Facebook, Twitter…Social Media. It consumes us. Is it OK to take a break or ramp down the engagement? What if you’re a social media professional or an entrepreneur needing the free marketing and relationship building it affords? How do you balance it with client demands?
Maybe that’s not a decision you have to consider. Why not, instead, automate your social media?
I’ve pondered this over the past couple of years as news broke that social media god himself, Guy Kawasaki had others tweeting on his behalf, or that social media gurus had automated their accounts — like, scheduling tweets.
Danny Brown’s succinct (isn’t he always?) post today gave me the push to share my thoughts. In Why There’s Nothing Wrong With Social Media Automation, Danny brushes aside the social media purists and strongly advocates for automation.
“Social media is just another toolset, or platform, or information base, or whatever tag you want to give it, to help you manage your needs better, whether they be personally or professionally… It works for people the way they need it to work, not how someone else uses it.”
It’s a good argument and I don’t disagree. In fact, I’ve gone away from examining the “ethics” of such actions. Who the heck am I to offer such an indictment? It’s an emerging medium and more importantly, as Danny alludes to, it works differently for each user.
The reason I’m not crazy about automation is that it doesn’t give me a chance to miss you. Think about it — even with the person you care for the most – your kids, mom or partner – do you want to be with them every minute of every day? No! We go to work, see other friends, engage away from each other. That time away gives us a greater appreciation for the time we do spend together.
It’s not that different in social media.
I follow a woman on Twitter who could be considered a social media and blogging heavyweight. She’s wonderful, puts out meaningful posts and occasionally engages. She also automate her tweets. So if I’m checking in at 2 a.m. before heading to bed, she’s there. Or during a bout of insomnia, sure enough a status update at 5:00 a.m. Even during the Tsunami in Japan, when I stayed up, there were her cheerful, but now rather inappropriate automated tweets.
After awhile it became just noise. I started glazing over her tweets because there were so many and they never stopped coming.
And so I don’t automate. But if you want to, I don’t have a problem with that. Just know that some of your valuable posts may be missed because we’ve stopped paying attention.
Really, I love you and all, but give me a chance to miss you!
Good post, Tim. I think it really depends on what your purpose is. My purpose is personal is to share something of myself, so the only thing I automate is that when I post on my professional Facebook page; it automatically posts to twitter. Or when I post on my blog, a heads-up gets sent to my various social media accounts. I don’t hire other people to post for me and I don’t automate posts by having something set to look for certain items and then repost them on my behalf. On the other hand, for some law firms, business professionals, social media experts, their goal might be something different. And in their case automation might make perfect sense. So there might well be times when I suggest a law firm retain someone to write their copy because they simply don’t have time to do it themselves, or in other cases it simply doesn’t make sense for them to do it themselves. When it comes to social media, or really anything, I always look at the goal first and then find a solution that fits the need. As my AP English teacher said in my Junior year, the form should fit the function, not the other way around.
I like that, Jennifer — “the form should fit the function” — thanks for the reminder! And you’re, right, it should be a guide for social media and beyond.
Hey there Tim,
Thanks for continuing the conversation, mate, and you’re right – there’s definitely a time and place for automation. Much like there’s a time and place for sharing your breakfast menu, or cat allergies.
There will always be people that don’t like how you use a certain service, because it’s different to how they would use it. But that’s okay – because then we probably wouldn’t be a good fit anyway. So now we don’t have to be connected, and you can go your merry way and do what works for you.
(Note – this is not aimed at you personally, haha, just want to make that clear!).
Cheers, sir!
LoL, Danny, not taken personally. Couldn’t agree with you more about moving on if someone’s style doesn’t fit yours. Amazing how many folks moan about the very people they continue to follow. Just unfollow them!
Over the past couple of years, I’ve unfollowed a few folks who I valued on some level, but also annoyed me at times due to a variety of factors. I even alerted one guy who was very gracious and totally got where I was coming from. I still check in on them occasionally, but I’ve removed a potential annoyance from my daily feed, because, well, I could