Content marketing is as much time consuming as it is challenging. After spending vast amounts of time creating the right content in the first place, brands then undergo lengthy periods trying to actually share the material. This is where automation can be extremely beneficial, helping strategists to disseminate content quickly.

There are three key principles when it comes to finding more content marketing time; content curation, social sharing and monitoring. Done correctly, these processes enable content marketers to optimise their strategies without taking more and more time.

Content curation 

Curating content can often seem a long-winded process; however, it is vital if brands are to grow their online presence and find the right audience. Of the many content-sharing rules, it’s generally agreed that at least half of social media updates should actually be content from others relevant to an organisation’s audience.

Finding this content can be time consuming, so automating this process is a good idea. There are a variety of tools available that, after having fed in relevant data for search terms, will automatically discover new and appropriate content that can then be shared with a target audience. Content is often provided in a daily updated stream, enabling marketers to oversee what they’re sharing and ensure it’s relevant.

Social sharing

Meanwhile, the best social media management includes scheduling as a way to provide a constant stream of content to fans, followers and audience members. It ensures that marketers, regardless of their time zone, can share updates with people at the most appropriate time of day.

To conduct this process, automation is required (unless strategists are going to be sitting at their social platforms 24-hours a day. Most integrated schedulers enable content to be queued up and delivered at specific times, including a brand’s personal blog posts.

It should be noted that marketers should not be over zealous in their scheduling. For example, queuing a news piece for two weeks time may give rise to a conflict of interest once the day to publish arrives.

Monitoring

Finally, it is crucial that strategists monitor their content, but with so much material out there, not to mention ongoing campaigns, it can be hard to keep an eye on everything. This is why automation can be useful, helping experts to manage their content and take note when a brand is mentioned.

There are many different tools for this, many of which can be programmed to alert brand strategists when there’s mention of their organisation. In addition, marketers can engage and reply with audiences from a central dashboard instead of having to log in and switch between the many various platforms. In addition to individual brand names, other relevant data, such as owner’s name or specific products, for example, can be included in search terms.

Automation is an essential part of running a content marketing campaign. Not only can it be used to keep an eye on how successful marketers have been, but also, it can provide experts with more time to work on optimising campaigns for increased success.