Category: Marketing

If you are not living in the middle ages, you probably come across the term ‘information overload’ quite often these days. What people mean by this term is that they are constantly bombarded with a lot of information, especially through gadgets connected to the Internet. Certainly, Internet opened up doors to a new way of accessing information for free, and the barrage of information has proved to be unhelpful sometimes. Information overload is caused due to saturation of our cognitive capacities. Here are 5 ways we think will help you to reduce information overload. 1.      Remove Electronic Clutter The first and foremost thing to do is to unsubscribe from mailing lists that you may have subscribed to. You must also ensure that you designate about 20 minutes a day to your social networking activities and then not be tempted to use them throughout the day. Scheduling of social posts will help you to spend less time on social networking sites. Though most people refuse to admit, they should try and delete online dating accounts they don’t use. They are not only addictive, but also serve no real purpose unless you are actually single in life. 2.      Reduce What You Read This may sound counterproductive but the amount of news articles and blog posts that we read these days is mind boggling. That necessarily has not made us any smarter. Try and subscribe to magazines that you like and are sure that they are of value to your profession and personal growth. FlipBoard, Zite, and other reading applications are addictive but can cause information overload if you do not know how to use them. 3.      Read Physical Books When Available, and Avoid Electronic Versions The reason why paperbacks and hardbound books are still better than electronic documents is that we cannot easily shift to a different book or topic and close the page. When we hold a book, we are not as easily distracted as we would, if we read the same thing on a tablet, where it is easier to type a tweet to someone. 4.      Learn to Say No Most of us are very passive when it comes to learning new things or exposing ourselves to unnecessary information. Always learn to say ‘no’ when you encounter new information (as opposed to knowledge) is bombarded at you from many sources. Stop for a minute and ask yourself if this information is useful to increase your knowledge on your chosen or adjacent topics. If it is not, then say ‘no’ mercilessly. This concept should not be confused with being close-minded to new information. That is something altogether different. What we are trying to say is that you should know which information is useful to your profession and if the source of that information is good enough. If either is questionable, then it is unwise to overload your cognitive processes with extra information which is not related to you in any way. 5.      Give Yourself Time to Not Think This is a time tested strategy to ensure that your brain cells have enough time to rejuvenate themselves after resting. However, most of us switch from one information overload causing activity to another. At the end of the day, our productivity suffers and so does our self esteem. The idea is to completely put yourself away from any sort of information source for a couple of hours each day. An hour’s duration of working out at the gym and a cup of coffee with a friend should be enough to replenish those tired grey cells, so that can get back to your information hogging lifestyle. Information overload is something that we cannot avoid in a world like today’s. It is something that we must learn to accept and grow. What we can do is, reduce it to the maximum possible level so that our creativity is not ruined and our productivity is increased. When we are exposed to more information than we can handle, we certainly become uncreative, tired, and predictable. Over time, it causes burnout and fatigue, leading to stress related problems that could also result in health issues. You can say ‘no’ to information overload by starting to taking a break, like right now!

