Hey, fellow Clubbers!

I’m working on a Quick Start Guide for Financial Advisors on SM (or a QSG for FAs on SM) and reading an interesting post by an FA on his techniques for automating a lot of his social media activity and how it’s working for him.

On the other side of the fence is someone like Scott Stratten, author of Unmarketing (and @unmarketing on Twitter), who rails against any type of automation as being unauthentic.

I’d be lying if I said I never scheduled a tweet, or used a service like Ping.fm to improve my social media ROI. That being said, I’ve also seen better results and responses when I post something live and am there to engage with people.

How about you? Where do you stand on automation? If you use it, in what ways? If not, why not?

If you have stories about why automation works, or why NOT using it works, we’d all love to hear them.

@rich-brooks I use a mixture of both especially now that I have a FT job. There isn’t enough time in the day to be on all your social media accounts, email, etc. Automation also keeps you from pushing out, say, 5 Twitter responses within 5 minutes. What I don’t like are the automated replies to a Twitter follow, unless you’re Lady Gaga or Mari Smith who have thousands of followers.

I agree with @devanianjali. For financial advisors, I could see scheduled messages on important deadlines (April 15th (or 17th this year b/c of a DC holiday) and helpful tips. In between, I would expect some personalized interactions such as responding to questions, writing a (guest) blog or pushing out breaking news. The automation helps to reach a larger audience because you can reuse a message/post to hit clients when they are online.

Here is the thing about automating…..Out of Sight / Out of Mind.   While automating some content is great to get your message out it is equally important to listen and interact.   I think there should be a good mix….perhaps 70% active and 30% passive or even 60% active and 40% passive.  
Ultimately, it depends on the person/business posting the content and the ultimate goals behind doing so.

I think it depends on what we’re automating.

Automate the timing: While you may not have personally posted it at that moment in time, this does not necessarily inhibit authenticity of the message.

Automate the content: like canned automatic responses in Twitter that sound personal, but aren’t. I think it just highlights the fact that they aren’t personal by pretending to be, and so I’m even less likely to pay attention to it.

Like Kyle & Kristy each suggest above, there might be some completely legit reasons to automate content & timing — like for deadline reminders, things that don’t need to be personal.

But isn’t the whole point of social media to be social? Doesn’t automation remove the social aspect?

Wow! There are really some good points being made on this thread. 

I don’t feel that automation removes the social aspect. I actually thought that Susan made a good point that simply because you automate the timing of a post doesn’t necessarily remove any of its authenticity.

And while it would make sense to automate your posts (because who has the time to be checking their FB page every waking moment?), I wouldn’t automate any replies or engagement with fans on Facebook (I am guilty of automating direct messages on Twitter). However, my whole strategy with Twitter is simply to redirect traffic to my FB page.

So, I think most comments on this thread follow the same line of thought. You’ll want to “Semi-Automate” your social activity. But keep engagement real and personal.

Obviously the big sin in automation is the Out of Sight/Out of Mind issue that @kylemj6877 spoke about. However, if you have your phone/iPad, etc set up to alert you to mentions/comments/etc, and you respond to those, I don’t see how it would bite you in the rear. I do a mixture with clients and it hasn’t hurt us in stats yet. But again, the key was being available to continue the conversation even though the original status was automated.

@joanmuschampfagnani – what you said.

@rich-brooks Yes, automate some of it. If you typically handwrite a tweet about your new blog post, and you copy and paste the headline, and copy and paste the URL, there are plugins to do that. You’re not being any less genuine, transparent, or authentic, or whatever other feel-goodery we want to call it, just because you had a plugin save you 30 seconds of work to come up with the exact same tweet you would have written if you had to do it by yourself. (Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything.)

BUT, don’t automate real conversations. Ask the questions yourself. Answer other people’s questions yourself. Don’t auto DM anyone, especially the “thanks for the follow!” messages.

If you can come up with a genuine, authentic tweet or statement, but it’s 2:00 in the morning, and you know no one is going to see it, schedule it for 8:03 am and be done with it. There’s nothing wrong with that.

In agreement with the school of thought that goes with 80-90% in real time, with the rest automated. And by automated, it’s more like scheduling at off-peak or outside office hours, i.e. during the night, if you deal with overseas.

But automating tweets, or auto-response when someone follows you? Nope! It’s so robot-like, what’s the point?

