Your Social Feed Shouldn't Go Quiet: What to Automate and What to Keep Human

Many small businesses will post everyday for a week on social media, become busy and then won’t post again for a month. This will become evident to customers as an inactive account will mean your business looks closed and an account full of automated posts will look like no-one is there.

Automation can help with the first issue but if not done correctly can cause the second issue. Nova Reach digital have put together a handy guide detailing what social media automation services will do, what should never be automated and how to get the balance right.

Social Media Automation:

At its best automation will save you time by doing the repetitive tasks for you. This will usually include creating a content calendar, using AI tools to create captions, editing images and videos, posting at optimal times, adapting ideas for multiple platforms, collating comments and creating a report each month.

However, you cannot automate genuine interactions, local knowledge and good judgment, especially when things go wrong.

Why Automated Accounts Can Look Dead:

Followers will know your account is fully automated. This often includes:

• Using generic AI captions with no real images, stories or opinions.

• Posting the same post on all platforms.

• No response to comments or messages for days.

• Being upbeat with your automated posts when something bad has happened.

• Creating reports with likes and followers.

None of these issues are due to the software itself just giving too much control away.

How To Properly Automate Your Social Media:

1. Create your goals and brand guidelines. Decide on one or two goals to work towards such as increasing local awareness or inquiries. Create a short brand guideline including any words you use, avoid and examples of posts you like.

2. Create a content calendar. Plan themes for each week of the month such as customer questions, behind the scenes, tips and offers. Start by sourcing real images, short videos and customer stories to give the AI real content to work with.

3. Automate your posts. Use the software to schedule your posts in batches and adapt ideas into short posts, images and quick videos. Ensure all drafts have been checked.

4. Keep interactions human. You shouldn’t automate your relationships. Ensure comments are responded to by a real person, complaints are handled and decide when to stop your scheduled posts. Use saved responses but ensure they are personalised.

5. Check your analytics once a month. Ensure you are posting your planned content, engagement is happening, responses are quick and you are gaining inquiries from social media. Keep what is working and remove what isn’t.

Example of Numbers:

In the example below, a small local business would post roughly 8 planned posts per month as they can only post when they have time. However, with a content calendar and brand guideline this increases to 16 posts. With batching and adapting the posts increase to 24. Adding human interaction and checking once a month increases to 28.

These are just examples and aren’t guaranteed. The largest increase in this example is due to having a plan and batching. Usually consistency is the first thing to suffer when a team gets busy.

What Should Be Measured:

Don’t worry about vanity metrics such as followers. A good service will help you measure:

• How many planned posts you have posted.

• Real engagement such as comments, saves and shares.

• How quickly you are responding to comments/messages.

• Any inquiries or bookings you have had from social media.

Guidelines:

As social media is public it is important to follow some guidelines. Ensure you follow each platforms guidelines for automation and AI. Don’t use fake accounts, purchased followers or mass automated messages. If you are working with paid partners ensure you are being transparent. If you need to label AI content ensure you do. Ensure you aren’t breaching any copyright with images/music and keep customer privacy.

Conclusion:

Social media automation can work well if you automate your scheduling and adapting. Having clear goals, planning ahead, automating repetitive tasks, keeping interactions human and reviewing your results each month will ensure your feed stays active without losing your personality.

The full guide includes a comparison table between poor and better practices, the full example chart and answers to common questions. View the full guide here.. Read the full guide here.