Our abilities to think, understand, process what is understood, making decisions and then reflecting on our thoughts entail cognitive processes. Our cognition is hampered when we are constantly exposed to information we think we should pay attention to. What results is a state of continuous partial attention, which reduces our performance and efficiency. Most importantly, creativity ceases to exist and we lose our abilities to arrive at novel solutions. Information overload also leads to a state of fatigue where one just doesn’t want to learn anything new and nothing surprises the person. However, what is not recognized is the issue of cognitive dissonance arising from exposure to opposing views on social media. It can easily be understood as reactionary behavior that we later regret, on account of reading tweets, shared links on Facebook or elsewhere about opposing thoughts, views and opinions. When we are exposed to differing opinions on social media, and we are not able to choose which the right one is, we experience cognitive dissonance. Some of the emotions that we experience as a result of cognitive dissonance are dread, guilt, anger, frustration, anxiety, stress, etc. Most of us are aware of our belief systems. However, when we realize that there may be a grain of truth in another person’s views and opinions, it conflicts with our own beliefs. Such cognitive dissonance caused by social media can needs to be identified, targeted and ‘treated’, as psychologists would put it. Research has shown that extraverts tend to respond to cognitive dissonance more effectively than introverts. Extraverts do not let opposing thoughts and feelings affect them as much as introverts do. Introverts on the other hand may feel that they need to align their thoughts and opinions according to the norms and may end up hurting themselves. This behavior is more evident online and on social networking sites where people continue to bombard others with differing thoughts and opinions. To tackle cognitive dissonance, you may take a few steps. Accept that there are opposing views around you Accept that it is possible for you to hold opposing views at times, and not being able to decide which one is better. Become aware that conflicting emotions and conflicting ideas are causing trouble to you. Understand that these conflicting ideas are not the problem, but the resulting emotions which are unpleasant. Accept the fact that cognitive dissonance is a normal part of life and that you may sometimes just have to keep your emotions aside and choose the opinion that corroborates with your ideological position. Another option is to check facts, verify sources and come to a conclusion on an opinion which earlier caused you discomfort. If something is true and you refuse to believe it, it is only going to cause you distress. On social media, try not to be reactionary.Do not post tweets or share Facebook status updates that reflect your own state of cognitive dissonance. Instead, try to help people to reduce cognitive dissonance by stating facts. Facts that are verified and backed by experts may cause unpleasant reactions but you should not be bothered by opposing views if they are not really facts. Encourage your friends and co-workers to be more open about their own cognitive dissonance. It is nothing to be ashamed of, and is in fact a blessing in disguise as it allows us to be ambivalent towards ideas and opinions, instead of rushing towards what we like the best. Use social media to express opposing views and use it to understand opposing views. However, do not let these ambivalent thoughts to cause you distress. Give suggestions to yourself that it is ok to hold opposing beliefs and if they are unpleasant, reduce the anxiety by distracting yourself and telling yourself that unpleasant emotions are transient and do not last for a long time. No matter how deep your cognitive dissonance is, do not project unpleasant emotions to your followers on Twitter of Facebook. That can send a very negative signal, instead of helping you. People often do not understand that social media and marketing communications are based on human psychology and psychological theories have a profound effect on many decisions that executives take. While using social media too, we can witness a number of theories that are explained in social psychology.

There is a huge difference between sympathy and empathy. Most people do not realize the difference and well meaning remarks and intentions may often be mistaken as patronizing behavior. This often happens when customers or clients call up customer care centers and often hear “I’m really sorry for what happened”. While that may be a way of expressing sympathy, it certainly is not what empathy is. What Is Empathy and How Different Is It from Sympathy? Empathy can be described in a layman’s language as “walking in the other person’s shoes to know what it feels like”. Of course, to know how exactly it feels to be the person on the other end of the phone or texting application is not possible. However, by learning to differentiate between showing sympathy to someone and empathizing with somebody, you can make or break the client or customer’s day. Sympathy feels artificial and shallow. Whereas, empathy feels genuine, concerned and proactive. Companies should always ensure that their staff is trained to be empathic and not just full of sympathy. When a customer knows that his or her problems are being understood in the real sense, chances are, they will say great things about you on social media. The key is to be empathetic and not just display shallow sympathy. Train Your Staff to Be Empathetic Clients and customers often feel they are not being understood and that their problems are not being addressed properly. We have all grown used to scripted apologies and displays of sympathy and the customers are no different either. When they are irritated, annoyed and not in a great mood, they shall take offense to sympathy as it will be understood as not genuine. This makes it a bad idea to repeat apologies and express sympathy when you don’t actually mean it. Thus, staff must be trained to display empathy. Going a Step Ahead of Displaying Sympathy and Being Proactive Displaying empathy requires people to actually take interest in the other person’s problems. It goes more than apologizing, expressing concern and reassuring. Instead, empathy is all about being proactive and doing something that actually helps the other person. We may say, that empathy is translated into action, whereas sympathy is limited to talk. People understand these sentiments at a subliminal level and it can’t be faked. Your staff needs to be trained about how to appear empathetic and not just sympathetic. What we mean by this is, your staff will need to be very proactive and offer alternative solutions when there is a problem. They will also need to understand where the customer or client is coming from and what thoughts could be running in the customer’s mind. Usually, it is safer to assume that the client is not happy or that he or she is difficult to please. With such a belief in your mind, you will indeed put extra efforts to resolve issues, which is what showing empathy is all about. Ask for Feedback and Ratings Once an issue is resolved or a concern has been handled, never miss the opportu8nity to seek feedback. The feedback may not always be honest. Most people tend to say they were happy with the services even when they were not. Nonetheless, it is better to insist on more than just one feedback. When pressed for detailed review or feedback on a second time, people may open up and complain more. While it may seem like a counterproductive exercise to seek negative feedback, it is just the opposite. You will know what your weaknesses are and you will be better prepared to empathize truly with the most difficult customers too. At the end of the day, all that you need to do is remain honest and teach your staff to be honest. Though clichéd and often repeated, in business, honesty is certainly the best policy. With honesty follows a genuine concern for your own products and services. You certainly don’t want to bring your organization or company down by offering a mediocre or average product/service, do you? In order to excel and be sure that you are excelling in whatever you do, you will need to cut sympathy out and bring empathy in.