Platforms like Hootsuite are useful to schedule tweets early in the morning, or in-synch with a blog post in order to get the conversation going and start the buzz. But someone has to be IRL to feed the beast after that, or else it’s just wasted efforts…

Quite often when I’ve automated the message, I did it on behalf of a client who needed an ‘easy’ solution – usually someone who didn’t really have the desire or ability to interact (or in some cases who I was scared to have interacting). 

In reality I probably should have trained them or sold them message management as a service. It’s hard to automate a message and really manage the engagement.

I think the only things you can automate are your links to a new blog post via your RSS feed, for example. Hootsuite has this function built in so that it checks your RSS for updates and then posts them at a time and space you choose.

generally speaking I think automating is dangerous and for reasons I can’t explain better than Kyle i.e. Out of sight, out of mind… it’s like sending a robot with prerecorded messages into a party to represent yourself.

Scheduled tweets… now that’s different… why post your brilliant 2am idea when no-one will see it?

I also do both – I do love to participate but I also need the efficiency of automating things too – People need to figure out when it is appropriate to work or interact and when it is efficient to add a tip or link that goes out to everyone

I’m with Devani (and others): I believe in automating. No, it isn’t very popular with many people, but, well, experience shows that it works. And that’s what matters. However, it’s also clear from my experience that you’ve got to mix it with manual updates. That means: talking back to people who respond to your tweets, thanking them for RT’s and, of course, RT’ing interesting tweets from other businesses / people who share your interests / work in the same industry. What I do is: I schedule tweets with BufferApp and then proceed to keep track of my tweets and those of others manually, by using Hootsuite. Works great!

Hi all! Great discussion on this hot topic. I agree with all of you?
It seems there is a values based thing going on when people are either all in or all against automation and in thinking about the true ‘heart’ of social media, when i think about my day personally, i am sometimes walking around on ‘automation’ with the automatic response when greeting someone as ‘hi, how are you?’ or ‘how’s your day?’ as we pass by each other at work, or out and about in the community. Often times, I see myself or others asking those questions as we are rushing to a meeting are into our cars, etc. I don’t think, and only speaking for myself, these automatic responses lack authenticity so much as we are both willing to make a connection, acknowledge, greet and move on- if this makes sense.
I apply the same principles in the blend of how I use SM. For both LinkedIn and Twitter, I use a combination of HooteSuite and Social Oomph. These allow me to send out daily tweets, w/ different messages at timed intervals- these are my ‘hi, how’s your day?’ as i pass by and navigate through the two platforms. Each day, and the time I spend on SM is broken down into a formula: 1/4 listening, 1/2 communicating and 1/4 connecting/creating. So, if I were to send out automatic tweets at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 6pm and 9pm (6 total) that would be part of my 1/2 communicating. THEN, the other 1/2 is listening and connecting/creating.
This frees up my time to be doing the work that I ‘do’ without feeling pressured of missing out or not jumping in. I set aside 3 short breaks a day to log into HooteSuite to see what is happening and connect with others. On the odd glorious day, I can make more time in my schedule. I like to read, and reading blogs and being able to post to Twitter or LinkedIn or other SM sites is great because it gets the dialogue going for the connecting/creating time.
I have found it is all about balance- SM is SO huge and can be overwhelming. What works for me is picking a weekly topic or theme/trend and seeing what I can learn. Although I am producing information 1/2 of my time on SM about what I am passionate about in my business, 1/2 of my time is spent connecting and learning and trying to keep up!
Have a great day folks- it is so great to read your posts and see what you are doing in this sea of opportunity.
Take care,
Suzanne

Great comments thanks to everyone for the input.  I automate for the most part for our normal daily postings especially since our friends/fans/followers, etc. may be logging on at different times of the day or more than likely after we are gone for the day and like a couple folks mentioned we do have real jobs to attend to in the non-virtual world.  I do check our sites regularly or have an alert set to be notified when a response comes in to prevent the out of sight out of mind issue.

The one place now I don’t automate though is Facebook (except for afterhours posts) after reading how they slap posts from 3rd party apps like Hootsuite, etc.and haven’t found a way to automate Google Plus yet.  Anybody got a tool to do that?

I automate a few tweets and facebook posts. This is very helpful on days I am traveling or leading sessions/working. Most days I get on and try to comment and share other peoples material.

