Twitter automation tools are usually considered a way for businesses and marketers to save time. It’s true that automation can eliminate repetitive manual tasks and give you more time to work on other things. But automation can also be beneficial for your audience and customers.
As always, if you’re using automation tools with social media, they must be used with care. Overusing automation will risk your relationships with other users and could even get your account banned.
To ensure both you and your customers get the most out of Twitter automation, make sure you’re following these best practices.
1. Auto-reply to users who engage with your content when it’s appropriate
Automation tools mean you don’t need to have your Twitter account manned 24 hours a day so you can instantly respond to every action.
One handy way to use Twitter automation is to send an automatic reply to private messages to let your followers know that you’ve received their message and what time they can expect to get a personal reply.
You could also include helpful information in this message such as links to your FAQ or other informational pages on your website.
Some Twitter accounts like to send an automated message when they get a new follower. If you do this, try to make the message as personal as possible. Most tools will give you the option to personalize by including the user’s name. You could also link to your other social media profiles — if they’re following you on Twitter, there’s a pretty good chance they might want to follow you on Facebook and Instagram too.
Don’t overdo it with the auto-replies. Replying to every Tweet that mentions you is too much. Take care when crafting your messages so they don’t seem too spammy.
2. Post tweets regularly throughout the day
Twitter is a very noisy platform. In other words, Twitter users tend to post a lot. Posting once a day might be sufficient for Facebook or LinkedIn, but if you post only once a day on Twitter, there’s a good chance that most of your audience will miss it.
With Twitter automation tools, you don’t need to be sitting at your computer all day long so you can send a new tweet every hour. Just queue up your content for the day and let it drip out automatically.
Peak engagement times for Twitter are from around 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. However, Sprout Social notes that engagement for consumer goods and retail brands is shifted later in the day and is higher at weekends. So if you sell products and you’re planning to use your account for customer service, make sure you post more at the weekend.
Most experts recommend tweeting at least three times a day.
Twitter has an analytics feature so you can see which days your tweets are getting the most engagement. Experiment by setting your Twitter automation tool to post a different number of tweets each day and see where the sweet spot lies for your account.
3. Use Twitter chatbots to provide customer service
If you’re using your Twitter account to provide customer service, users who send direct messages will expect their queries to be answered in a short time frame.
Not every company has the resources to provide 24/7 customer support. A chatbot can fill the gap by providing answers to common questions. In some cases, this can solve the user query immediately. If not, the user can be directed to chat with a human customer service representative.
For example, an ecommerce business could use an automated Twitter chat tool to provide shipping updates when the user enters their order number.
When Evernote automated their customer support service via Twitter, they were able to help 80 percent more people each week.
4. Review your queued content regularly and pause if necessary
If you’re queuing up content a long time in advance, you’re always running the risk that an automated tweet will be sent out at an inappropriate time.
For example, consider the recent #BlackLivesMatter conversation across social media. During this time, many brands paused their usual content and used their social platform for sharing educational content from Black voices.
If a major event has occurred recently, continuing on like nothing has happened can make your brand seem out of touch. It’s best to pause all automation during these times to avoid any backlash.
It’s also important to review your planned content regularly to make sure it’s still relevant. For example, if you manage a Twitter account for a gym and you’re posting promotional content for classes and special offers, these tweets would have become obsolete when most of the world went into lockdown to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Retweeting your old content from time to time can be an effective way to get more value from it. But make sure this content is still relevant and not outdated when it gets retweeted.
Get the most out of Twitter automation
Twitter automation tools can be a very powerful way to save you time and get more ROI out of Twitter. Automation can also improve the customer experience with your brand.
However, it’s important to remember that automation is just one small aspect of your social media strategy.
You also must make sure you put in plenty of time to engage with your followers, reply to them manually, and build real relationships.
Additionally, it’s vital that the content you put out in the first place is of high quality and worth retweeting.
To make sure you’re getting the most out of Twitter and your content marketing strategy as a whole, use a content marketing and content automation platform like DivvyHQ to plan out your content across all platforms. To find out more, request a demo today.