There is nothing more important than a marketing campaign done right to achieve the kind of sales that you desire. Marketing campaigns are the crux of any communication that takes place between a company and its leads. Leads who are attracted to a marketing campaign invariably become opportunities and it is then easy to convert them into customers. However, to identify those leads and to engage them in negotiations which ultimately convert them into customers is a lengthy process that needs to be automated to a certain extent. Using OpenERP to Automate Leads No company has the time or resources to do it all manually. Enterprise resource planning systems like OpenERP are a great way to ensure that marketing campaigns are successful in automating leads and converting them into sales. OpenERP helps companies and organizations to identify leads, automate communication with leads and sometimes even opportunities and increase the number of sales and reduce the amount of real time communication saving you a lot of time and money. For this reason alone, it is important to use OpenERP as a tool to automate your lead automation. In this article, let us take a look at how OpenERP automates your leads. Using Marketing Application in OpenERP OpenERP comes with a specific application called ‘Marketing’. It helps you to define your direct marketing campaigns. What it actually does it is helps you to automate communication with your leads. The module can be easily installed by choosing the ‘Reconfigure wizard’ and then select ‘Marketing’. A marketing campaign allows you to send specific messages about your organization to a certain group of people. The campaign may be used for different purposes but the end result is to communicate a certain message to your clients and customers, also known as partners in OpenERP. Automating Marketing Emails to Leads in the System OpenERP uses contacts in your leads list to send them emails when you run a marketing campaign. These emails are sent automatically without your having to enter any addresses. All that you would need to do is design a marketing campaign that will work for sure. Hiring great copywriters and content writers is the key to ensure marketing campaigns are done well and that they succeed. How to Segment Your Leads and Create Specific Marketing Communication OpenERP also allows you to segment your campaigns. This can be done by clicking on the ‘Segment’ tab in the ‘Campaign’ module. You can segment your leads based on your own criteria so that specific marketing campaigns can be designed for specific groups. When you hit on ‘send’, emails will be sent only to certain segments and it becomes a valuable way to assess and monitor the results of your marketing campaign. Email Templates Thanks to several email templates and the possibility to build your own email templates right within OpenERP, you do not even have to worry much about hiring someone to design your email templates. OpenERP also helps in acquisition of leads, which will prove to be useful sometime in future. Profiling Customers and Leads with Questionnaires If you would like to profile your customers, OpenERP has a command for that as well. This is very important when you want to run specific marketing campaigns to existing customers who may prove to be repeat customers. What we like the best about OpenERP is that it allows you to create questionnaires for defining profiles. These questionnaires in turn can be used to create lists of leads all belonging to various segments. Such segmentation is what will help you to create marketing copy that is as specific as possible. OpenERP is a great tool that will help you to achieve success in your marketing campaign. It not only helps you to identify people who may be prospective customers but will also allow you to create marketing campaigns and run them automatically. It allows you to segment your existing list of leads and create marketing mailers that are specific and directed to a niche market. This specificity helps OpenERP to assist you in your marketing campaigns. If you were looking for a great tool that can assist you in lead generation and following those leads with marketing communication, contact us for assistance.

