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Careful use of automation platforms can help increase your online presence
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Have you ever wondered if that doctor or office you follow on Twitter ever sleeps? It seems that some people are constantly on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all day long. How do they have time? Welcome to automation – or the “robot” way of handling your social media.
With the social media craze and concurrent evolution of technology, it is no surprise that automation platforms – or social media automation (SMA) – have emerged to manage your social media accounts. These tools allow you to automate your promotional message while minimizing time and staff delegation and maximizing your social media effort. Automation can accomplish a number of things, yet the primary use is disseminating information in a constant and timely manner.
Loss of social interaction with automation
Be aware that just as you cannot send a computer to a seminar to represent you, some social media interaction simply cannot be automated. Yet when used correctly, it is actually quite easy to keep your social media message, maintain your brand and interact with your online social network. One of the things you want to achieve in social media is the concept of “engagement” or a means of having two-way communication with your audience.
Some social media experts warn of the perils of SMA software or tools. It is often believed that once you automate you are missing the “social” aspect and perhaps the best part of spontaneous conversation. Some social media users also consider automation a form of spam. I, personally, do not automate my social media presence.
How automation works
On the other hand, there are benefits to automation. With these platforms, you can arrange constant and subject-relevant messages to go into your Twitter account, Facebook page and LinkedIn profile. This makes it easy to gather content-relevant information and promote relevant articles or topic-related news to your followers.
These automated platforms accomplish this by scanning RSS (really simple syndication) feeds and news services and performing live searches as well as taking feeds from your blog and placing them into your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. You can also have prescheduled posts and tweets and live posts and tweets. Social media automation provides timely, useful information without you even being involved.
Automation platforms
There are some great SMA platforms that will help streamline your social media marketing. Here are a few for you to consider, with varying levels of automation.
HootSuite and HubSpot can automate your Tweets by scheduling, or you can add an RSS feed and interface with Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
SocialOomph is more of a social productivity platform that focuses on automation. As with HootSuite, you can schedule tweets and automatically follow your followers.
Agustin L. Gonzalez
Gremln.com is a Twitter tool created just for automation. Some of the automation tasks offered include scheduling tweets, translating tweets, adding RSS feeds and mass scheduling.
TweetAdder is unique in that it is software that you download and install, instead of a tool you use online. This automation tool lets you autofollow and unfollow people as well as schedule tweets.
Twitterfeed is perhaps the simplest automation tool, primarily relaying RSS feeds directly into your Twitter account.
Each of these SMA platforms has slightly different features, yet the core functions and intent are similar in automating your online presence across your social media accounts.
Practice first
Before you begin, make sure you take some time to familiarize yourself with the platform. If you are computer savvy and confident, learning a SMA platform should take you an hour or two. Make sure you also practice before you go live scheduling your posts; you do not want to post things that are not relevant.
Once you get the hang of how SMA works, set aside regular time intervals such as 1 hour a week or just before staff meetings to keep your social media content relevant and active.
In short, when used in moderation, the automation of social media allows for increased interaction and offers value and information to your audience.
Be aware that no matter how or when you (or your delegated staff member) post Tweets or comments, your office should be ready to interact and provide responses. Remember, any SMA account can accept a reply and incoming messages, so make sure to check your reply box occasionally. This will show you who is interacting with you and allow you to engage socially.