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We are all constantly bombarded with the latest automation tools that promise to automate all your tweets on Twitter or get us hundreds of new friends every day on YouTube. Anyone who is marketing online has been tempted by the idea of “FULLY AUTOMATING” their social media activities. There are tools that will allow you to send out tweets all day long on Twitter containing your pre-programmed messages, or news feeds within your niche. However, there is one factor that prevents full automation from ever leading to massive success in social media…

Social Media is… SOCIAL

For those who want to really develop a massive following that is truly responsive and interested in you, you must INTERACT PERSONALLY!

Nothing can replace real human interaction when it comes to building relationships online. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others are specifically designed for building relationships. You cannot build relationships by sending out streams of automated messages. You have to interact and really talk to people. Ask questions, provide helpful information, get personal and let people know what you are all about. Only then will you build relationships, and that can lead to increased interest in YOU and what YOU are doing, promoting, or selling. An example of this using Twitter would be replying or retweeting other’s tweets that you find helpful or interesting. Another example would be asking for help or ideas from your followers.

That does not mean that you cannot use automation tools to help along the way. In fact, there are some great tools that will absolutely allow you to leverage your time. You just cannot rely 100% on automation and expect to gain quality followers interested in you.

I will give you an example that I am sure you can relate to. I am on Twitter nearly every day and see people who send out automated tweets all day long using TwitterFeed. TwitterFeed is a great tool for automatically tweeting news or any other feeds with a specific search criteria. This is ok for a once in a while tweet, however when I see people who send out 10, 20, 30, or even more of these automated news tweets, I simply unfollow them because I find it very annoying. I am sure I am not the only one. I also unfollow those who are obviously using automation to send out the same message, or set of messages repeatedly, and who never interact or respond to anyone.

If you try to rely on automation 100%, you will simply be tuned out like a TV commercial.

So, lets talk about how automation can be a real time saver and actually help grow your following when utilized appropriately. There are certain tasks like finding and following other like-minded people withing your niche where automation is an ideal solution. You can also customize a “very limited” set of messages to automatically tweet over time. If you do this, be sure to space them out, and vary them so they are not the exact same message. Another appropriate use of automation is to use services like OnlyWire to automatically bookmark your content across multiple social bookmarking sites. Before automating any task, ask yourself if that task would be more effective with a personal touch.

Personally, I send out very few automated messages and use automation only for helping to build my following on Twitter. To be effective at building relationships via social media it truly does not have to take a lot of time. I personally spend on average less than 1 hour per day on Facebook and Twitter combined. I could spend less, but I do also enjoy it.

Here are a couple of Twitter automation tools that I currently use:

Tweet Adder
This is a great software tool for building a list of people within your niche to follow, then set an automation schedule to follow a certain number of them each day. It will also keep track of who you are following and allow you to unfollow those who do not follow you back within a certain time limit. You can also use this tool to automate your tweets, but again, I caution you about doing that.

SocialOomph
This is another tool that provides similar functionality but is 100% online based. Social Oomph also limits you to only automatically following a max of 50 new people each day per Twitter account. It also does not allow you to unfollow a batch of people who don’t follow you back. If you find yourself using multiple computers each day, this one may be better suited.

I hope you have found this information to be helpful. Please leave me a comment below share your opinion on social media automation.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”