Some social media marketing advocates will tell you to never automate your postings. I would agree that you shouldn’t automate all of your social media tasks, but if you share your blog posts on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn every time you post them, then why not automate that process? It’s simple, doesn’t cost much (if anything), and it will save you time.
But social media isn’t the only thing you can automate. You can automate other routine tasks, as well.
For instance, if you’re prone to checking the weather, you can can have the weather come to you automatically when it changes. For instance, with certain tools, you can automate your weather updates to trigger when the temperature falls below (or above) a certain level, or when the forecast predicts rain or snow. If you’re planning a trip to the beach for the weekend, for instance, and don’t want to check the weather every day, automate your weather updates based on criteria that would affect your going to the beach.
You can do this with personal tasks as well as business conditions. If you travel once a month and you need to purchase airline tickets, why not automate that process when the price of tickets falls below your expense threshold?
Belle Beth Cooper shares her insights on automation, with a hat tip to some cool tools, at Search Engine Journal.
Don’t look at automation as a bad thing. There are certain things you don’t want to automate, but if it makes your life easier and saves you time or money, then why not?