Is Social Media Automation Sophisticated Spamming?
Social media automation is great isn’t it? You know how it lets you schedule all your posts and thoughts across all of your social media accounts. Instead of spending your whole day on twitter, Linkedin or Facebook, invest a bit of time to spread your words of wisdom over the weeks and months ahead.
It’s a satisfying feeling. Instead of worrying you aren’t present on social media you can sit back and do business in the knowledge your hard work is getting seen while you go about with essential day to day work that brings home the bacon.
Social media automation can’t be a complete song and dance though can it? Unfortunately the answer is no. There are downsides and pitfalls that might leave you wishing you had spent a little more time on social media directly.
5 Pitfalls of Social Media Automation
1. Scheduling Lacks Personality
Is it you scheduling your social media posts, or is it actually a robotic version of yourself? A Robot that simply puts things on social media “because you should” rather than having a genuine reason. Also known as “spamming”.
Real people don’t like to engage with Robots and they don’t like spam, so when scheduling your posts try to add a touch of personality that at least gives the impression it is you tweeting/posting at that time.
Throw “We” and “I” into the mix and suddenly you can start sounding more like yourself or your business. Don’t cut corners, social media automation already makes life that much easier. Don’t waste the opportunity by resorting to spam tactics
Out of the Moment Social Media Automation
Scheduling social media posts ahead of time is great, but it lacks the “in the moment” benefits of spending a bit of time on social media. It can’t react to the industry’s breaking news like you can if you are regularly on the platform.
Furthermore if you schedule posts months in advance you could find that the post is redundant when it is actually posted. That’s not only your time wasted but it can also damage your business as people are able to see that your social media is out of date.
I’m not encouraging you to be on social media all day, every day, it’s not good for you or your business. Instead drop in on occasion and write some posts that are genuinely in the moment. Remember to manage your social media schedule, make sure your posts are still current.
Lack of Interaction
Automating your social media content allows you to place your content on social media but it doesn’t enable you to respond and genuinely interact with your audience.
A lot of people may make the mistake of throwing everything at social media and expecting business to come flying through the door. It won’t, people are quick to identify “social media spam” and switch off to your posts.
To make social media automation work you need to mix it up, schedule your posts, but remember to spend a bit of time actually on each platform. Liking and commenting on the posts of people you follow and responding to people who comment on your posts. This combination is perfect way to make people realise you are human. Or at least half robot/ half human
Scheduling Content for the Wrong Account
This is a genuine problem. You see social media automation tools like Buffer have a habit or pre-selecting “all” of your connected social media accounts. At first this seems like a benefit but if you aren’t careful, you could accidentally start scheduling content for the wrong accounts.
Of course this is fine if you are running social media automation for a single company. But if you are running multiple business’ accounts, you could find a post for one company slips onto the schedule for another. A bit unprofessional.
Thankfully if it has happened to me I’ve been able to rectify my mistake before it’s actually posted. So the key is take care when scheduling posts and to check scheduled posts for each account are relevant.
Never Present Social Media
It is hugely satisfying when you’ve scheduled all your social media posts for the coming days, weeks and months. You know that you and your business are out there in the social media world for that period of time. You are ever-present on social media.
But what happens when your schedule of posts comes to an end? Have you got enough new content to maintain the momentum or are your strides into social media destined to be short lived? Failure to maintain the momentum can lead to missed opportunities and exposure for your business.
Don’t become a never present on social media and maintain your social media automation by recycling your social media content and creating new content.
Succeed with Social Media Automation
Success can be achieved with social media automation if you follow these key points.
- Add a touch of personality to your scheduled posts
- Engage directly with social media on trending topics relevant to your industry
- Manage your social media automation schedule, don’t allow yourself to post out of date content or the wrong content to different accounts
- Respond, comment and like content shared by the people you follow and engage with responses to your content
- Sustain your social media with new and recycled content. Don’t lose momentum.
Social media automation is a great tool and hopefully these tips will enable you to get the most from it. If you require assistance with your business’ social media presence please contact me
