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The Future of Social Media – Can you Automate and Personalize At the Same Time?

If we have to sum up the technology of the 21st century in one word, automation can be the perfect pick. We have embraced automated technology very swiftly. Be it the regular day-to-day facilities, such as self-starting coffee makers, programmable thermostats, ice makers, or the much-needed amenities, such as electric vehicles or medical equipment, automation is making our lives easier. 

When automation is making its space in every area of our daily lives, how could social media be left untouched by it? Especially when most of our lives have begun to rotate around social media platforms. Hence, in recent years, businesses have begun to automate their activities and interactions on social media to save time and be more efficient.

However, there is another school of thought, and almost contradictory, that reflects the light on the importance of personalization in today’s tech-oriented world. According to statistics, marketers witness an average increase of 56% in business sales when they use personalized experiences. Keeping the fact in mind that customers appreciate personalization and it generates results, businesses are increasingly making it a priority for their social media marketing. 

While both automation and personalization are essential for an impressionable online presence, businesses find it challenging to implement the fusion of two. Brands are scared that automation may make their brand seem inauthentic and depersonalized. However, without automation, it is difficult to manage regular social media activities, especially when your business is growing. 

In this blog, we are going to take a look at if finding the sweet spot and balancing automation and personalization in social media at the same time is conducive or not. Let’s begin.

Social Media Automation v/s Social Media Personalization

Personalization is essentially about the human touch to your social media. Customers are no longer interested in engaging with the corporate face of the brand. Instead, they want the businesses to address their specific needs and challenges. 

However, realistically, it is impossible to run a company without having some processes automated. No matter how huge your team is, your business cannot manage to keep up with the different changes in data and the increasing data from new customers. Even if a small business manages to do so, it will struggle to be efficient enough to match up with the competitor’s speed. 

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So what to do? Whether to prioritize personalization or automation in your social media strategy?

Well, the answer lies in striking the right balance between both. A study by PwC states that a majority of customers want the technology to be a medium for enhancing personalization. Even if modern customers prefer all things digital, they still want human interaction. 

Here’s how you can implement the perfect unison of automation and personalization in your social strategy. 

5 Ways to Balance Automation and Personalization in Social Media

  1. Create Native To The Platform Content

One of the prominent uses of social media automation is scheduling the stories or posts ahead of time. It allows you to manage your social media calendar more effectively. Moreover, you can reach your target audience at the time when they’re online, even if it’s inconvenient for you. It is most useful when you have global audiences.

However, if you’re scheduling the same post on all the social media platforms, you’re doing it wrong. Understand that every platform has its rhythm – each of them is tailored to serve different purposes. If you want the audience to understand your message and engage with your posts, personalize content according to the platform’s voice.

For example, Facebook’s users are a mature audience, so automate posts featuring images, videos, and updates about your small business. You might not even need to share posts every day. On the other hand, Twitter is the king of thought leadership and moment marketing — craft a memorable gem within the 140-character limit and compel the audience to retweet it. Moreover, it has a high-volume content space, so you have to tweet multiple times in one day. This is where you can use automation and schedule multiple posts for a day beforehand. 

  1. Implement Automation Thoughtfully

Be it social media listening tools, consistent scheduling, or chatbots, social media automation is likely to enhance your efficiency. However, as you must’ve heard, too much of anything is not good. The same goes for automation.

Complete automation will reduce your burden but will lack a human touch. Without it, your online presence can look spammy and robotic. The audience won’t be able to connect with your cold and impersonal message. It could lead to a decrease in followers of your account.

To avoid this, put some thought into your automation process. If you’re scheduling a campaign, don’t set it to go live and forget about it. Instead, keep tracking its progress and the real-time reactions of the audience. It will allow you to make tailor-made changes in your next post of the campaign. Do not schedule a series of long posts at once. Instead, gauge the engagement. The likes and comments under the posts will tell you what users like and what they want to see next. This way, you will have the room to incorporate last-minute or moment-marketing ideas into your social media strategy.

  1. Be Present in Social Conversations

A lot of businesses fear social media automation as they think it will bring a gap in their relationship with the audience. It can happen, but again, only if you opt to personalize completely.

No matter what, you should never take personal conversations on social media out of the equation. You can schedule posts and stories on your feed. However, when users comment on the posts or send a message on the story, always reply. Even if nobody has asked you a question, take part in the discussion by adding your thoughts to the conversation. Such exchanges keep the conversation lively and as a result, enhance the engagement. Moreover, you can use it as a great opportunity to show your expertise without coming across as a know-it-all. 

Brand engaging in social conversations

You can go one step further and join in the conversations happening about your brand or industry. Again, automation comes in handy here. Use social media monitoring tools, such as Mentionlytics, to see the most important and relevant social media mentions. 

Mentionlytics is a leading all-in-one social media analytics platform that uses the key insights from the mentions and discovers what everybody is saying about you. Be it an influencer talking about your brand or products, a fellow brand mentioning your business name, or a troll trying to bring you down, we can help you. You can choose to engage in the conversation or leverage it to improve your strategy. Either way, the tool contributes to enhancing your social media presence.

  1. Make Customers Feels Special

Customers now expect more targeted marketing campaigns. They expect a precise and personalized service at all times. While this aspect makes it look like there is no room for automation, the reality is the opposite.

One of the many benefits of automation is it allows businesses to know more about their customers. You get the customer data and analytics and use them to provide a better quality of service to your customers. 

Hence, you can use the customer data to surprise and delight your customers. After the assessment, you can divide the customer into different groups based on their personality, likes and dislikes, demographics, or purchasing habits. You simply have to tailor your services according to the specific needs of the groups. When you deliver your services with a customized social media strategy, customers will feel special. 

Social media is a vital part of a far-reaching marketing strategy. To increase its impact exponentially, balance social media automation with personalization and witness the results improving. They are two sides of the same coin and work effectively only when they are well-balanced. Hence, use automation to empower personalized social media strategies, not to rip out human interaction entirely. With advanced knowledge, mindful scheduling, and a little forethought, your social media efforts can keep you relevant and in touch with your audience.

Dorothy Gracious

Dorothy Gracious is a professional content writer having 8+ years of experience. Presently working as a freelancer and love to write about the latest Business, technology, health, and lifestyle-related articles.