Here’s the bad

Social Media Automation:The Good and the Bad

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What Is Automation?

“The technique of making an apparatus, a process, or a system operate automatically.”

Merriam-Webster

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It doesn’t have to be bad

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Keep the human element

• IFTTT.com – If this, then that. – Starred items from my

Google Reader are moved to my BufferApp

– Facebook photos I’m tagged in are automatically downloaded to my Dropbox

• Triberr– Carefully curate the

“tribes” I’m in– Don’t automatically

share everything– Know whose content I’m

sharing, it sets the schedule

– Can have others automatically share your content.

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Wasn’t this about the bad?

OK, OK.How about this?

Comic via xkcd

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Progressive Car Insurance

Twitter snapshot via NY Observer

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Progressive basics

• Matt Fisher wrote a Tumblr post• It was extensively reblogged and tweeted• Progressive set up an automated tweet to

respond to all those tweeting the post.• Did I mention the tweet was too long and so

was posted on Twitlonger?

Research by Ann Marie Van Den Hurk

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Let’s Look At That Again

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What Went Wrong

• Progressive looked uncaring• Progressive expected those it was tweeting to

to work extra to get the full response.• Poor Flo. Her smiling mug just made the

message even more insensitive.

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How Not To Use Triberr

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How Triberr Works

• Join “Tribes” according to interest or friendships

• RSS feeds of their sites or content stream in• Able to share content on Twitter, FB, LinkedIn,

G+, StumbleUpon & elsewhere directly from Tribal feed.

• Automates scheduling to Twitter/FB/LI

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Doing it Right

• You’re vetting the posts you share before approving

• You’re following people you trust and so even if you approve an individual post first, you’re certain of the quality

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Danger Zone

• “Atomic tribes” enable you to automatically tweet anything by the person whose tribe it is

• Ease of approving posts for sharing means many share without reading.

• Some people join any tribe they can and share everything without paying attention

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What about HootSuite?

• Choose a site you love and would tweet out just about anything from

• Stick in the RSS feed• Voila! (Side note: NOT Wala!)

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Give a Hoot

• Do you know you want to share EVERYTHING from a site?

• What if sponsored posts are included in that feed?

• What if your beloved covers a story days after everyone else?

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Takeaways

• Use automation to streamline, not replace the human touch

• Make sure you know what you’re sharing• In a crisis, be of the moment. • Don’t. Be. Stupid.

Contact me

avernon@internetmedialabs.comwww.internetmedialabs.com

www.Facebook.com/AmyVernonwww.Facebook.com/InternetMediaLabs

www.Twitter.com/AmyVernonwww.Twitter.com/InternetLabs

http://j.mp/AmyVGplushttp://j.mp/IMLGplus

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