Technology allows us to be more efficient and effective when it comes to managing our digital presence.
It enables us to schedule social media updates throughout the day without having to drop everything every 15 or 20 minutes and fire off a witty remark or share a link.
And technology affords us the opportunity to monitor our competition, our reputation and stay on top of things without having to to obsessively search and scan the web like an amateur stalker looking for relevant bits of information.
But then other technology (I’m looking at you, auto-DM), can backfire and make us seem like the tool.
So how do we decide when and where to automate?
Chris Penn has a solid answer:
Yes, you can automate social media to an extent. I recently said that automation is one of the keys to success, and the way you tell what can be automated is anything that can be defined as a repeatable process with a predictable outcome. Some things in social media absolutely can be automated. You can automate posting certain static updates … You can automate the collection and processing of data.
The trick is to use technology on things that are predictable, repeatable, passive and don’t have a direct impact on your relationship with your customers. Because that’s where your brand experience is defined.
More from Mr. Penn:
The way I explained it to the folks who asked is like living in a house. You can absolutely automate the production of the house and automate a decent number of the tasks within, but you still have to provide the human presence that makes it a home. Someone still has to make decisions about what to cook for dinner, someone still has to read the kids a bedtime story, someone still has to fix that suddenly leaky faucet at 3 AM, someone has to walk the dog or weed the garden or mow the lawn.
Robots can help you behind-the-scenes, but your customers still want to see your smiling face at the counter.
