I am actually on vacation this week. No I am not doing work during my week of R&R, no this is not the ghost of Christmas past or future. With the magic of the world wide web, we can post anything whenever we want. So no matter if you get this blog from our site, via RSS, from our social media sites or in your inbox, even though I have my toes dipped in the sand somewhere, you can get this post. Just because we can automate our marketing does that mean we should?
Automating marketing can go very wrong
Your website, your social media profiles, your blog and your email marketing efforts should be optimized for people (real human beings). Before you start automating your efforts, just because you can, think about how, when and why this person is receiving your messages. For a platform like social media, automating can work sometimes but an all automatic profile can lack in engagement, interest and personality. Social media especially is a space where subscribers want to know there is a person behind the messages. Does it work sometimes? Of course but it isn’t the norm.
Automating your marketing can save you tons of time
I know a business that creates their blogs, tweets and Facebook updates on Monday morning and then schedules them for the week. It works with their marketing team’s process. What they also do is use tools like HyperAlerts and email notifications to alert them when someone does react, respond or reshare their content. I really like this approach to automation. What I don’t like is things like a Twitter feed with only automated content and no sign of a response or reply to anyone else.
Great examples of automated marketing
- Drip campaigns
- Welcome newsletters when someone signs up for your list
- Posting once and having it go to multiple channels with a service like Networked Blogs
If you want to know more about automating some of your online marketing check out:
- Automation to Market Your Business Better Faster Smarter
- 13 Tools to Simplify Your Social Media Marketing
- How to Automate Your Social Media Marketing Like the Pros
Automating can really help a marketing team or small business manage their time and still get good content out there. As with anything, use moderation and some good common sense when automating your online marketing. As always, keep track of your time spent and return on the efforts to see if this is the best use of your time and that you are still getting the engagement you are looking for.
There has been a lot of talk about Blogging and SEO and how they work together lately. Some research shows that 
All this change making you nervous? Are people telling you that your website is going to suffer?
When you post something to your business page you have the option to Highlight it by clicking on the star just above the post. Highlighting will take your post and double the width of it so it takes up the whole page. This new expanded space could be a great way to draw attention to important posts you want people to interact with. Things like photos and videos that are highlighted really stand out on a busy Facebook page.
The other new option to call attention to important posts on your Facebook page is to Pin them. Pinning your posts places the update at the top of your Facebook page for 7 days. I use this personally for a Facebook page that hosts a regular event. We can post the announcement of the upcoming event and have it at the top of our page for a week. This way as you update your page regularly, your very important content can stay right up at the top of the page.
Businesses everywhere are getting used to the new 