Social Media Automation Dos and Don’ts with Jeremy Goldman @jeremarketer #vcbuzz

In today’s vital world of social media marketing, if you (or your business) don’t have a strong digital presence, it’s like you’re not even there.

Is there any way for a busy small business owner to set up a social media marketing strategy without pouring huge budgets into that?

Smart automation is an answer!

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About Jeremy Goldman

Jeremy Goldman @jeremarketer is Principal Analyst at Insider Intelligence

For nearly 20 years, Jeremy Goldman has been spearheading long-term marketing strategies and developing deep insights for world-class brands like Consumer Reports, Amtrak, Kiehl’s, US Marine Corps, BECCA, Colgate, Unilever.

An international keynote speaker, best-selling author (Going Social, as well as Getting to Like), and columnist, Jeremy’s insights have been featured in broadcast media as well as publications such as Mashable and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

Questions we discussed

Q1 How did you become a digital marketer? Please share your career story!

I actually was more of a techie/IT manager and went to business school to learn the ropes of marketing! From there I transitioned into leading social for a number of beauty brands.

The best way to learn the ropes of anything new is to volunteer to do it before anyone sees it has value 🙂 So I’ve had social in my responsibilities dating back to 2007, even.

A1 Hi #VCBuzz (late to the party as always)

I first did a leadgen website back in 1997 but for myself I really started in 2004 from a remote cottage in Poland
— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) August 10, 2021

Q2 When it comes to social media marketing, what are some tasks that can (or should) be automated?

Scheduling, for me, is the best thing to automate. It can be a *huge* time saver. Cleaning up your follower lists is another good thing and very underrated! But you have to be careful not to do anything too “black hat” in the process.

@jeremarketer what are your favorite tools for automating the follower cleaning? #vcbuzz
— Nancy Seeger (@SeegerN) August 10, 2021

Ah I don’t want to skip ahead too much but Superpowers for Twitter is quite nice! Very helpful and with clear abilities to not get in trouble with Twitter for TOS violations.

Huh. I’ve never heard of Superpowers for Twitter. Sounds like they need higher visibility.

And didn’t even know it was possible to clean up Twitter followings automatically.

Some use VAs and others do it themselves. #vcbuzz https://t.co/4fumsBN6ou
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) August 10, 2021

#VCBuzz A2.

The main one would be Schedule/Planned actions.
That can include pre-set posts/sharing of content,
collection of mentions,
lists of potentially relevant/useful posts,
gathering of trend data, hot topics, popular posts,
etc.

>>>
— Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) (@darth_na) August 10, 2021

#VCBuzz A2.3

An then there’s house-keeping/maintenance.
Tracking/reporting on follows/unfollows, shares, inactive accounts, content that performed below expectation etc.
These can be boring/laborious tasks, and automation helps get it done without you falling asleep 😀
— Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) (@darth_na) August 10, 2021

A2 It depends on the type of account

You can prepare content in advance in a tool then schedule
You can then line up a quote tweet of it for later also scheduled

But some accounts autopost pillar content all day. They get less visible engagement but they still reach.#vcbuzz
— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) August 10, 2021

Q3 What are the most common social media automation mistakes? In other words, what are some social media marketing automation don’ts?

You *have* to be available to pause activities as necessary so you don’t come across tone-deaf to world or local events. This is critical!

This is public enemy #1 when it comes to social media automation. It gets very obvious who is blithely automating and who is curating when a crisis breaks out.

Social media automation tools need a gigantic “pause all” button.#VCbuzz https://t.co/9O2F3otXNG
— Don Dingee (@don_dingee) August 10, 2021

Some other key automation don’ts: 1) Don’t share everything in the same format. 2) You can’t automate relationships. Don’t try. 3) Offending people with your automation is never worth it.

So true! We’ve seen too many instances of prescheduled tweets going out at inappropriate times that make brands/companies look terrible. #vcbuzz
— Jaime Shine ?️ (@jaimeshine) August 10, 2021

And it’s an unforced error, too! Because you’re saving time with automation, so use some of that saved and invest in some type of governance.

