Are You Using Social Media Automation…Smartly?

All bloggers have an innate thirst for getting more eyes on their content.

In fact, at the root of it, it’s why you do what you do.

But as a busy blogger, your time is limited. Finding and optimizing margin in your life to drive new traffic to your blog is difficult.

If you are to succeed, social media automation will be needed.

Whether you are an expert, or someone just starting out, you need to understand how to do social media automation the smart way.

What is Social Media Automation

Social media automation is using an automated means, typically a third party software package, to automatically post to your social media channels.

Pretty easy, right?

Bloggers use social media automation to augment their marketing efforts all the time.

Some of the more popular tools for automating your posts and social updates include Buffer, Hootsuite, and CoSchedule.

And, many of these tools offer free capabilities! Bonus!

Why Use Social Media Automation

You may be asking yourself why you would need to automate in the first place.

Well, most experts will tell you that you need to be everywhere. And the reality is, you need to be there all the time.

This is not a feasible long term strategy, especially for the solopreneur blogger out there.

You have other daily responsibilities like working your day job or taking care of your kids.

In order to grow your blog, you need to use social media automation to fill the gaps.

Using automation tools allow you to expand your reach and put your message in front of a whole new audience.

For example, imagine you are a blogger on the east coast of the U.S. You post your latest blog post at 9:00 am ET.

Those on the west coast of the U.S. haven’t even got up. Your tweet about your new blog post would stream right along in their feed as they slept.

With social media automation, you can schedule a tweet to automatically send later in the morning, while you are at work, to reach your friends out west.

You can also go a step further and automate overnight to reach an international audience.

This concept of automating your social messaging undoubtedly helps grow your online community.

But, be careful how you implement it.

How to Use Social Media Automation, the Smart Way

Ok, you have established a process for automating your social media marketing. Let’s take a look at a few things to be cognizant of so you don’t look like an ass.

Automation Should Augment, not Dominate

Too many bloggers and online entrepreneurs rely solely on automation to push their content.

Take a look at some of your friends social streams and you’ll see what I mean.

The lack of genuine engagement online is depressing and when you see someone only posting automated content, you wonder why they are online at all.

Don’t simply employ automation as your only means of social media updates. It will turn people off.

Use it to augment your social media presence, not dominate it.

Post to your social channels in the way it was intended. Talk with your friends. Update your followers with what’s happening in your life. Be…social.

Then use automation to sprinkle in value along the way.

Match the Automation with the Social Media Channel

Some social media networks are positioned well for multiple updates over the course of days and weeks (e.g. Twitter, Pinterest).

While other social media channels should only be touched periodically (e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+).

Don’t use the same automation techniques across all of your channels. You can’t set an hourly update for both Twitter and Facebook. Your Facebook friends will disown you.

Be sure to automate your social media updates to match the channels for which they are intended.

You can be pretty liberal with your tweets as most of your followers will probably miss your first update. So, feel free to automate Twitter rather heavily as it’s more of an accepted practice.

Just don’t overdo it. Post maybe once every hour on the day your blog post goes live and then scale back over the course of the week.

On Facebook, update once for the new blog post and then maybe update again a week or so later.

Also, make sure you optimize the automated content for the intended channel.

The text of your message should align with where you are posting it. If you are automating tweets, make sure you include hashtags.

Hashtags are less relevant when posting to Facebook.

However you decide to automate your social updates, just make sure you don’t simply blast the same message to all channels at all times.

Use your head to make sure your message fits with the intended channel and the associated audience.

Don’t Let Automation Run Unchecked

There are times to post automatically and there are times you should just turn it off.

I remember when the Boston Marathon bombers struck and everyone headed to Twitter.

It was on fire with tweets about what was going on.

Tweet after tweet exposed people’s feelings and their opinions and the Twitterverse provided updates on what was going on with the captivating manhunt underway.

And then, in my stream I see a tweet that goes something like this, “Learn how to make your first $1000 online with my new course.”

Or something like this, “Come check out my webinar this Sunday to massively grow your list!”

Seeing automated tweets during an unfolding traumatic event portrays the person tweeting as either too lazy to turn it off or generally distasteful.

If you set up the mechanisms to spray the internet with numerous social media messages around the clock, have the decency to at least hit the off switch when something major is happening.

In Summary

Social media automation can be a tool that helps you rise above the crowd, gain exposure, and grow your following.

But, it can also portray you and your brand in a negative light.

Make sure you remain aware of some of the pitfalls of automating your content.

If you remain diligent with how your messaging is provided you will no doubt start to see increased engagement on your blog and a thriving community.