From DiveNewsWire, – by Nick Bostic, New Scuba Marketing
Despite the wide variety of advantages to using social media for your SCUBA business, I still am contacted by people saying they don’t have time. “How can I automate the process?” they ask. Their request for automation frequently is directed at Twitter since they still don’t really “get it”.
All Automation is Not Equal
I confess, I use some automation with my Twitter account. I will peacefully turn myself over to the Twitter Police whenever they arrive to haul me away.
Here are a couple of ways I like to wrap my head around social media automation:
1. Would I setup a booth at a trade show where I had a bullhorn and just yelled out at the crowd all day?
2. Would I put my SCUBA business phone number on advertisements, but never answer the phone?
Hopefully you answered “no” to both of those.
Social Media Schizophrenia
I have several Twitter accounts that I manage and I do occasionally post the same link to each account. But why do people do this?
Diving gear not to blame in teens’ deaths http://bit.ly/e1BAse#scuba
about 6 hours ago via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite
Tori Sugden
Diving gear not to blame in teens’ deaths http://bit.ly/h1QvzQ
about 6 hours ago via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite
divinguk
Diving gear not to blame in teens’ deaths http://bit.ly/hd2eLd
about 6 hours ago via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite
Jim Bray
Three different accounts posting the exact same thing within minutes of each other. That’s all these three accounts do, all day. Notice the “via twitterfeed” in each update? These accounts have picked search keywords that are automatically tweeted.
Would you want to conduct business with these people based on this? I wouldn’t.
Set It & Forget It
If you “set it” correctly, you can “forget it”. But when it was set incorrectly, we run into trouble. Take a look:
DAvey Crocker / Davis: Dive Date:04/25/2011>({(*>Boat: Republic Diver>({(*>Dive Site: DAvey Crocker / Davis>({(*… Visit:Scubaocity.com
about 15 hours ago via twitterfeedReplyRetweetFavorite
ConchRepublicDivers
Feel free to check out @ConchDivers, their entire feed is like this. Another case of Twitterfeed making an account look like spam.
Not Respecting Personal Boundaries
Twitter has a 140 character limit. If you feed from other sources that don’t have this limit, like Facebook with their 420 character limit, your message is lost.
Does anyone have any plans for Earth Day tomorrow? Don’t forget your video camera in case you want to enter a…http://fb.me/GysS2FtL
April 21, 2011 4:25 pm via FacebookReplyRetweetFavorite
PADI
Axel Früh is a Tech Instructor Trainer and Certifier at Tauchcenter Freiburg (Germany), he also helped us in the…http://fb.me/ILqGW14Y
about 3 hours ago via FacebookReplyRetweetFavorite
Scubapro
@PADI has gotten better about actually responding to replies, but I’d estimate that 90% of their updates come from Facebook and are too long. Judging by how many people @Scubapro follows, it looks unlikely they plan on actually using Twitter to listen to potential customers.
Good Automation
Hopefully you see why, as an active Twitter user for real life engagement, this type of activity is not just pointless, it’s annoying. This doesn’t mean all automation is bad though!
If you want to share a link to an article (your own even!) across your personal Facebook Profile, Facebook Page, LinkedIn account and Twitter, there’s nothing wrong with that! Don’t have one service feed the other, instead use a tool like Hootsuite where you can select all of these accounts and post at once.
One aspect I automate is tweeting when there’s a new comment. Since I have readers from around the globe, sometimes there are comments that come through when I’m sleeping, but I want people to know a conversation is going on. I balance this automation with some personal time when I’m awake. I use Hootsuite’s RSS tool for this.
I read articles all day about SCUBA. Some are terrible, but many are worth sharing. I batch my news reading in the morning and the evening, but I don’t want to post 20 articles at once so people feel overwhelmed, I’d rather they go out throughout the day.
I use a variety of tools to share these links when I may not be sitting directly at my computer. The key is that they go out when I am (typically) awake and I receive notices when people reply so I can reply back. Again, I make sure to mix in some personal time with this low-level automation. Right now, I’m using a service called Buffer to help with this.
Protect Your Brand
Too much automation will get you labeled as spam, which will damage your reputation. Being active should take no more than 90 minutes a day. Being an active, engaging user will make you appear like a real, trustworthy person instead of spam.
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