contacts!
This zap and the one above have been great list-building tools for Gbox!
Invite MailChimp subscribers to connect on LinkedIn
It’s not just your email contacts that can automatically receive LinkedIn invites – so can your new e-subscribers! Zapier connects to MailChimp and multiple other sites, as well. Check it out to see if your CRM tool is on the list!
Conclusion
These are my twelve favorite Zaps, but you may find MANY more that work wonders for you and your business. Check out Zapier’s Beginners Guide to help you get started!
What social media tools are you head over heels for? Let me know in the comments below and stay connected on Facebook and Twitter!