Companies and organizations have always supported certain causes. Every company is run by people with certain beliefs, and certain ideologies. These ideologies and beliefs often translate to philanthropy as these organizations increase their profitability. With philanthropy comes in the lobby as well. Most corporations and even small companies donate money heavily to organizations that represent their core values and beliefs. This of course helps people to see you as a great company that cares, instead of only taking home profits to feast on. However, when certain causes take political overtones, you may actually do your business a disservice. Though you may have a great product to boot and people from different backgrounds like what you sell or offer, an explicit statement or publicizing of a political opinion can cost you a lot in terms of sales. It is of course unethical to stop believing in our own beliefs and not supporting those who are fighting for causes that we believe in. However, if your cause is something that is political and may cause a lot of controversy, it may be a good idea to go ahead supporting your cause financially or otherwise, but do not blow a trumpet over it. Overtly Professing Your Political Ideology May Hurt your Sales People usually like companies that are neutral and that which do not expressly state whom they favor. People who do not believe in your political ideology may lose interest in your product and choose a competitor’s. Moreover, those who follow your own ideology may expect more than what you can afford to donate, for a certain cause. Either ways, it is a good idea to keep a low profile when it comes to expressing political opinions on public platforms. Making Controversial Comments Many public companies have seen their stock prices decrease or increase when they make political comments. That sort of fluctuations in the market is totally unnecessary and can give a bad signal to investors, who may again not share your political opinions. Spurious Donation Campaigns A number of companies and organizations have been deceived or misguided by individuals and charity organizations into donating large sums of money, without actually revealing how the money was spent. If you plan to donate money to charitable organizations, you might want to make sure that it is a credible institution. Hurting Certain Demographics’ Sentiments By lobbying for a certain cause, you may end up offending or hurting another market segment. For instance, by choosing to donate to a laboratory that conducts animal experiments, you may lose out on clients and customers who do not believe in unethical experiments conducted on animals Political Conditions May Change By being extremely political overtly, you run the risk of wrath by the opposing party. If that group comes to power in the region where your business is located, you may face unnecessary delays and complications. It is not always necessary that your political opinions are shared by everyone you do business with. Outdated Political Ideas Will Not Find Appeal with Customers and Clients Several companies have lost significant amounts of profits and sales because they either supported or made statements that offended minorities, social groups, LGBT people, disabled, women and children. Many companies have also suffered because they did not support a certain environmental cause or ethical standards within the industry. If your ideologies are in sync with time and if they reflect the larger opinions then go ahead and publicize your political opinion. However, if you subscribe to less appealing political ideas it may be better to not make them explicit and overstated. No matter what your political agenda is, your business can and must always contribute towards it, if you are making enough profits. The only thing that you need to remember is not to offend anyone because it is just not pleasant to do business if you continue to take a controversial position on sensitive issues. If you do think you have an opinion that is not popular among minorities and other groups of people who may be disadvantaged, you might probably keep your political opinions subtle and not explicit. A business does not require you to change your ideologies and you must not. However, subtlety can go a long way in keeping all your customers happy and coming back to you for more

Tragedies have become all too common these days. Whether crimes of unimaginable scales or natural disasters that can cause your hair to bristle, tragedies seem to occur at regular frequencies. What follows is an outpouring of heart rending messages, pictures, blog posts, articles and videos all over the Internet and social media. As a company, what could you possibly do on the social media when all your followers and friends are only talking about a certain tragic incident? In this article, let us take a look at what your role as a company and as an owner of a company is, when tragedies strike closer home or far away. Wherever they strike, there is always something to do and some nice words to say. How you say it, and why you must say it are issues that we shall deal in this article. Maintain Poise As a company, you should not get carried away by the intensity of trauma or your own shock. You should maintain poise and avoid making statements that may either infuriate or prove to be useless to victims and those who are affected by the tragedy. Instead, maintain a sense of poise and offer comforting tweets and retweet those tweets that are positive and reassuring in nature. Express sympathy and empathize with the survivors and victims’ families. Assure People and Ask for Calm It is a natural tendency for people to go berserk on Twitter and Facebook. Many a times, your own followers and friends may be spreading rumors unintentionally. If possible, get somebody to fact-check on rumors and post facts. Reassure your followers and friends and appeal for calm. You are a company and in a better position to request for calm and as an authority figure, your fact-based tweets and Facebook updates will have more value than rumors spread by regular people. Contribute and Use Your Influence to Get