Remember the show This is Us? Remember that… slow cooker? (You can’t get mad at this as a spoiler; that episode aired in 2018.) When not murdering beloved television show characters, slow cookers make life easier — but you can’t just leave them alone indefinitely, even if it’s almost impossible for them to start a house fire.
You can still return to a burned chili that’s unsafe to eat.
It’s the same with automation: You can’t completely “set it and forget it.” Automation is absolutely key to a scalable, engaged audience, but the key to real engagement is knowing when to let the bots take the wheel and when a human needs to tap into the conversation.
We’ll break down chatbot automation best practices, including when to let the bots run with it and when it’s time to take over.
Why Automation Doesn’t Mean Autopilot
As tempting as it is to let a bot you’ve personalized act as your tireless, unpaid assistant, they’re an addition to — not a replacement for — real human conversations.
Over-automation comes with its risks:
- Decreased engagement from impersonal interactions
- Decreased sales from conversational flows that aren’t optimized
- Missed opportunities for deeper connections with fans and followers
- Decreased follower count from frustrated fans who move their time and attention elsewhere
While follower count isn’t everything, your fans and followers are the backbone of your brand and community. Without them, you’re posting into the void. It’s crucial to balance enhancing engagement via automation on platforms like TikTok, and deepening your connection by stepping into conversations when necessary.
Automation isn’t absolution from ever interacting with your audience.
Best Practices for Chatbot Automation (That Won’t Make You Sound Like a Robot)
The suggested automated responses that come out of the box for any tool you use should be a starting point, not the final product. The best results come from taking the time to implement best practices to get your robot assistant up to speed on your brand and giving your audience what they want — while you’re doing human things like sleeping, eating, and touching grass.
Be sure you:
- Personalize: Don’t let the standard answers hit anyone’s inbox. Address those who message you by name, and use any fun nicknames you might have for your fans and followers.
- Keep it on-brand: Creators have a personal brand they should stick to when tweaking their chatbot responses so messages aren’t jarring to recipients.
- Say when it’s a bot (or not): Make it clear that responses are coming from an on-brand bot; don’t pretend it’s you tirelessly answering every message that hits your DMs day or night.
- Set smart triggers: Pick the tasks that take the most time manually and that your audience won’t mind having automated, like FAQs, status updates for orders, or lead collection. Don’t overdo it.
Audiences are savvy and understand that their favorite brands and creators can’t answer every message or comment they get across time zones. They do expect you to be wise enough to make it clear when it’s an on-brand bot addressing them and when it’s really you (or another human) on the other end.
Best Practices for Automation on TikTok
Every social platform has its culture and quirks; TikTok is no exception. It’s fast-moving and engagement-driven, but it also thrives on authenticity. Creators and businesses build massive followings, which require genuine connection to maintain.
Overautomation is one of the fastest ways to come across as disconnected and kill that community.
What to do with TikTok automation
Smart TikTok automation strategies include:
✅Auto-replying to DMs: Answer FAQs, share resources, let someone know you got their message and will get back to them.
✅Comment-reply automation: This has limits, but you can also respond to FAQs in comments and share resources around upcoming merch drops or events.
✅Keep it casual and on-brand: TikTok isn’t a super formal space, so don’t set up automation that sounds like a highly technical help page.
✅Use it wisely: Set up keyword triggers around giveaways so when someone comments WIN, they’re automatically sent the details.
What not to do with TikTok automation
Automation can hurt instead of help if you:
❌Make it spammy: Mass-replying in comments with the same message is not a good look.
❌Don’t set alerts: If a post is blowing up and every response is automated, you’re missing out on a big opportunity to engage your audience (and potential collabs from brands and creators!) in real time.
❌Never refresh your messaging: Keep messaging from going stale by regularly checking in, ensuring it stays on-brand and isn’t causing interactions and engagements to decline because the same responses have been going out for months.
When to Step In: The Signs That It’s Time for a Human Touch
Let the bot take the opening salvo in most conversations and set clear expectations for when you or another human (depending on if you’re a solo creator or part of a team handling brand communications) steps in.
