Automating social selling, my thoughts

People often ask me my thoughts on automating aspects of social selling / LinkedIn.

Can AI work in social selling?

My opinion is nuanced.

So here are my unfiltered thoughts on automating or using

• Pro: There are many manual tasks with no nuance required which automation can help with, for example, connecting, removing connections, collecting lists etc.
• Con: When you scale any form of automated outreach humans can perceive it, they can help it wasn't written for them specifically and that undermines performance.
• Con: LinkedIn is aggressively restricting accounts that it notices using automation and so it poses a serious risk to your account if you use it.
• Pro: If you're time poor is can fulfil many things that you don't have the time for. You have to be smarter in how you do that, because of the performance issues mentioned above.
• Con: Many people use screenshots to show bad practice, if you get it wrong, you can become their next post - I scrub names, but some don't.

Overall, my view of automation is that for direct contact with prospective clients, best not, but for admin tasks, absolutely. But be aware of the risks of restrictions if you overcook it.

My strong recommendation is that before you automate anything, do it manually first, because once you have a feel for what works and what doesn't.