Others to Contribute As a company or an organization, you will have a greater degree of influence on social and elsewhere in the community. Use this influence to form groups of people who may visit the disaster struck area or use your influence to lobby local community groups to do what they can do best. Get one of your trusted employees to list charitable organizations that are reliable and consistent I their approach and donate money. Request your own followers and friends to do that over Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. If possible, you may upload a link on your website for a short duration asking people to donate money towards the disaster. Avoid Emotional Outbursts or Engaging in Controversies In times of large crimes or huge natural disasters, it is natural to feel strong emotions. However, do not display your negative and strong emotions from your company’s social media accounts or even your own personal but official accounts. Instead, try to be rational, balanced and objective. Do not make controversial statements that may offend certain groups for people. Request your followers not to do the same as well. Reach Out to Victims and Offer Something Nice When disasters and crimes happen, victims are often just statistics. This leads to a scenario where we forget that they are living and breathing human beings who may have their own presence on social media. Use Twitter (and not Facebook or LinkedIn) to reach out to them and express your sorrow and empathize with them. If they respond to you and accept your condolences, empathy and wishes, offer to help them with whatever they need, if it is within your budget. It is never a good idea to capitalize on disasters and crimes. In fact, it is extremely unethical to do so. However, to turn a blind eye to tragic incidents when they happen in your community would be cold and cruel. As a company and organization, you will have certain responsibilities to the community in general and you will need to give back when your community needs your support the most. Social media is a great place to use your corporate and organizational influence and help people in need at the right time. Companies can greatly reduce the rumor mills that we often see in times of tragedies. Take responsibility, and be kind and show your empathy through actions on social media so that your company becomes a role model for others too!

Search engine Optimization always looms like a dark cloud when it comes to managing and administration of websites. While the topic really needs no introduction, lots of people wonder what the trends are going to be like in 2013. The answers are as ambiguous as the concept of Search Engine Optimization itself. However, we have listed some of the top trends that we think will dominate this year. Here are the top SEO trends for 2013. Mobile Browsing Is Going to Get Bigger Mobile devices include smartphones and tablets. It is becoming increasingly clear that people across the world, both in emerging and in developed countries, have begun to use mobile devices as their primary Internet devices. There are more than 125 million smartphone users in the US and 20 mobile searches per month, per device. If we look at the net search statistics, a whopping 30 billion mobile searches are conducted per year. The World Is Mobile This clearly tells us that the world has changed. People do not really go to a search engine like Google (though it continues to be important in our strategy), but instead use mobile applications, mobile browsers and social applications to discover content and businesses. In 2013, SEO professionals will need to concentrate on an increasingly mobile world that depends on smartphones and tablets to browse the Internet. Create Mobile-friendly Sites, Responsive Design Web designers and developers must make sure that they design websites that are optimized for mobile devices. This is exactly where responsive design comes to picture. A responsive design for a website ensures that a single website adjusts to the different screen sizes of mobile and desktop devices. Along with responsive design, a greater emphasis on HTML 5 needs to placed, in order to ensure that pages load quickly on mobile devices that often run on slower Internet connections. Mobile Applications Instead of a strategy that solely depends on web designing and web developing, SEO professionals must insist on smartphone and tablet applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 devices. Applications will certainly be an important source of web traffic. It is no wonder then that a majority of magazines and blogs receive traffic from applications such as FlipBoard, Zite, Feedly, Pulse, and Pocket. Analyzing the Website Before you do anything else with your existing website, spend a little while trying to analyze it. Check if it looks good, and then proceed towards analyzing if it has all the information your target audience must be searching or looking for. If it does, then try and judge if the information is presented in an attractive manner. It is a good idea to add images, videos, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files and other such files which lend to the versatility of the website. Most importantly, you can ask for a professional SEO Audit Service. Metatags and Meta data It is a well known fact that SERP reveals a list of results deepening on what a person searches for. The result can be divided into the Title, a summarized description, and the permanent URL. Most website admin areas allow you to enter these details when you publish content. You can use Google’s Keyword Tool to make sure that you have content that is related to your niche, which is also being searched. Likewise, you will need to ensure that you enter meta-tags, meta-description and meta-keywords for your website. These meta-data tell web crawlers what your website is all about. HTML 5 The world is certainly no longer depending on Flash-heavy websites that cannot be viewed on certain mobile devices like the ones manufactured by Apple. Also, Flash websites are not very good for SEO. The alternate choice is to use HTML 5, in case your website is already