Here’s when it’s time to take over from your friendly robot assistant:
- Complex questions: When a question goes beyond a standard FAQ you’ve programmed in, it’s time to escalate to an actual human for handling.
- Personal responses: Don’t let the robots listen to someone baring their soul in your DMs. If you’ve shared a personal experience and are getting emotional responses, set aside time to handle those yourself.
- VIP moments: If a high-profile customer or creator you admire engages? That’s your cue to step in and shine.
Leaving any of these to an automation to handle is risky. At best, a standard response can be tone-deaf or frustrate customers who aren’t getting their questions answered. A VIP might move on to another creator or brand if they don’t feel they’re getting the treatment they deserve from an interaction. That’s potentially a huge missed opportunity for your brand!
And even the most loyal fans and followers can be left feeling hurt and demoralized if they pour their heart out to their favorite creator only to have it received by a bot that says, “Thanks for the message babe! Be back soon. 😘”
The Danger of “Set It and Forget It” Social Automation
We laid out some of the most obvious risks associated with automation left to its own devices, like tone-deaf responses and missed opportunities. Still, more situations require human handling.
What not to do
Here are some examples of ways unchecked chatbots can derail conversations and erode any goodwill and community you’ve built around your brand.
💬 Message: Hey! My order came today and it’s COMPLETELY wrong. Can you help me??
🤖 Response: Thanks for reaching out! How can we help you?
❌ Why it doesn’t work: This kind of autoresponse is meant to be a generic acknowledgment of a message received, which is an important way for customers to know you’re responsive. But it comes across as careless when irrelevant to what they’re contacting you for. Worse, customers can get stuck in a loop of unhelpful messages, increasing their frustration and the chances they never want to interact with you again.
💬 Message: Wow, this is really great customer service I’m getting. Thanks so much.
🤖 Response: We are so glad to hear it; thanks for letting us know!!
❌ Why it doesn’t work: Bots are terrible at reading sarcasm (tech generally struggles with accurate sentiment analysis). If a customer gets stuck in an unhelpful loop and responds with sarcasm, then gets this kind of literal response? They will be done with you and probably put you on blast about it within their networks. That’s a missed opportunity to strengthen a customer relationship at best and can snowball into a huge problem if the customer is a VIP.
But what about when you’re a creator, not a business?
💬 Message: Hey, I’m having a really tough time right now and just wanted to let you know how much I love your work. It really helps me when I’m having a bad day. Thank you ❤️
🤖 Response: Wow queen SLAY! 😎
❌ Why it doesn’t work: Playful autoresponses are fine in the right context. Setting them up for every single initial message potentially sets you up for an exchange like this one that comes across as callous and unresponsive to the fans and followers you’ve worked so hard to build a connection with.
The risks are similar to those for businesses; at best you’ve ruined the chance to build a better relationship with one of your most active fans and followers. At worst, you’ve just set yourself up for a PR disaster if that person happens to have a big following of their own and decides to put you on blast.
What to do about it
To avoid situations like these, consider how you set up your automations. Test different types of messages to see how they might work in various situations and tweak your responses as needed. Check in regularly to see how your automations resonate with your audience (if messages sharply decline, see if it’s because the responses don’t match, for example) and update them to ensure they don’t get stale.
Train your bot on specific keywords: “cancel” and “refund” if you’re a business or sell merch, and strong emotions like “angry” or “sad” if you’re a creator. Ideally, set up alerts for conversations that go off-script so a human can step in before things go entirely off the rails.
Automation should enhance customer experience, not damage it. The goal isn’t to avoid it because it could potentially go wrong, but to set it up intentionally so everyone benefits.
Chatbot Automation Best Practices in a Nutshell
You know you need automation to scale, but you don’t want to sacrifice what makes your brand presence uniquely ✨you✨. We get it. That’s why you can’t set-it-and-forget-it.
If you automate wisely, check in and test regularly, and intentionally set up your robot assistants (with those keyword triggers and alerts) so you know when to have a human step in, you’ll be golden.
Ready to give it a go? Check out Manychat and level up your engagement without losing your special sparkle. We’ve even got you covered on TikTok automation now!
