Many people use automation in their blog postings and status updates – several services exist that will post an update automatically for you at a time you specify.
These can be useful if you want to schedule updates – indeed I used to use them myself when I first started.
One thing to be aware of though is time – specifically night time. When your update goes out will affect your credibility. People who don’t know about automation will wonder why you were up at that time of night and if you are someone they would want to do business with the next day.
In addition, sending out updates in the middle of the night means that your audience is tiny compared to during the day, and the chances of your posting being missed are high.
I have seen a professional who had their twitter account set up to blast out several messages an hour 24 hours a day – with a UK market it’s unlikely anyone would be interested at 1am, and when people see the time of the posting it’s going to form part of their opinion about the poster.