Should I Automate My Social Media Marketing?

Well, are you stupid? Then by all means.

If you aren't, then you are going to have to think deeply about what kinds of activity is value added by the fact of its being non-scalable. A lot of social media stuff (tweets, posts, etc) can be scheduled in advance, especially the promotional type actions. But the core value of a social media marketing campaign is the content you create and use to connect with and build your audience.

There are no short cuts. Spamming or posting meaningless, valueless marketing content will not generate you a credible audience of the right kind of targeted individuals.

Content creation is expensive and time consuming. Yes, you can re-purpose already created content. Yes, you can and should aggregate content you create with that you find through your network of peers and on the Internet. But the core of your social media marketing program has to be the entertaining, engaging and educational content you create yourself. And it can't suck.

All marketers need to start thinking like publishers.