All too many of us spend copious amounts of time labouring away on various tasks such as search engine optimization, social media outreach and content creation. The last thing we need is more work and technical processes to juggle in our busy lives, but life cares not for our protests. Content marketing is a perfect example of this, as it is absolutely necessary to promote our content effectively in order to maximize its reach. Fortunately, there are ways to streamline this through automating key portions of the process. How can you accomplish this? Continue reading to find out about three tantalizing tools to help you do just that.

Buffer

One of the most well-known social media automatons in existence, Buffer allows users to quickly schedule their social media content across multiple platforms. All too many people feel required to head to each social media platform daily in order to post a few updates here and there. This time-consuming task is very frustrating and can cause us to become less productive in other areas. If you want to be pinging users on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media networks all at once AND enjoy the ability to schedule these posts days, weeks or even months in advances, then check out Buffer. It’s free to use, incredibly intuitive and will help free up hours of time normally spent on content marketing each month.

Searchmetrics

Scoping out the competition is a huge part of successful content marketing; in order to get the most out of your own efforts, you must first determine what is resonating with similar audiences who interact with your competitors. Searchmetrics is a great tool that allows users to quickly determine what competitors are doing on the web and throughout social media, showing users what is currently ranking well. In addition to this, it provides suggestions on what elements of your content marketing should be changed in order to produce better results. Searchmetrics is not free (pricing begins at $69 per month), but we all need an intuitive ally that makes content marketing idea collection and process improvement much easier.

Hubspot

Long popular for its success in streamlining email marketing efforts, Hubspot remains a valuable companion to have in your content marketing arsenal. Hubspot offers so much more than email assistance, however: while pinging users via effective email campaigns helped make it popular, it also provides tools for blogging, content management systems, social media, calls-to-action, analytics and more. Truly a powerhouse in and of itself, many people rely solely on Hubspot to handle not just content marketing, but distribution and broader management of their brands as well. Depending on your needs, Hubspot packages can be procured for as little as $200 per month, but larger brands may need more dedicated solutions (ranging in price from $800 – $2400 per month). While the price may seem steep to many up and coming brands, the benefits obtained through the use of Hubspot’s tools are well-documented by countless individuals on the internet.