Your Thoughts On Social Media Automation?

Jeane Level 1

November 7, 2018, 2:28 am

43

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I've used a number of social media automation tools in the past and there many positive things I could say about them.

You save a lot of time. That's what I like best about social media automation. There are some who believe that social media automation is bad because it will be very difficult to leave feedback of any kind when your target audience interacts with any of your posts. Miss many of these opportunities and you'll start feeling the ripple effects very fast.

Your thoughts? Should one use social media automation tools sparingly, to counter the possible negative outcomes of automation?

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DenisP

DenisP

This may sound a bit weird, but I kind of feel like automated social media kind of takes out the “social” aspect of social media. I mean sure, you’re still generating the content that’s being automatically posted, but how up to date can you really be with your followers if you’re just churning out content without any real interaction?

I wouldn’t say I’m entirely opposed to automation, but there needs to be a human element involved in order to balance it out. Things start to feel very disingenuous and inorganic when they become fully automated, and that’s obviously a negative thing.

8 years ago

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amelia88

amelia88

I was coming to say this very thing. I think the whole part of social media is that it really allows you to connect with people in an online space. If you automate too much, I feel like it just negates the point of having social media. I guess it's one of those things that can be helpful to use if and when you simply can't be online - we're all human and need a break from the computer after a while - but I wouldn't want to go overboard with it.

8 years ago

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koki12346

koki12346

Yeah i agree with you, that is true is you use it only for your own account. But if you use instagram automation to make money or to manage a ton of accounts - your answer is not correct. A lot of people use it to make money online - they manage hundreds of accounts... You can't do that by hand...

8 years ago

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Youngshark

Youngshark

I agree as well the interaction will be fake and to some level your followers might feel the gap in the connection. It also tends to make you have zero touch with what happens on the social media circles in real time.

8 years ago

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TheArticulate

TheArticulate

I do social media management for the university I work for, and mostly spend my time scheduling posts via Hootsuite. I agree with you: complete and total automation takes the human element out of social media and certainly be detrimental for you or your business in the long run.

However, using a good balance of both automation and personal interaction can be a powerful tool, especially for those of us managing more than one social media account at a time. I'll schedule posts to go up at a certain day/time on Hootsuite, but I'll respond to messages and comments on my own.

Hootsuite also have a great dashboard that combines various feeds for you in one simple place, so it's super easy to see what people have been posting recently, and from across the different platforms, too. Super convenient in staying up to date, and I find a lot of stuff to share that way as well.

8 years ago

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DenisP

DenisP

I definitely agree with you on all your points, and I honestly couldn’t have said it better myself.

When it comes to automation of any sort of content, their needs to be an element of social interaction to balance the automation. It’s the human element which can make or break the relationship between a viewer/reader and the content creator.

A super simple example of that is that when I receive something as simple as a “like” or a short response from someone I’m following on social media, I feel like that small interaction strengthens my bond with them. I know that they’re busy creating content, so them taking the time for even that smallest of interactions can feel significant.

8 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

I would have to agree that social media automation shouldn't been invented in the first place. It doesn't do any good and it drives people away from a site. Social Media was made for people to become more social, it helps people to be more socially active and having social media automation reverses that.

8 years ago

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DenisP

DenisP

Well I can’t say I entirely agree that it shouldn’t have been invented in the first place. I think that social media automation can be a good tool when used appropriately, but it also depends on the kind of social media page you run.

I feel that corporate pages wouldn’t exactly lose a lot from automating their content, because we don’t really expect big companies to have personal interactions with us anyway. But, online content creators and influencers who create content that resonates with people on a personal level, they should probably stay away from automation.

8 years ago

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stormbreaker10

stormbreaker10

I agree on you! Thats why you use social media is to socialize to others

8 years ago

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davedaot04

davedaot04

Very well put, your comment really makes sense. There should be a really social human interaction to make it a social media, it will feel like unreal, or as what you've said inorganic and that's not a good feeling, its alienating.

8 years ago

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iambeth

iambeth

I think it's helpful to use a social media automation to manage your time and to be able to focus on more important tasks. I don't think you can use it all day though. You still need to engage with your social media 'friends'.

