Should journalists and PR professionals auto-schedule their tweets?
HootSuite, the popular social media manager, has introduced an AutoSchedule feature for Hootlet — the HootSuite Chrome and Firefox extension.
This brings up the questions of “should journalists and PR professionals auto-schedule their tweets?” HootSuite’s AutoSchedule, like Buffer and SocialFlow, is great for those who want to keep a constant stream of interesting articles in their feed, but does it lose out on personalization and timing?
According to HootSuite, AutoSchedule will analyze users’ and their friends’ social activity and post to the scheduled social media network when it will have high visibility without crowding people’s social streams.
I scheduled a post from Hootlet and chose Facebook and Twitter as the social media networks. The posts were scheduled for separate times for each social media network — 4:05pm for Twitter and 4:55pm for Facebook.
Posting regular, insightful updates in social media is important for building a following. There are some people I follow because I know that they will help me pick out the best articles I might have missed. I try to do the same for those who follow me. Scheduling posts on Tweetdeck is one option, but this browser extension makes sharing interesting articles so much easier without dumping 5 links in a row on my followers.
For those who have never used Hootlet, it installs a small button on the left of the URL field in Chrome or Firefox for sharing the link of the site you are currently on. It’s similar to Tweetdeck in that a HootSuite login will remember your account setting and sync them across multiple devices.
Personally, after 2 of the automated posts were published, I received 2 immediate responses to them. The things I schedules were not breaking news but articles on impacts of technology. I cannot say that I wouldn’t have gotten those responses had I posted them immediately but I did get a higher rate of reply than normal.
Although HootSuite is also available as a web interface, an iPhone app, and an Android App, the AutoSchedule feature is only available as a part of the Chrome and Firefox extension so far.
Leave a comment and let us know how you think you would use the AutoSchedule feature, or if you wouldn’t use them at all and why. We look forward to what you have to say.
-CL
Disclosure: HootSuite is a Muck Rack Pro subscriber.