not built using it. HTML 5 pages are search engine friendly, and load quicker as well. Also, HTML 5 websites can be viewed without a hitch on iDevices. Structured Data and Microformats Much of information on the Internet is categorized, compartmentalized and structured. Without this structure, it is difficult for web crawlers to identify content that is most relevant to a search query. However, many content writers and web administrators overlook this important facet of web analysis and content writing that can immediately ameliorate SEO ranking. Structured data can be easily recognized, understood and displayed by search engines like Google. In the same breath, we may mention micro-formatting. Microformats help essential information such as business address or product reviews and ratings to be coded in a special manner so that there is an emphasis on that information. Thus, web crawlers ‘know’ that what is coded in microformats is more important than the rest of the information on the page. The idea is to craft snippets of information coded in microformats so that search engines can immediately recognize which information is crucial to be displayed in SERPs. Content Overhaul So far, SEO has been restricted to devious methods that urged people to target keywords and web crawlers more than the people who actually read them. Thankfully for the rest of us, and also for honest SEO professionals, Google and other search engines have begun to penalize such websites that do not care much about quality content. If you want your website to rank high, you will need to ensure your content’s quality and authoritativeness. If your content is not up to the mark, now is the time to devote time for a complete content overhaul. Quality Content – Lengthy and In-depth Articles Short articles are done to death. People look for worthy content that actually has some information in it. Ideally, your blogposts should at least have 400-500 words so that there is an argument, and a sensible conclusion. If you can weave in more than one argument and write a post that is around 700-800 words, you are good to go. You just need to ensure that these articles are well researched, in-depth and written by subject matter experts. Personality Branding, Honesty and Transparency

Internet memes are no stranger to web professionals and copywriters. We all know the power of a great video or an image that can take on a number of messages when passed on by many people. In fact, an Internet meme is more powerful than any ad copy image that is carefully shot and produced. If any of you remember Zeddie Little, the ridiculously handsome guy, he probably did more to the cause of running for certain health conditions than any full time model or celebrity did. All that he did was to run and a photographer took a picture of him in that iconic moment. While such internet memes are rather rare, there are thousands of memes that convey similar cultural and marketing messages that are more powerful than traditional advertising. Know your Meme has a great collection of memes that you can take a look at in order to find inspiration. Using Memes in Serious Marketing Campaigns Memes usually tend to be light hearted but pack in serious marketing punches, in the business world. It could be that serious looking SEO professional who can take on a number of messages that your company stands for. The same picture can be used to warn customers of not following SEO best practices and at a different time, the same image can be used to inform users about an impending algorithm change. Memes can convey messages at an unconscious level and such messages are likely to remain in people’s minds for a longer time than a professionally created ad copy. This is one reason why ad professionals try to create memes as much as they can. There are certain qualities of a good meme. Memes Speak to Target Audience A great meme speaks to its audience like no other. A meme has a tendency to understand target audience’s tastes, language, keywords or their sense of humor. Mike Lewis wrote that memes need to be highly relevant. They should resonate the intended message to their target audience. No meme is useful unless he or she has the ability to go viral. A meme needs to be highly memorable and incredibly attention grabbing. In fact, memes tend to symbolize certain archetypes that we have in our minds. Archetypal Memes Zeddie Little symbolized the healthy, happy and fresh faced athlete like no other model could ever do. That is probably the reason why he became one of the most enduring memes in the last couple of years. Some memes tend to be short lived and they reflect an audience’s changing interests and trends. Memes can be easily reimaged, according to Mike Lewis and take off on a specific platform. Also, they have an overt marketing message, unlike ad copy, which try to keep marketing messages subtle and sophisticated. At the end of the day, memes can be great for companies when they are looking for a great way to market their products and services to a particular target audience, without spending a lot of money. Also, memes shouldn’t cost a lot because they are supposed to go viral. How to Create a Meme that Is Successful There are many ways to create a great meme. You will either need to have great images of animals or people or animated pictures or you will need to use an open source meme that is freely available. Once you have chosen an image for your meme, you can write down the tag that usually goes along with a meme. These tags need to be catchy and attention grabbing. This is the place where you can get people to be interested in your company, product or service. By choosing a great image and a series of attention grabbing tags, you can run a mini ad campaign to boost or assist your expensive ad campaign. One can always get a great copywriter and a graphics designer to ensure that memes convey the message that your target audience wants to hear. Using memes is an effective and time tested marketing tool that only needs creativity. One can certainly find talented creative guys who can create memes that bring in a lot of revenue and profits to the company.

