How To Use Social Media Scheduling Tools While Avoiding Looking Like A Robot

by ​Max Greene, Guest Contributor

Social media scheduling tools such as HootSuite, Buffer, TweetDeck and AgoraPulse are great for saving time and helping you push out more quality content without wasting time. However, it can be easy to adopt a "set it and forget it" approach to social media, and that attitude can be harmful to your business. To avoid looking like a robot, check out these super-simple tips.
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To avoid looking like a robot when scheduling, check out these tips!

Check your accounts every day
One of the simplest and most effective ways to stop your account looking robotic is to check it at least once a day. Simply log onto your Twitter and Facebook profiles to check for new tweets and comments, and give your account the “once over”. If you want to take it a step further, then consider turning on notifications for new messages so that you can respond in a timely manner. After all, if a customer sends you a message and you don’t respond for 24 hours, but they see that you’re still posting content every 20 minutes, they’ll naturally be frustrated and feel ignored.

Post content on the networks
Posting new content organically is another way to break up your scheduled posts. In fact, social networks such as Facebook have been known to lower organic reach on posts published by a robot or tool, so it pays to post an organic comment or article now and again to mix things up.

Reacting to breaking news events, covering a new product launch or hosting a Twitter Q&A is a great way to post new content manually, and increase interaction with your followers.

Which leads us on to our next point...

Communicate with your followers
If you’re not interacting with your followers and responding to comments promptly, then people will think that your business is automated and they won’t want to connect with you. Consumers care about other people, so humanising your brand and showing off the fact that real people are behind your account is a sensible move. You can do this by taking part in Twitter hours, posting images of the team in the office, and responding to tweets and posts, even when they're not directed towards you. These techniques take a matter of minutes, and after a while, they'll become habits.

Mix up your posting times
Posting new content at the same time every day is fine, but over several months, it can get repetitive and turn some of your followers off. If you want to make your social media content look as organic and ‘human' as possible, then mix up your posting times and alternate days to add some variety. For example, rather than posting a new Instagram picture every morning at 10 AM, play around and post them at different times every day of the week. And who knows, you might just find that posting content at different times increases engagement and boosts reach?

Wrapping up
Social media scheduling can save you time and take away the stress of monitoring a social media account, but you shouldn’t rely on it entirely. Experiment with more organic posts, and see what happens. The chances are, posting content yourself will result in more engagements and help you interact with your followers on a deeper level. Good luck with your campaign.

Author bio:

Max Greene is the Managing Director of Muffin Marketing, a UK-based marketing agency specialising in SEO for small businesses, content writing and social media management.