Daily living within social media comes with its challenges. One of the challenges that I struggle with is automation vs. personal engagement and the grey area that lies in between. I’ve set up Facebook Pages that sync with new blog posts, Twitter feeds that are loaded within Facebook and within a column within the blog. I’ve synced YouTube and Flickr and Facebook “likes” and Twitter updates to LinkedIn status. You name it, if there’s a method to automatically link/sync/feed into another social media channel, I’ve done it.
Why do we do this? Because there is an exponential strength in being able to connect to your visitors, viewers and fans within the social media channel of their preference. And, it enhances your ability to expand your viral marketing reach. But, I often wonder with all of this syncing and automation, am I missing the true point of authentic engagement within each channel?
Sure, I monitor the blog comments, facebook status likes and feedback and oversee Twitter tweets and RTs in HootSuite. And, I’m also sending out interesting articles I’ve reviewed in my Google Reader and tidbits I’ve discovered and replying back to the feedback I read and sometimes the volume is just enough to feel overwhelming and exhilarating at the same time.
So, while trying to maximize efficiencies with automation the trick is to find the balance between making certain tasks automated while still enabling for personal engagement.
One tip I find very useful in sharing an RSS feed that I always seem to come back to time and time again for quality content is to set this feed up in my HootSuite desktop and tweet out every 3 hours the latest news article. I automatically insert “Interesting News:” before each auto-tweet to alert my followers and others to the content of my tweet. I check out the tweets and topics in my Sent column of HootSuite daily just to be sure I’m not “spamming” out there. So far I’ve found this is a great way to share news and gain followers and start the conversation.
So, my Google Reader continues to be an integral component to my social media marketing strategy. 
If you have any tips for automation or strong feelings on this issue, please comment! Or tweet to me @JenHitchens.
