What Happens If We Combine Social Media With Automation?
11. Mar, 2008 
8 Comments - Leave your comment
I suppose social media is meant to give people a channel for socializing.
Socializing is like going to a party. You dress yourself nicely, put your best avatar for the night, perfume your account with your latest accomplishments, pick up your partners and go for it.
What if, instead of the host, you’d be welcomed by some robots, wishing you to buy the latest brand of detergent, or to read the newspaper before you step inside? What if, the host itself, would insert into the conversation some fragments like “you know I’m right, my darling, please see my yesterday’s post, and make sure you click on my affiliate link, since you are there”?
Well, this must be annoying, as you actually went to that party to interact with humans, not to witness a sample of the latest technology in matter of automation. As antisocial as I may be, as much as I cannot see the benefits of using Twitter, and I like to joke about it, I cannot stop myself from thinking that Twitter set on automation is a real freak.
How would it be to record my voice saying some promotional messages for my clients, or for my own blogs, take with me an mp3 player, and each time I meet an acquaintance, play him the morning tune, or the afternoon tune, or the evening tune?
Where’s the line between marketing and over-marketing? Maybe it’s us, the marketers who should draw it, who knows? And maybe we will, when we’ll realise that a pissed-off client is very hard to bring on your side again.
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Hey Simonne,
This article raises a question for me: what is automated Twittering? Is it just having everything you write about posted to Twitter?
Yes, Ronald, it’s a method which allows somebody to automatically post a link to his latest blog entry.
Hmmm, that doesn’t sound too cool. I’m not too big into Twitter, but I imagine that might get spammish after a while.
BTW, I love the picture you chose for the post. An RSS Robot!
I have the automation turned on because I wasn’t really using Twitter, but now I have started to actually use it I would rather turn it off. I just don’t know how.
I’m still not really convinced about Twitter, but that could be because I don’t follow many people yet.
I liked the picture, too. It was part of a series, and I had a hard time to resist the temptation to post them all here.
Hey Andrew, I’m not such a Twitter user myself, so I have no idea how to turn automation off. Mine was off by default, I guess.
Interesting post, I like your insight into this issue. I never really caught on to Twitter either. I just don’t really see why I would want to get constant updates from people, nor do I think people really want to get updates about every little thing I do. I know it’s a popular marketing tool these days but I just don’t see how it isn’t considered to be too spammy. And your analogy about going to a party is very valid. There needs to be a line drawn before we eliminate all the human element from interaction with other humans.
Thoughtful article – I agree that the robotic replies are annoying as marketers “push” their way in in a fight for our attention and eyeballs!
Over the years, I learned personalisation, such as in emais, goes a long way in ýbuilding an audience – and this was before twitter was a twinkle in the web’s eye.
But, I am for automating for personal use – so I can increase what I am able to see and learn – but not to mass market.
Thanks for the read!
Vickie
@Vickie_Smith
Thanks for the comment Vickie.
I am also getting a lot of automated messages on twitter. Services like http://www.tweetlater.com can help automate some things [receive hourly archive of messages, automatically follow someone, etc] though some of its features like sending automatic messages to new followers, from what i am seeing, consist mainly of product placement and other commercial links, like “Hey, thanks for following me! Check out my site at http://www.googl.com in order to gain 10,000 twitter followers in less than a month!” [google.com as an example].