You’ve done your research and you’ve followed all the tips and tricks to a T. You’ve crossed all the t’s and dotted all the i’s but your social media strategies still aren’t working. What could it be that you’re doing wrong?
There are numerous reasons why your social media strategies aren’t working. But let’s begin with the most common problems.
You’re using the wrong social media platform
When it comes to marketing, we keep hearing that the first step into creating an effective marketing campaign is to know your audience. After all, how would you write an effective copy without knowing first for whom you are writing for?
Now imagine you’ve crafted the perfect copy that guarantees the product or service you’re marketing will sell like hotcakes but you’re showing it to your target market’s neighbor. This is the same as posting on the wrong social media platform. Your marketing efforts are all moot.
When devising a social media marketing strategy, it’s important to do proper research with regards to the social media platform where you will launch your social media campaign. Just because TikTok is all the rage now doesn’t mean you should start posting there when your target market is the baby boomers. Head over to Facebook, they’re all there.
You post promotional contents only
When you post on social media, don’t be off putting by blatantly encouraging the viewers to buy what you are selling. A potential customer will not just purchase the product or avail the service you’re marketing. They would want to get to know the brand first.
Good social media strategists know that an effective social media content strategy must include content for every client no matter where they are in the marketing funnel stage. Sharing informational and educational content every once in a while will keep your audience engaged and more receptive to your promotional contents.
You’re not consistent
Great social media strategies fail on implementation because of consistency. Even if you have tons of social media marketing ideas but you’re not posting them consistently, the following that you have will dwindle. You will lose the interest of your audience and they will not wait for you to post when you are ready.
You’re not monopolizing the different types of social media marketing
People think that the term social media marketing just pertains to posting on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc. and that is that. But in reality, this is just one way for businesses to grow their online presence.
If you are just focusing on posting on different social media channels without considering content marketing, advertising, influencer marketing, and paid media marketing, you’re not fully taking advantage of the social media marketing’s reach.
You don’t have solutions for the toughest social media challenges
When it comes to social media marketing, it’s best that you have a solution to the 8 difficult issues that plague social media marketing.
Dormant social media engagement
Even if you already have a steady following, be sure to constantly engage with your followers. If you are not engaging and interacting with your followers, they’d unfollow you and follow a more responsive brand.
Inaccurate measurement of ROI
In social media marketing, there is what we call vanity metrics. Some businesses who do social media marketing falsely assume that their social media marketing strategies are working because they have thousands of views on a promotional video or that they are gaining tons of new followers per day.
If this is how you measure your ROI or whether your social media strategies are successful or not, you are in for a rude awakening. Consider tracking actionable metrics instead (i.e. customer retention rate, churn rate, etc.)
Managing multiple social media channels
Being active in numerous social media channels doesn’t necessarily equate to more visibility. Don’t spread yourself too thin and just focus on one social media platform specifically what your target audience frequently uses or use social media scheduling tools to stay on top of things.
Not having social media goals
If you are posting on social media “just because”, you’d soon feel overwhelmed and discouraged thinking that there are no immediate results to your efforts. Posting on social media without any measurable goals is a waste of time. An oldie but goodie social media marketing tip is to figure out your goals and expectations and prepare a roadmap on how to achieve that.
Creative blocks
Social media marketing is an all consuming job and sooner or later, you’d hit creative blocks that no matter what you do, your creative juices aren’t just flowing. When this happens, you could find inspiration by looking at social media marketing examples that are viral and trending, repurpose your content or look at what your competitors are doing and steal ahem, improve them.
Negative reviews
One of the pitfalls of social media is that everyone can post negative reviews in an instant. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true, baseless or doesn’t have any merits (I’m looking at you, you keyboard warriors), these negative reviews impact businesses in more ways than one. To overcome this, best to have a crisis plan to mitigate such issues.
Poor quality content
People are visual creatures and if your social media accounts consist of poor quality visuals and boring graphics, your social media marketing strategies will not work.
Unsuitable influencer
Influencers no matter what negative buzz surrounds them are still effective and it’s a crime to not leverage their influence (pardon the pun). However, it’s important that you find a suitable and credible influencer for your brand, not just someone famous for all the wrong reasons.
Social Media Strategies – Conclusion
Social media marketing is constantly changing and even if it’s a lot of work, you need to keep up. Continue studying its ever evolving landscape, read every social media marketing strategy pdf and ebooks you could find and you’d soon see your social media strategies resulting in positive results.