If you had asked me anytime over the past few years would i partake in the presentation of fictional characters on the internet, i’d likely have said no, and that i have enough problems maintaining my own various online accounts.
Fast forward to today, August 30th 2020 and i’m developing and maintaining the online presence of two characters from my up and coming film – The Fakefluencer: Tom Gillespie and BitMan360
Of course this is nothing new, i have not broken any new ground; indeed there are numerous creative projects that have used this method in the past.
But i’d like to touch on my discovery of the software solutions for scheduling and automating away the rigmarole of sharing my characters many many posts across multiple platforms. You can often spot them by the service name-tag these types of post often have attached to them.
I have used these service on and off over the years with mixed results, mainly little to none. And so i decided a while ago that i would not pay for any of these services, the free versions are often enough to compliment typical social media marketing efforts and that’s the key word here, compliment.
Social media is supposed to be all about getting social, just like that famously hilarious social media song ‘Let’s Get Social‘ highlighted. Of course, that may have been the original hope for social media, but it seems to have been somewhat diluted by commercial entities scheduling posts out in to eternity.
Fishing for engagement using automated services is a little bit like how a fisherman sets up several fishing rods on stands and leaves the lines in the water waiting for a fish to come along, when the bell rings he hops on the line and starts to reel it in.
Assuming a significant chunk of social web posts are scheduled using these widely available tools then we could also assume that behind each automated post is an army of real people ready to engage with the masses right?
Or, more likely just more automated responses.
All the way down the funnel until you arrive at the moment of purchase.
None of this appears very social.
So what about using these automated services to compliment real social activities?
I have also experimented a fair bit with this approach however, i have experienced that the social media platforms appear to not really care much for automated posts, unless its done via their own tools, and/or you are already established and have dedicated following and deep brand awareness.
This left me with the realisation that the best way for me to utilise these services is to have them compliment real social media activity which of course still takes a ton of time and effort.
Getting in there and being part of the conversation has seen the best results for my projects, but this takes a ton of time, and unlike with automated services it’s time you have no control over and so requires you to always be on social and ready to engage whenever and with whoever brings the conversation deeper down your rabbit hole.
But Rich, you know you can automate responses right?
Yes, i am aware you can automate the social media funnel all the way down to the moment of purchase and even the purchase and delivery itself and that’s immensely valuable for a consumer good, but what of the human touch?
And what if you’re not selling products or services, but ideas? Ideas that have the power to change the social fabric itself? If you can automate social interactions around ideas at scale, political or otherwise then what does that mean for social interactions online in general?
What has been your experience with automated social media services? I’d be keen to hear how you use them and what your approach has been.
Not a robot,
Rich.
PS: I am making a film and i want to see you at the premiere!
Grab a free ticket here: https://www.thefakefluencer.com