With social media becoming increasingly mainstream, a lot of business owners and online marketers often ask us, if they are doing something wrong by automating social posts. The answer to this question is, like always, it depends. Nothing is ever completely wrong or completely right and one needs to work with these binaries even more cautiously when it comes to running online enterprises and websites. No matter what sort of business you run, social media posting has become a necessity unless you want your business to remain hidden from potential clients and customers. With that in mind, let us take a look at what the advantages and disadvantages of automating social media posting are. Advantages and Disadvantages of Automation of Social Posts Automating posts reduces costs associated with social media management. By automating one does not need to hire a full time social media manager which is very important to small businesses that are cash strapped. Also, by automating, one can ensure that something is always shared to a target audience without remaining silent for too long. Automating posts also helps in tracking engagement and click through traffic so that one can assess what links and tweets are receiving more traffic. On the other hand, automating social posts may make you seem robotic and lifeless. It may make you seem cold, and un-social which is extremely detrimental to social media. Moreover, by automating all the time, one will defeat the purpose of social media management which is to engage with the audience in real time. With all this in mind, one needs to sit back and think for a while if an all-or-none approach really works. What to Automate and What Not to Automate? One can automate blog posts that were published recently so that they get more views again after a while. Automating social posts with links to whitepapers, ebooks, case studies, interviews and sometimes, a few quotes is a great way to go. Once these are automated, you will need to regularly engage with your audience when you are free so that they are not left feeling bombarded with automated posts. Why Automation Goes Wrong When Not Done Properly – Remaining Human and Social Often, busy executives, managers and owners automate their social media posts using Hootsuite, BufferApp or one of the other services and just forget about social media until the posts run out. Once the posts run out, the one in charge with social posts automates posts again for a week (or even a month) and complains that no one is clicking or visiting the homepage. Where exactly are they going wrong? First off, social posts need to be social and that is a given. One cannot expect to automate social posts and expect people to robotically click through links and be impressed with the products and services you often. It is very important to interact as humanely as possible and not be a robot that tweets at the best possible time in a day. The problem arises when managers and executives excitedly engage in social media and realize that it is consuming a lot of time, more time than it is actually necessary. Then, automating social posts seems like the perfect answer and they are no more social. With this being the problem, what can people do in order to effectively manage time and get the best out of social media postings? The clear answer is to not engage in black and white thinking and not fall prey to binaries of automation and complete social engagement. Balancing Automation and Real Time Engagement The trick is to automate a few posts per day for a week and spend just a few minutes every day in real time to interact with your audience. This way, even when you are busy for a few days, automated posts are shared on social sites and when you find time, you can always engage with your audience without seeming like a lifeless robot. The trick then is to ensure that there is a balance between automation and real time social engagement. It is always important to understand that there is nothing that is set in stone and everything needs to be flexible. In social media management too, one needs to make ample use of both automating social posts and engaging with audience in real time.