The pros and cons of automatic updating on social media

Small business owners are faced with a constant stream of responsibilities they must take care of and roles they must fulfill. Sometimes they are charged with settling employee disputes, being the accountant for their firms, taking care of legal obligations and other processes. As such, some responsibilities can fall through the cracks.

Therefore, some leaders decide to use programs and applications to streamline posting on their social media pages. These automatic updates can be embargoed and set to post at a certain time to ensure that no matter what issues the business owner has to contend with on a given day, consumers will always be kept apprised of industry and company news. This can go a long way to boost traffic on corporate social networking websites and, ultimately, boost revenue.

However, other leaders tend to stay away from this tempting offering, as reliance on it can end up causing problems. Automatic posts can have typos, include the wrong links or be dated, all of which could go unnoticed. Moreover, this strategy could lead to a lower rate of engagement. How can leaders decide if this is something beneficial or detrimental to their company?

Relying solely on automation can be disastrous

If businesses decide to use autopilot programs to streamline their social media presences, industry veterans recommend never fully depending on this method. For best results, company owners can take a hybrid tactic – only automate posts some of the time or only on certain platforms.

"Automation is not a bad thing, but it should never be relied on 100 percent of the time," explained Erika Kerekes, the senior product manager of social media solutions at DeluxeSocial. "Advertisers need to sign on regularly to make sure they are monitoring the content and ensuring that a real person is answering consumer queries and comments – people will take notice and appreciate the company more."

Moreover, Blog World explained there are certain things that should not be automated, particularly live events. Many companies do this to appear as if a representative was at the occasion, but it can have negative results. For example, at a Radiohead concert in Toronto over summer, part of the staging  collapsed, killing one and injuring many. Live Nation had automatic updates set up and tweeted, asking people to share their pictures from the canceled show, and consumers reacted angrily. 

Automation can help keep up frequency

Done right, automatic updates can definitely help businesses stay relevant and on the minds of consumers when used occasionally. There are general rules that many owners follow to determine how often posting to certain platforms is acceptable.

According to Social Media Examiner, the rule of thumb is to follow an inverted pyramid of posting – Twitter should have the most updates, followed by Facebook, then blogging and finally email marketing. As such, using automatic postings allows companies to cover all the bases, but still publish unique information on the platforms.

Blog World said Twitter is usually the platform on which automatic updating is most commonly used. It can be particularly helpful because, as Social Media Examiner recommended, companies should update this feed the most, around five times per day, at least. Not all tweets should be prewritten, to make sure advertisers are producing breaking news, but autopilot programs could be helpful when releasing evergreen content.

Those who decide to automate social media postings should only do so for the near future, like only one business day ahead, Blog World noted. Otherwise, the company risks posting outdated or false information. Moreover, the source said advertisers shouldn't consider embargoing anything they are not 100 percent sure they want to post, as accidents happen, and even a cancelled tweet can end up being posted.

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