As a review, we wanted to let you know that we have changed up our weekly blog post and our Twitter chat #shehechat that the blog post supports. Last week, we introduced our single post format published on Thursday each week. We are keeping the posts shorter for a couple of reasons. Many folks don’t get time to review the post(s) until right before our 8 p.m. chat, so we wanted a format that can be skimmed or read quickly. Also, we want more of our conversation during #shehechat to be spontaneous and not just a rehashing of what we shared in our two blog posts that you can read anytime.
This week we ask: How do you automate being human?
This topic might take a bit of explanation. When you first create a social media account, you probably have grand ideas about your strategy for handling it. It might be that you’re going to respond to every comment someone directs toward you or become friends with anyone in your geographical area. But what happens when your 100 friends or followers become thousands? Do you respond in the same way? Or do you have to change your strategy through automation and, if you do, does it lose the human component?
Shelby Says:
I’m not that popular in social media. Seriously, I’m not. I’m sure if I wanted to pursue it, I could find a way to have more than 10,000 followers on Twitter; but what would that gain me? I’ve always believed in quality over quantity. I’d rather have the nearly 2,500 quality followers on Twitter I have than a number where 3/4 of them give me no benefit whatsoever. Since I take that approach, automation is almost not relevant. I hate scheduled tweets and other updates. They so often are misused or technologically wrong. I keep my social media numbers to a place where I’m comfortable responding as me. If you reach out to me on a network, you will get ME responding; usually within 24 hours. This week, we professed to a client whose website we rebuilt that their overall site visits might be a bit lower but suddenly they are of a lot more quality because of the search engine optimization work we did. Why should social media interactions be any different? I want to be as human as I can be and want people to know that they are talking to one directly.
Jim Says:
I have mixed feelings and thoughts on this entire topic. I’ve always thought there is a time and place for some automation of your social media presence. On the other hand, I appreciate Shelby’s approach that this is 100 percent ME when you interact. On Twitter, I have just over 4,400 followers and I feel like I still do just a good a job interacting now as I did when I had 44 followers. I think this works because engagement is a two-way street. If I’m not out there tweeting and responding to other people’s conversations, then why would they be conversing with me? They wouldn’t; because I’m not Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. So, I only have to engage the number of folks I choose to reach out to. Sure there are exceptions. When I have a successful blog post, promoted by scheduled tweets, I need to take the time to respond to the engagement those tweets generate. Or during and after #shehechat, the volume of @ messages can be overwhelming but I try to read back through them and respond to everyone. At the end of the day, we are still humans who can only have so many conversations.
This week’s topics
- Has your social media engagement changed as your follower count has grown?
- Do you reply to every Twitter @ message? And why (or why not)?
- How do you feel about automated engagement (bots selling things) on Twitter?
- Are there any forms of automated social media engagement you’d utilize? Why?
- Are scheduled tweets okay if you take the time to respond to engagement they generate?
Tune in to #shehechat tonight at 8 p.m. CST on Twitter to discuss this further. Also, if you have a topic you’d like us to cover, please fill out our contact form or comment below!
