Pros and Cons of Social Media Automation

Pros and Cons of Social Media Automation

Many people have always been fascinated by technology. Technology makes life so much easier, and I can’t imagine ever passing a math class without a T9 graphing calculator. Is there a thing as too much technology? 

Smartphones consume us, our emails are always open on our home desktops, and even a two-hour flight without Wi-Fi is excruciating. Which makes me wonder, where do we draw the line in the marketing world when it comes to technology?

Social media marketing with automation software and the aid of third-party applications have been created to increase the opportunities for businesses to reach new consumers they never imagined possible, essentially allowing the inbound/content marketing industry to be born.

Is it possible, however, to have “too much” marketing automation? Where is the equilibrium? Where should the human be involved? Let’s look at the top benefits and drawbacks of marketing automation for social media, as well as where businesses have gone wrong in the past.

Pros and Cons of Social Media Automation

Pros of Social Media Automation

Simple

Clearly, social media automation is simple. Third-party applications such as Hootsuite, and Buffer enable marketers to schedule posts for a specific time and platform. The process of distributing your content has never been more efficient.

Posting Times More Efficient

You can make your posting times more efficient. Even more third-party apps, such as Social Bro and Social Flow, will delve deep into your social media accounts to determine when they are most active, and thus when you should post your content. 

This removes the guesswork from distribution, which is especially important on social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok where posts have a shelf life of about 18 minutes and can easily get lost in the clutter.

That 12-hour time difference is no longer relevant. With the help of social media automation, and the ability to schedule your posts, your customers/consumers can receive tweets from you, from the other side of the world, while you are asleep. Again, this means a larger audience, more opportunities, and more eyes on your content.

Maintain Consistency 

Consistency is essential. Social media automation enables you to post content on a regular basis. And consistent content distribution standards that your followers will come to regard you as trustworthy. You are always available with educational information when they require it, and as a result, they will become increasingly loyal to your feed. 

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Environmentally Friendly

Make your content more environmentally friendly. We mentioned that the shelf life of a single tweet is about 18 minutes, which, let’s face it, stinks, but you can easily recycle this content with marketing automation. We also mentioned that posting content on a consistent basis is critical, so automation ensures you’ll never run out of content to post. Simply repost a piece of content with different messaging, making sure to leave enough time between each repost.

Convenience

The most obvious advantage of automating social media content is convenience. You can make content and schedule it to appear at a specific time on multiple platforms using programs such as Hootsuite, Buffer, and even Facebook’s own scheduling system. This is ideal for businesses that use multiple social media platforms and require a quick way to post messages to each of them.

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Reaching Out to More People More Frequently

Users can easily schedule their posts for the most valuable times of the day, when their followers are most active and engaged, with the added convenience of automation. Automation enables businesses to post content when it is most likely to be seen and impactful, which is especially important for platforms like Facebook, where when you post affects your overall reach.

Consistently delivering content

The ease of use also allows businesses to ensure that their platforms are constantly updated with new content. Consistency in delivery enables a company to build a loyal following because it has demonstrated its dependability. Even if something unexpected occurs, automation allows a company to still meet the expectations of their audience by ensuring that updated content is delivered on time.

Cons of Social Media Automation

Now, let’s look at the Cons Of Social Media Automation.

Humans versus Machines

Every positive has a corresponding negative or at the very least a small risk of something going wrong. Humans versus machines. Remember how simple social media automation is? It’s also easy to come across as too robotic. While the posts may be from you, they may be devoid of human interaction. Real-time tweeting can display emotion, genuine thoughts, and a personality. All of that is lost as a result of a machine.

Third-party Applications Betrayal

It’s clear who’s actually doing the posting. By using social media automation, you’re giving away your identity. Third-party applications (which are fantastic for the reasons stated above) betray you a little here by informing your followers that you used automation to post the content. Posts on Facebook and Twitter clearly state that they were “posted via automated machine,”. As a reader, we dislike seeing this because it appears to be an advertisement rather than an educational article.

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Scheduling Feature can Betray

The scheduling feature can also betray you. Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean you should post all the time. Don’t just create content for the sake of pushing out content; this, again, makes your company appear less genuine. 

We’ve noticed small businesses that post every hour on the hour – and it’s obvious there isn’t a real person behind that keyboard. Companies such as DiGiorno, Oreo, and Old Spice have adopted a distinct persona, and their personalities shine through.

Progressive Tweet

Returning to those third-party applications. We seemed to be a big fan of third-party applications in the past, right? They have numerous advantages, but as a business, you must exercise extreme caution when utilizing them.

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Potential for Neglect

When a business uses automation, especially if it’s a busy one, it’s easy to overlook the social media aspect of the business. If the overall impact of your automated posts is not monitored, posts can quickly become irrelevant, and your audience may leave. Businesses also miss out on important opportunities for human connection when they use a third-party app instead of posting and interacting in person.

Potential Loss of Human Connection

Social media is intended to be exactly that: social. Relationships are the foundation of an effective strategy. However, if a company falls into the trap of ignoring its social media strategy, human connections suffer as a result of the lack of interaction between the brand and the audience. Complete reliance on automation can deprive a company of the ability to respond to its audience’s questions and concerns in real-time.

Posting During Tragedies/Emergencies

Unfortunately, automating content can create some negative opportunities when potentially insensitive posts are shared during a tragedy or emergency. Businesses must remember that while automation ensures consistency in their delivery, it can also backfire. 

Guy Kawasaki’s Twitter continued to post and re-post his content after the Boston Marathon bombing, which was an example of a social media failure in the midst of tragedy. The posts stood out among the flood of posts about the tragedy. When someone suggested he turn off his tweets, he refused. Many people thought this was insensitive. 

What to do, What not to do?

If done correctly, social media automation appears to be a great tool, but with so many potential pitfalls, should you avoid it entirely? Certainly not! Find a happy medium between automating your content and having a person reach out to customers.

Is Automation a Good Fit for Me?

Knowing the benefits and drawbacks of social media automation will help you decide if this method is right for your company. Regardless of whether you choose it or not, you should follow these simple guidelines to avoid social media disasters:

  • Maintain your connection. Businesses must remember that social media allows them to build relationships and gain a loyal following. As a result, automation should supplement a social media strategy’s genuine human component.
  • Remember to keep the audience in mind. Being aware of tragedies is just one way to keep the audience in mind. It’s also critical to provide people with the content they require when they require it, even—and perhaps especially—during an emergency.
  • Any business can improve its social media effectiveness by understanding the benefits and drawbacks of automating social media content.

Automation’s Golden Rules

  • Plan ahead of time, but not too far ahead. Schedule posts for the next two to three days, no longer. Allow for some time to make changes to posts in the event of an unforeseen event.
  • Examine your target audience. What level of automation do you require? How much personality are you looking for? If you are targeting older professionals, they may not require as much personality and spark, and they may be able to auto-publish more content. Millennials, on the other hand, thrive on real-time images, videos, memes, jokes, and so on. They are always connected, so if you can be as well, all the better.
  • Alter your strategy. Use automation to test everything – timing, tone, content, clicks, new followers, which messages worked and which did not, and so on. And then use the results to constantly improve your online marketing strategy.
  • Remember that you will only get out of social media what you put into it. As a result, if you send out a lot of automated tweets, you’ll get very few personal responses. However, if you have fun with social media and allow your personality to shine through, you will almost certainly see higher engagement rates. Find a good balance – it will pay off!

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