8 years ago

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jaybee19

jaybee19

Exactly. Automation is definitely convenient but you still have to communicate with your followers and your social media friends in order to know their feed backs and to be able to let your presence be felt by them.

8 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

When the use of social media automated messaging isn't abused, then it's all alright to me.

But most of the time, these social media automated messages are being flooded to clients and in my opinion, it makes a mess of the whole thing.

8 years ago

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Jeane

Jeane

There are people who post hundreds of times a day. RSS feeds mostly.

When your social media connections keep seeing a lot of these posts, and many of the rss feeds don't even interest them, though they may have on other occasions clicked "like" they may mostly ignore your posts. It will be a lot harder to get them to share your content after that. Even worse you may start losing subscribers and "friends."

8 years ago

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jayjaydimson

jayjaydimson

Yes, I agree with you, everything has to automate so that it can help people to save their precious time.

8 years ago

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Corzhens

Corzhens

I am interested in Hootsuite although I admit that I still have not time for testing it. From what I understand in one forum about Hootsuite, you can input all your intended posts plus the desired schedule of posting and Hootsuite will handle the posting for you. It is an advantage when you are on vacation and you don't want to open your social media account. Your friends will think that you are active because of your posts although you are actually not logged in.

8 years ago

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stbrians

stbrians

It is a good tool really. What of voting and comments? Does it also do that?

8 years ago

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TheArticulate

TheArticulate

You cannot schedule comments through Hootsuite, but you can manually comment and like posts through the software. It's actually kind of convenient because you can organize different "dashboards" and keep your eye on several different social media channels at once.

8 years ago

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HappyLady

HappyLady

I am not sure what you mean, but I would like something that posts the same thing to every kind of social media I have at the same time. For some reason, I have never been able to find anything that works well. What sources do you use?

8 years ago

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TheArticulate

TheArticulate

There are many programs that will allow you to do this. Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and Buffer are among the more popular ones I've seen, with Hootsuite being the only one I have any experience with.

You can draft your posts complete with pictures, shares, videos, etc., and then schedule them to go out at a specific time. It's really nice because you can draft a post and schedule it to all of your social media channels at once, saving a ton of time.

8 years ago

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jayjaydimson

jayjaydimson

Well, as long as it won't affect someone's account, then it will be okay for me.

8 years ago

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stbrians

stbrians

Automation can really work well on steemit. You give the voting power to bots or it upvotes your chosen accounts on your behalf. You set the percentage of every vote.

8 years ago

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esteban123

esteban123

I have never tried to use social media automation but I am looking forward to have it in the future since it has some advantages which would help us to do better on our online jobs especially if we are having a limited time then this would be the best answer or tool to use.

8 years ago

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Martinsx1

Martinsx1

Well, if the site owner still gets back to address the problem even after the automatic messages from the system, then I wouldn't mind at all. But it's when there wouldn't be any further response to handling the situation then, I would be critically against automaton in social media sites.

8 years ago

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edencaga

edencaga

Yes, I think having these kind of automated tools really help a lot as entrepreneurs or anyone who are doing their own businesses don't have much time to chat or entertained all costumers but its more convenient if there will be someone to manage replying messages in social media.

8 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

cmoneyspinner

Social media automation was made for people like me who can't hire a social media manager to do the extremely important SMM job if you want to build your social media presence. Manually maintaining your social media accounts is wearisome and an almost impossible task. That's why social media automation was invented. However, when using the automation tools one must be careful not to spam their social media accounts. Sometimes those tools don't draw the correct image or the short URL links are broken and don't lead to the right page. Not all social media automation tools are created equal. Some are great. Some are not so great. The social media automation tools free up your time so that you can interact with people on social media.

8 years ago

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theresajane

theresajane

I agree with others that it is still very helpful. Especially for a busy person, social media automation really gives you the opportunity to do other tasks while knowing that your social media is at least working even when you don't put your focus on it at the moment.

8 years ago

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anyone01

anyone01

One essential factor about Facebook automation is that your posts don't look robotic. in any other case your target audience will be aware which you are automating your content material and interact much less together with your posts. The numerous networks offer very particular alternatives for promoting your posts and the groups react very differently to precise posting codecs.

