There are many tools out there that allow you to automate your social media posts. Hootsuite and Sprout Social are two of these tools that are very easy to use, allow you to schedule posts on multiple accounts, and can even provide you with analytics on your social media efforts.
Automating your social media can be extremely beneficial. It allows you to communicate with your fans and following without constantly needing to be sitting in front of your social media account. This way, you can schedule a few things to ensure that you’re pushing out content.
But some people don’t know how to use automation tools successfully, and they can end up harming their business. The following are four social media automation mistakes to avoid.
1. Over-automating.
Just because you can automate doesn’t mean that it should replace your real-time interactions. Unfortunately, some companies spend an hour setting up social media postings with automation tools and never look back. While automation can help you generate content, it can’t help you hold conversations, so you need to make sure that you’re still monitoring your site and responding to your fans and followers in real time.
2. Sounding robotic.
If your automated content sounds like a robot wrote it, your fans and followers are not going to read it. Make sure that even when you automate, you put style and tone into your writing. This gives your business some character and helps your following relate to you on a more personal level.
Automating responses with boring and canned content can also deter your fans and followers. If you have a boring old “thanks for following me” message that appears every time you gain a new fan or follower, it may turn some people off.
3. Not timing your posts appropriately.
Automation tools allow you to choose the time and date that your posts go live, and it’s important that you pay attention to this. If you don’t, you could end up scheduling all of your posts to go out at 2am, and if your audience isn’t on social networking sites at 2am, your post or tweet is going to get lost and not reach as many people.
4. Not changing your content.
If you have multiple social networks, it’s possible that you have a few of the same fans and followers on each one. If you are automating your messaging to say the exact same thing on all of your networks, you’re going to lose some of your following. Nobody wants to see your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ pages say the exact same thing.
Automation can be a big help to your business, but it shouldn’t be the only way you use social media.
YOUR TURN:
What are your thoughts on automation? Do you love it or hate it? Please share your thoughts below.
