Social Media Etiquette – Top 5 Don’ts of Social Media Automation

I talk quite a bit about social media automation, but don’t misunderstand. You cannot automate everything. If someone tells you that you can, run! Poor automation can harm your business brand and image. It’s just not worth it.

I’ve come up with a list of my Top 5 Don’t of Social Media Automation.

Don’t be Spammy!

Every platform is different. You shouldn’t post the exact same content, at the same time, with the same comment across every social media platform. It just doesn’t work. Your followers will know it and pay less attention to what you are posting. You need to feel authentic.

Engagement must be REAL!

As I just mentioned, you cannot automate everything. If your fans and followers feel like they’re reading something put out by a machine, they’ll unfollow and unlike you.

This means NO auto Direct Messages on Twitter, NO auto @ reply on Twitter when someone mentions your handle, NO auto Instagram Comments for Specific hashtags and NO auto reply on Twitter for specific hashtags either. Shew, that’s a lot of NOs!

Why is this so important? Let’s say someone is using a hashtag #DogsareLove and posts a photo of an injured animal. You do not want to auto reply: “Great picture!” That’s just rude and worse yet can harm your brand for everyone that sees it.

Not only can an improper response hurt your brand, even if it isn’t improper, it looks spammy (see Number 1). People need to know there’s someone behind the curtain. It humanizes your brand and your clients and potential clients will take note.  For instance, when you comment on a post of someone’s dog and they mention their dog’s name in the post or their bio, use it in your comment! It shows you care and are being genuine.

I can assure you that I remember the brands that respond and the ones that don’t when I tweet a question to them.

Automation shouldn’t be ALL or NONE

Don’t share the exact same content across all social media platforms all at once. Facebook and Twitter operate very differently. Twitter is much more conversational. I may share the same information, but the times are different because Twitter moves much faster.

Also, Twitter only allows 140 characters, so your comment is going to be much different than what you say on Facebook.

Twitter Phobia

Lots of people start off not understanding and therefore not liking Twitter. OK, I’m guilty of it too. Twitter took me a bit to get used to as well, but now I really love Twitter. Primarily because I feel like there is much more one on one conversation with it.

The main thing about Twitter automation you need to know is that you should NOT connect Instagram and or Facebook to auto post to Twitter with part of a title cut off (over 140 characters!) and instead of a picture or link to an article there is a link that takes you to either Facebook or Instagram.  Big Social Media Etiquette faux pax.

This is definitely the WRONG way to automate Twitter. I’ve come across users and that is their entire timeline. You can tell that they don’t engage and no one reads their tweets. Why bother? If you’re on Twitter, you should post content that keeps your followers on Twitter!

It can be automated, but must be done the right way.  I use IFTTT.  Let me know if you want to learn how!

Don’t One & Done Your own content!

You’ve spent time on a blog or video, why would you share it once or twice and be finished with it? With the changing algorithms on all social media platforms, it may take a few times to reach your customers.

Make sure that you schedule your evergreen to constantly repost. On Twitter, the frequency will be more often than Facebook, but this is the content that will help drive customers to your website, so you should make sure it’s fully automated!

What’s your top Social Media Don’ts?  Let me know in the comments below!

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