If you run a small business, you need to be active on social media. Facebook has over 1.2 billion monthly active users, Instagram has reach a billion and Twitter is over 320 million. These massive numbers are reason enough to create social media profiles and start marketing products and services. But just being on social media isn’t enough and most small businesses don’t create actual strategies for their social accounts. Throwing money at Facebook ads or posting pictures on Instagram can prove to be costly and time consuming if the posts aren’t hitting their mark. If you aren’t seeing results from your social media marketing, it may be time to rethink your strategy.
Here are 3 seasons why your social media marketing isn’t working:
ON THE WRONG PLATFORM
- Having a presence on multiple social media platforms is a good idea, but you need to make sure you’re on the right ones. Being active on a channel where your customers aren’t present won’t do you any good.
- Do some research and find out where your target audience lives. If your customers are mostly active on Twitter and Facebook, then investing more time in those platforms is a good idea.
NOT CREATING NEW CONTENT
- You, as an owner, have fifty items to cross off the checklist every day and writing a blog post is not typically at the top. But it’s important to maintain a consistent social presence if you hope to retain an engaging social media audience.
- There are a number of social media dashboards (Hootsuite, Buffer & Sprout Social) that allow you to schedule posts. It’s not going to create the content for you, but it gives you a way to schedule content ahead of time.
NOT ENGAGING WITH FOLLOWERS
- Social media is not just a tool to share your latest company updates, but a platform to connect with your customer base. If you aren’t interacting with your followers on a consistent basis, you are missing an opportunity to build a more genuine relationship with them.
- Listen to your customers and find out what they like and don’t like about your product or service.
- Help solve their issues and concerns that show you care about their opinions and questions. Use that information to improve or even expand your services.
- Build your brand by running creative contests and giveaways that spark engagement and a bit of fun.
There’s a reason why companies hire full time people to run their social media accounts. There’s a lot of work that goes into creating a successful social strategy. It may feel like an uphill battle, but it’s very doable. Start with finding the right platform, being more consistent with content creation and engaging more with your followers. Do these things and your social media metrics will go up.