OK, Automation is the name of the game here at PayBack Towers. The more you can automate your business (or rather the processes that make up your business), the more productive you can be in the end, right? Right!

Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean that any automation is good. For instance, it’s a well known fact by now, that an article marketer using mass-article submission as an automation weapon is going to be penalized (to an extent, anyway) by the Search Engines. And just think about this logically for a moment – it really does make perfect sense. I mean, consider your own business – if someone (anyone) was doing something that would end up giving your customers a worse product, you’d fight it with teeth and claws. And the Search Engines think exactly the same way. The product they’re delivering to their customers are reliable, high-quality search results. And they want this to be true for every damn search result they’re delivering (or at least as close to every one as possible).

When someone uses some kind of black hat, method to game the search engine results, what do you think the Search Engines will do about that. Sit happily, idly by and watch what’s going on – or use all of their (considerable) resources to try and thwart this attempt? That’s a no-brainer question if there ever was one.

So, whenever a new gaming method pops up – like keyword stuffing, backlink gaming, content scrambling, whatever – you can bet your business that the Search Engines will be aware. Do not make the mistake of believing for a second, that the Search Engines are unaware of any publicly known new methods. They read the same info you do. They’re on the same lists you are. They buy the same products you do (they can afford this rather better than you can, though ). In short, they know.

And, of course, this is not limited to Search Engines. Everywhere you go to create some kind of presence, there’ll be people monitoring what’s going on, ready to step on the brakes the minute they notice something fishy. Spamming on Twitter? You’ll get banned. Gaming CraigsList? You’ll get banned. Etc. Ad infinitum. So, if you’re considering using BlackHat methods, you damn well better be one of the ones inventing the stuff, cause they’re the only ones sure to profit from this – first from exploiting the methods in the first place, after that, they’ll sell you the info at a healthy price.

Now, when it comes to using automation, you have to figure this into the puzzle, that you’re only automating legitimate processes – i.e. you’re going to be automating exactly the same processes you would do manually to achieve the wanted result.

Let’s take the TwAitter service I wrote about the other day as an example. Now, it would be pretty easy to set this up to totally spam the hell out of your Twitter account. A few hours of work every month would be what was needed. But! This would probably lead to Twitter doing one of two things – banning your account and/or contacting TwAitter, telling them to impose some hefty limits on their service. Guess what – you’ll be pretty unpopular at both sites.

If, instead of this, you look at TwAitter, as a way to do easier what you’d otherwise do perfectly within the Twitter TOS – say, promoting a few programs, sending some self development quotes, and stuff like that. So you set up a tweeting schedule for the next 2 weeks, with about one tweet per hour. Now, you’ve got your campaigns going – guess what? You’ve now freed up some time which you could use to actually being social on Twitter. Can you see the difference?

So, this is the sort of distinction you’d need to consider each and every time you want to automate some of the processes of your business. PayBack would very much like to help you with this, which is why there’re going to be a lot more reviews and presentations of tools and services on this blog (given time – reviewing and presenting these are not one of the things we’re going to automate )

Do be aware though, that things change continually in this. What’s perfectly acceptable behaviour today, could be severely frowned upon next week. It’s the nature of the beast, and you’ve got to roll with the punches. See it like this – you’ve got absolutely no say in how services like Google or Twitter is run – if you’re lucky they’ll listen while you complain, but they’ll do things the way they believe is right in the end anyway. As you would concerning your business. So be prepared for changes to come – and when they come… don’t waste time complaining. Act instead.

If there are things you’d like to see us write about – or if you’ve got any questions, tips, or stuff you’d like to discuss, please leave a comment or send an email. We’re always happy to chat about these subjects – they are, after all, close to our hearts (and businesses).