It’s time to stop relying on robots and start talking to people again.
Social media is great. It is an excellent way for businesses to communicate directly with customers and, if they do it right, plenty of soon-to-be customers as well. Better still, sites such as Facebook and Twitter provide a communication platform for free, so many start-ups and small businesses have benefited from effective marketing within strict budget constraints.
If you are a business using social media, you either have someone employed to seek out or write articles for the business, or you are using an outside company and they manage your accounts on your behalf. There are advantages and disadvantages to either, but whichever you choose will help your company spread awareness to a wider audience.
Some companies also use tools to help automate their posts. Automating your posts can be great if you have to manage multiple accounts, but it should be used sparingly. Too much automation and you risk losing consumer trust in your brand. As well as this, you also lose a lot of control over what is posted, especially if your accounts are set up to automatically repost things with certain words in them. Consumers know the difference between a company that is genuine and one that isn’t and if they don’t trust your brand, they will go elsewhere.
In the world of viral media, you only have to post something questionable once to ruin your brand reputation and if you do not properly invest in a good social media presence, it can have catastrophic consequences.
Another problem with automation is the number of fake followers you attract when you over automate.
There are thousands of fake user profiles on social media sites that exist purely to sell more fake followers to companies. Some are experimental profiles, others are used to gain information or spread malware. All of them are a waste of your time and money.
Having a large follower presence may sound appealing to a small business, but it isn’t real and won’t help you reach the right audience. Fake accounts will not help your brand or become customers. You will waste time posting to computers instead of people and only people can drive your business forward.
It is better to have 10 real followers who promote your brand, than 10,000 fake ones doing absolutely nothing.
How to avoid attracting fake accounts and embarrassing hiccups? Stop using robots to run your social media and hire a human being to do it.
You will get better engagement, better followers and a better business as a result.
