Is Social Network Automation Spam?

One of the biggest complaints I hear about social media platforms like LinkedIn, Plaxo, Facebook and Twitter is the amount of spam on the network. As a person with a high sensitivity to both internal and external distractions, this unwanted din makes it very difficult to listen carefully to the conversation.

On the other hand, participating in social networks takes a lot of time. I write an online newsletter on travel marketing and destination branding, write a travel marketing blog, a Facebook page, a LinkedIn account, answer LinkedIn Q&As, a Digg account, a Technorati account, a public Google Reader rss feed, and a Plaxo page. Keeping up with all of these different social media spaces is more than a full time job.

Over the past year, I have been experimenting with some of the automation tools to reduce the amount of time I spend starting conversations so I can direct more time listening and responding to the conversations of others.

Some would say that these automation tools are bad social media etiquette.

Under certain circumstances, I would whole-heartedly agree. However, I believe with proper thought and care, these automation tools can help cut down on the spam I create and focus my attention on being a meaningful participant in the conversation.

In the past, every time I had something to say, in a blog post for instance or a comment on something I read on Google Reader, I would spend a couple of hours going through the process of alerting my various social networks manually. With the help of automation tools, I can now write a blog post or comment on an article in Google Reader and let my entire network know about in seconds.

Is this spam?

I suppose if I set these automation tools to randomly spit out alerts, the answer would be yes. Or if my posts and comments were on subjects not of interest to my followers, again yes it would be spam. But now that I am using these automation tools (very judiciously and only when warranted), I can spend more time listening. As a result, my posts and comments are now more relevant to what my network is interested in hearing from me. How do I know this?  

The number of comments I am receiving on my blog is increasing and the number of meaningful relationships within my social network is growing.