8 years ago

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emiaj55

emiaj55

In a growing network, automation could be a great help. You could schedule posts like announcements and updates which do not really require much human interaction. You have to be very detailed though so you won't have to answer repetitive questions. But I would have to think twice before fully automating since I don't have full grasp on how to do it effectively. In what I do I had to answer personal questions and automating that would be wrong. But for those who could master it effectvely, then you should give t a try.

8 years ago

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slugsinthai

slugsinthai

Automation can be a great tool, but I don't think we should rely on it too heavily. I think that it can lead to spam content that people tend to read less, and can take the personality out of posts. I tend to ignore robotic posts if they come to often from a certain user.

8 years ago

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Barida

Barida

That is the thing. I believe that those that are making use of it should always try to create time to discuss with people there. This is something that is pretty possible as long as we are working to have a better interaction on our sites.

8 years ago

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jaymish3

jaymish3

I use Pinterest to promote my site. This is my main platform for social media. On Pinterest it is recommended that you post at certain times when your audience is most active. The problem is that time I am a sleep, so If I want to tap into that audience I need to get up in the middle of the night e.t.c I am considering using an automation tool, to post during the times that I am asleep.

8 years ago

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Barida

Barida

Social media automation is pretty cool and nice as far as I am concerned and one thing that I have really noticed as well is that you are going to enjoy some free time with it. However, one should always create time for a Q & A session or better still always make out time to be with the people there to interact with them.

8 years ago

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astraherondale

astraherondale

It offers convenience and immediate response times, but makes things feel robotic and detached, which is quite risky since people like real interactions better than automated ones. It might not be practical for big businesses, but it would be better if the social media manager gets back to each audience so they still feel connected.

8 years ago

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burgosmichael24

burgosmichael24

I am not familiar with that social media automation. However, I find this topic interestingly useful. I have read comments coming from both sides and from different perspectives. I am impressed with their insights and their statements are on point. Thanks for sharing.

8 years ago

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Kakashi2020

Kakashi2020

In my opinion social media automation should only be done sparingly or whenever you're on a lengthy vacation, since it can easily be detected by visitors.
Knowing that a social media site is automated, visitors tend to feel neglected, it really has a negative feel.

8 years ago

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jpk0007

jpk0007

I think that although Social media automation can be very useful for the writers when they are on a tight schedule or if they are absent from there work for a few days, completely depending on the social media automation will take away the essence of the purpose of the social media platforms. The most lively and the most important thing about social media platforms is the interaction between the writers or the creators and the audience. If you rely totally on Social media automation then it is very likely that you will lose the capacity to identify the pulse of your audience and it will definitely affect your creativity in the long run.

8 years ago

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NerdIndeed

NerdIndeed

When you say social media automation, and you're referring to the scheduling of posts and things like that, I guess it's advantageous to the owner of the page as he'll be able to make great use of his time. Though, by doing so, you need to hire a social media manager to at least interact with the messages and comments from a page in real-time.

8 years ago

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MomoStarr16

MomoStarr16

For some it will be good because it will lessen the time and effort of a writer. But the bad thing about this is that the comment may lead to a fake one or some one that is giving fake reactions.

8 years ago

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luv2xacosta

luv2xacosta

I think it can save time for us. But it is not safe because there are a lot of trolls now a days so we would never know what's true or not and that's the disadvantage about it. Although we can interact and connect to other people. We could share opinions about each other.

8 years ago

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koki12346

koki12346

Instagram automation is great if you use it to manage a lot of accounts or if you use it to make money. But of you use it only on your own personal account.. That may not be so good.. People can tell that you are using a instagram automation tool, they may dislike you just for that.

8 years ago

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gutzman

gutzman

Social media automation is a great strategy in marketing and in promoting but it takes away the relationship between you and your followers. it could be used though to manage time and be organize in posting information but should not be totally replaced by timely and related post. A mixed of both should be done constantly.

8 years ago

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maxmarrie

maxmarrie

Its a good thing to automate your regular work. It will save your time and energy. I am working in medical department and here we use document automation for healthcare. Every thing is becoming automatically.

5 years ago

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