A Little Automation Doesn't Hurt (sometimes)

28
Jun 2012

twitterHow do you stay active on Twitter without signing your soul away to the little blue bird (or the fail whale, in my case)? Things on Twitter move fast, to say the least, and the lifetime of a tweet is exceedingly short. Being on Twitter constantly isn’t possible, because face it, when was the last time you had a work day where everything went as planned? Meetings go over, a phone call might take longer than you think, deadlines suddenly pop up all over the place. How do you keep up with Twitter and your regular schedule, when both move like lightning and on two completely different wavelengths?

 I’ll share one piece of advice with you, but with discretion.

Automation (partially).

Before you begin flipping out and lecturing me about how it’s important to be social on social media, let me explain. Sometimes, we just can’t do it all, right? And wouldn’t it be nice to have a little help–a constant flow of tweets, perhaps, that continue to pump life through your Twitter– when you just don’t have time on that manic Monday morning?

This tip is not meant to replace you actually logging into your Twitterand being social, but to supplement your existing efforts and lend you a helping hand.

Create a list of around 200 tweets containing evergreen information. Evergreen entails anything that is not time-sensitive– information that can be relayed and recycled again and again without you having to worry about it being dated.  For example, take snippets from your website, notes about your industry or your job or links to your blog posts.

Next, use Buffer to schedule out your posts for the next several months. Buffer is a free program that analyzes your Twitter history and determines what times your tweets best reach your audience, and then it schedules out your tweets accordingly. Genius, right? Buffer also has basic analytics, so you can track click through rates and the reach of your tweets.

Now, you’ll have tweets going out everyday and keeping your Twitter trucking (or until your scheduled tweets run out, of course). So on the few occasions where you just can’t find the time to sit down and tweet, you can rest assured knowing that something is holding up your Twitter fort for a short while.

Again, please, please don’t let this replace the human touch factor of social media. Whenever you can, you should always be logging in, interacting and socializing.  A completely automated Twitter account is just as bad as a desolate one.

 

 

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