To automate or not, that is the question?

Actually, it really isn’t the real question. The real question is how do I automate without losing my audience?

In this episode, we take an old measurement acronym and adapt it for how to automate SMART. See what we did there?

Automated Episode Highlights: Set it up.

• Define what you are hoping to gain from the automation and choose tools that help you achieve your goals.
• It’s not a good idea to set up your automation and forget about it. 
• Never automate your interaction with people. 
• Social Jukebox, Bulkly, RecurPost and CoSchedule are all tools that integrate with most social media platforms to help organize and automate your content.
• Try video as a way to thank people for their engagement and connect with people.

Measure it.

• Your automation tool should include measurement so you can see how it is working.
• Before you start, have a measurement plan in place.
• If you missed it or need a refresher, we discussed measurement in episode 21.

Activate and Automate.

• Part of activating an automation is to watch it closely to see how it performs, which relates to your measurement plan.
• Be on hand to interact with people. Be an active part of the automation and engage with people. Your participation shouldn’t be automated.

Refine it.

• Make changes to what you are doing based on the results you are seeing.
• Look at what is working and what isn’t to refine and further refine your automation.
• Social media platform algorithms are ever-changing and what people see changes with that, so you may have to refine your efforts as a result.

Test it.

• Check new ideas against the old and A/B test for best results.
• Try different types of posts, different times of the day and different platforms to test what works best.
• Never set it and forget it.

Links, Tools and Apps Mentioned:

• Social Jukebox
• Bulkly
• RecurPost
• CoSchedule
• Commun.it
• Episode 21: 6 Ways to Track Sales

Take Action Set up an automation plan and let us know what tools you have decided to use and for what parts of your social outreach. Extra credit for a video! How to reach Kami:

If you’d like to learn more about Kami Huyse, visit her website at www.zoeticamedia.com. You can contact her by email at [email protected] or tweet to @kamichat.

How to reach Madalyn:

If you’d like to learn more about Madalyn Sklar, visit her website at www.madalynsklar.com. You can contact her by email at [email protected] or tweet to @MadalynSklar.

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