I think a mix of both is good. save you from burn out and keep you in the spotlight when you can’t interact live with your audience.

I think social media automation is a lot like fast food.Sometimes your busy schedule requires taking advantage of fast food options.Most of the time you should eat fresh food prepared at home. 

If your social media is automated, it’s not very social at all.Sometimes it’s ok to turn ON automation, but not all the time.

I use Hootsuite for content that I aggregate ahead of time that I want to deliver at another time. But I also post in real time on Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn to tailor messages for those specific groups, and to respond to comments & likes.

I got into automation reluctantly, but now i have to agree that a mixture is best.  Sometimes I simply can’t be at my computer during the optimimum times to post and automation helps there.  But I’m always responding to comments and likes to my posts as quickly as I can.  It’s the only way I can make it work without tearing my hair out.  I haven’t noticed a difference in response to things I automate and things I don’t, even for my clients.  It’s more the content that matters, and the fact that at some point during the day I AM on Facebook, etc. personally commenting, responding, etc.   Social Media Managers have lives too, and we need to live them!

Until now, I have found automating the push of important messages, disaster warnings etc to be very useful. these are one way information…No good for discussions.

But one learns; only when we actually try out and experiment. I read with interest many of the posts and learnt a lot. thanks friends.

Janardhan

I’ve always been against automation on messages as I think it undermines authenticity. However, I have learnt the value of having some automation systems in place. Like many of you have mentioned, automation helps you to interact with your customers when you aren’t available – ie because of different time zones. Also because I’ve found that no matter how capable I think I am as an entrepreneur, there are always things I don’t get round to doing, even if they’re important. So in that way automation helps. Personally I try not to automate more than 20 or 30% of my communication. I don’t think there’s one single solution. I tend to lean towards tailoring automation to your lifestyle and business to make it work best.  

Whether you are managing SM for yourself, a small business, or you are a member of a team, I don’t know how any one could be 100% automation free and maximize their effectiveness and reach. 

In reading this thread, only 1 out of 44 commentors say they do not automate. Of course I was instantly skeptical of the one, so I had to check him out. Sure enough @chrisyates11 is everywhere, with no signs of apps or auto tweet assistance (check his profile, follow his links, see for yourself). 

Mr. Yates, I am impressed! Very impressed. Though it will not work for me or many of my clients, you have just convinced me that it can be done, and on a large scale. You better believe I will be stalking you, Jedi. 

Perhaps we need to stop thinking of it as “automation”, which sounds very impersonal, but look at it as “scheduling.”.   Personally, I don’t automate anything.  But I do schedule my Facebook posts up to a week in advance.  And I consider each one of those posts carefully and thoughtfully to the message I want to deliver that day.  Some times I’ll go back and change a scheduled post if something new develops or I need to change the information being sent out.  So I don’t consider that any LESS personal than if I was at my computer 8 am and 8 pm every day sending the posts in real time; it’s simply more convenient for me and frees up huge chunks of my day to focus on other things…mostly learning all I can about social media marketing at this point.  My posts reflect ME and/or my client as much as possible.  I schedule 15 minutes twice a day on each of my accounts to respond to comments, “like” other posts, etc. so there is still a real and authentic presence on line. 

Thanks @ENBrown!  Scheduling posts doesn’t have to be impersonal at all, in my opinion. I even use it to help remember things…such as a post I have about tax deductions realtors can take. I have it scheduled to go out one month before April 16 and then again 2 weeks before.  Same message I would post if I were sitting at my computer at the time, so why not schedule it and make life easier?

This is a topic I care about quite a bit — it’s central to what we do. 

It’s essential to be posting regularly. The comments that raise “out of sight, out of mind” are spot on. If you have followers in different industries or different time zones, you need to be present over the course of the day. 

Having a publishing schedule isn’t a bad idea. It lets you know what you want to say in advance, brings some thematic structure to your posts, and gives your community something clear to focus on.

We try not to use third party APIs for our posts if we can avoid it. The EdgeRank Algorithm on Facebook penalizes you for that and again can take you “out of sight”. 

But there has to be room on top of that for the unexpected, for conversations and responses and all the good back-and-forth stuff that makes social media, well, social.

The challenge is finding the right blend that deals with what your business goals are (what do you want people to do, know, or understand) and the nature of your community. 

That’s what we’re finding. Thanks for all the rich ideas.

trefor

socialcatalyst.ca