Automated feeds - what's next? Twitbook?

There are so many applications now available to feed your RSS stream into twitter or to automatically link your blog to your Facebook page. No point in doing the same job twice I agree but it does irk me when a company I follow on twitter doesn't bother to take the time to think before they post.

Look at a company's Facebook page - are they short, sharp company focused posts? Or are they open ended questions looking for fans and friends to engage and comment? If it's the former, they probably use an automatic feed but if it's the latter, they most likely took the time to engage with their social media audience.

Facebook pages where all the postings are less than Twitter's 140 character limit are a dead giveaway. How else can you tell? Zero comments, likes or page suggestions usually.

Similarly, look at news services that automatically post their headlines to Twitter. The headline often trails off mid sentence, or worse, mid word. Companies who do this might think they come across as extremely media savvy, but all it says to me is that engaging with their key publics through social media is low on their list of priorities.