A3. You shouldn’t automate your comments..handling it yourself will help you building an authentic relationship with your audience..#vcbuzz
— Amal Ghosh (@AmalGhosh3) August 10, 2021

Yes, and this too, a major customer service blunder when all people see is almost exactly the same cut-and-paste comment in response to anything. It’s usually like “we’re sorry you’re having difficulty …” with no real solutions offered.#VCbuzz https://t.co/M9XRaoEniJ
— Don Dingee (@don_dingee) August 10, 2021

I love that point. It’s not bad to have templated responses, but you need to have some degree of flexibility as well. Empower your people to make those edits as needed.

#VCBuzz A3.2

Not double checking schedules is another.
Sometimes we may put the wrong content in (and post something off-topic, or out of date etc.).
Alternatively, it may not fit the moment (events, news, general emotional state etc.).
Or the contents been disproved/changed etc
— Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) (@darth_na) August 10, 2021

#VCBuzz A3.4

Another bad practice is spamming/flooding.
Repeat postings, too many in a short time frame, not segmenting to different groups etc.

All in all, it typically boils down to poor execution, lack of proofing/checking, and not paying attention to things.
— Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) (@darth_na) August 10, 2021

A3

I wish I could clean my list of inactive followers… I am convinced that affects distribution with the AI

I think some will say autoposting the same content all the time is inauthentic
But I have also seen accounts grow 2k-20K followers doing it whilst I flatlined#vcbuzz
— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) August 10, 2021

Q4 When it comes to social media automation, are there new tactics, trends or ideas you have recently found yourself excited about?

I like design automation. RelayThat and Canva and even Infogram offer a bunch of ways to automate aspects of the design process. That doesn’t take the place of an expert designer, mind you!

You can get pretty sophisticated in tying together multiple tools and platforms using Zapier. I highly recommend everyone look into the innovative things you can do with it!

#VCBuzz A4.

No, but that might just be because I don’t really look.

It’s very easy to get comfortable with the tools you use/built,
rather than keeping an eye out for better/newer (which is my bad!)
— Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) (@darth_na) August 10, 2021

A4

I follow tons of the new breed of #marketingtwitter that often get criticized for having "fortune cookie" content followed by longer threads.
It doesn't get me personally excited, but as a marketer, seeing what works has to be exciting.
Meme accounts too#vcbuzz
— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) August 10, 2021

Q5 What are your favorite social media marketing automation tools?

I’ve loved @buffer for years. Sprout Social and Meet Edgar are also very nice. Superpowers for Twitter is great. I’ve played around with HelloWoofy recently and like the interface.

When it comes to favorite social media automation tools, there’s no right answer and there are SO MANY tools out these these days! The key is to become a maven at a few good tools rather than constantly getting skin-deep on many.

Have you ever looked at @Agorapulse for social media automation? #vcbuzz https://t.co/ujxx6UHCCe
— Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) August 10, 2021

I actually have! I’ve used @Agorapulse and it works quite well. Nice interface, pretty intuitive – definitely a tool you can do good things with.

There used to be a plethora of good tools for crushing inactive, fake, or non-follows on Twitter – then then changed their API and broke almost all of them, partly to prevent mass unfollows. The follow back etiquette has also changed over the years.#VCbuzz
— Don Dingee (@don_dingee) August 10, 2021

Right. You have to be so cautious with those tools to avoid overdoing it! It’s not worth getting into “Twitter jail” or the equivalent on any other platform. Those tools are still worth it but need to be careful.

Agreed! Keep your automation behind the scenes as much as possible, and present a human touch/face to your communities. They’ll appreciate the interaction and ability to resolve issues! #vcbuzz
— Jaime Shine ?️ (@jaimeshine) August 10, 2021

Especially when your competitors over-automate and you put that friendly human face to your business, all of a sudden you have a differentiator from everyone else in the field. It’s the mix of automation and humanity that makes a brand succeed.

#VCBuzz A5.

Hootsuite … though I’ve been planning on checking Agora for a while (still not done that yet :D)
and my own tools/sheets.
— Lyndon NA (Darth Autocrat) (@darth_na) August 10, 2021