Automation is very polarising, there are many views on it.
Some will say it's bad because it deprives people of jobs and removes the human element.
Some will say it's good because it's more efficient, consistent, accurate, precise or even cheaper.
Many things could be said, but today we'll look at how it affects you and how you can benefit (or not) from it.
So what types of automation are there implemented on the web?
Well most people may not realise but its more common that you think, scheduled tasks are a part of the foundation of what makes the world wide web run so smoothly.
Wether it's sending you notifications or emails, chances are its automated.
We'll be looking at the more popular forms of automation you can utilise.
These are: post scheduling, email sending and bots - activity automation.
So why are these important?
Well these things are actually what have been adopted rapidly for the past few years in order for businesses and brands to boost online performance reliably and efficiently. More and more methods are being explored daily but we'll focus on just a few, with respective platforms.
Websites -
by Kobu Agency on Unsplash.
FleekSite offers you this feature as well, scheduling your posts to be published on your websites at specific times, we've been through the benefits of this already in this article, however in short - it ensures consistency and helps to build your brand image by portraying consistency and encouraging preparation.
Email
Ever signed up for some big shots newsletter ? like Dan Lok (check him out!) or Darren Hardy (also some helpful information)? You'll find that their emails, though often quite generalised, are not only scheduled and try to sound personal, but they are sent in very specific orders and depending on the action you take, you may get a different email. Say that you don't open their messages for a few weeks, you may get an email addressing that. That's also email automation, which takes into consideration email opens, clicks and whatever other actions and parameters are set by the scheduler or marketing team as it were.
Social Media
By this time, quite a lot of you would have gotten some direct messages on various platforms which quite frankly - don't even sound human, or if they do, are quite generic. These are at times the work of automated social media bots. These programs, takes information from the user about what kind of result the page/account owner would like, and runs automated tasks in order to achieve those results. These tasks including - liking, following, unfollowing, commenting, messaging and so forth.
These bots can be very helpful and effective, however, you give control over to a third party (and not even a human you can talk to). That can be dangerous to the accounts reputation.
Another risk you run is a disconnect with your audience, you'll have no real sense of a community which will absolutely affect your ability to grow as you intend to become more involved with your social media management and begin to take it more seriously.
Users of these bots have varying levels of success, still the most popular form of social media automation is one I fully support - scheduling social media posts, these a done before hand, generally by people in order to reach a specified goal. These are much more personalised, manageable and can be reviewed before hand at any time to ensure you approve.
So is automation bad or good? Well on the web, it can go either way. It all depends on how you use it, the best choice is always personalising activity with a human touch, it's proven to get the best results.
