Social media can be the best tool in your marketing arsenal or it can be the thing that makes you pull your hair out. I get it. I really do. I love social media for marketing but if you don’t have the right strategy in place, it can drive you crazy and leave you thinking of it as a useless tool. This is why I’m always such a big advocate for utilizing a social media strategy – and why I enjoy working with clients so much to help them craft a social media strategy that they can actually manage.
You may have a social media strategy in place. Or you may just be “winging” it as you go. Either way, if you’re struggling with any of these 10 challenges, chances are it’s time to update (or create a new) social media strategy to realign your efforts and results.
1. You Don’t Know What to Post
An effective social media strategy should include content creation and curation information so that you never run out of ideas of what to post. If you’re confused about what to post on your social media accounts, you need to focus on this in a new social media strategy!
2. Only Posting Promotional Content
Almost worse than not knowing what to post is when you inundate your audience with overly promotional content. If you’re using social media purely as a megaphone to spew what you have for sale or blast the services you offer, you really need to develop a content strategy.
3. Only Posting What YOU Want
Yes, it’s your social media account. But if you’re using it for business, you need to be factoring in what your audience wants to see, not just what you want to show them. An effective social media strategy will help you determine your target audience and their social media habits. This will help you create and share content that is of value to them.
4. Engagement is Stagnant or Dropping
There should always be some level of growth in your social media activity. You should be gaining new followers (even if it’s only one new person a week). You should be reaching more people and driving more comments or “likes”. Sure, there will be down weeks or slow times. But, in general, you should see a steady trend in a positive direction. If you’re lacking in this growth, then a social media strategy can help you determine tactics and plans to initiate this growth and encourage more engagement.
5. No New People Engaging
Related to number 4, if you aren’t seeing new fans or anyone new engaging with your content, it’s time to revamp your social media strategy. You could be gaining new followers but if you always have the same core fans engaging with your content and aren’t attracting new engagement, then something is lacking in your strategy. It may be that your new fans are looking for something else and you need to figure out what that is and if it’s something you can provide.
6. Not Driving Sales from Social Media
While social media should be a tool to help with sales, you should be able to determine what sales you are actually driving from social media. It could be a social media exclusive discount code that lets you know how many people purchased based on that social media promotion or campaign. It could be customers telling you they saw your recent post and want to work with you. However you are driving sales and however you can track those sales, social media should be able to show actual value in driving revenue for you. If it’s not, you need a strategy to help you do this.
7. Not Driving Traffic to Your Website
You rent social media. You own your website. Your website is your hub – where customers can find out more information, buy from you, sign up for your newsletter, read your blog posts, and more. Ideally, this is where you want your audience – where you can convert them! So if you’re not driving traffic to your website from social media, you need an effective strategy and tactics to get these important results.
8. Difficulty Managing Your Time
It may be that you can’t find enough time to do what you want on social media. Or you may get lost down the rabbit hole when you log in. Or you may feel like you’re spending too much time on social media and neglecting other daily responsibilities. Any of these issues can leave you struggling with social media and frustrated. It’s important to craft a social media strategy around the realistic time you have each day. Whether that’s half an hour or 6 hours a day. Know your limits and craft a social media strategy that allows you to be successful within that time limit.
9. Not Seeing “Success” on Social Media
Success will mean different things to different people when it comes to social media. Whether you want a certain dollar value of sales, or a certain number of opt-ins, or a certain level of brand awareness, or a certain threshold of fans (not that fan count alone should ever really define success…), you need to know what your success looks like. If you don’t know then you don’t think it’s working and then you get frustrated and want to give up. By defining success for you and your business, you can work on creating a strategy aimed at reaching that goal.
10. Feeling Like You’re Ready to Give Up
This is the stage after you feel like you haven’t seen success. And it probably follows a number of the other issues listed above. So many people give up on social media because they don’t believe it will work for them. They struggle and lack clarity for a plan forward, leaving them grasping at straws and eventually throwing in the towel. But I promise you, you CAN see success on social media! Don’t give up. Instead, take a moment to step back and rethink your efforts. Take the time to get an effective strategy in place and give yourself a real plan moving forward. This will make a huge difference in the results you see!
And you may very well be able to craft your own social media strategy. If you’ve drafted a business plan, marketing plan, budget, or other aspects of management for your business, you can create your own social media strategy. You might just need some guidance and tips to get you in the right direction. If this is you, I highly recommend you purchase my ebook on Amazon (if you’re outside the US, just search Amazon for my name – Jenn Herman – and you’ll find it right away!). This book is a step-by-step guide that will allow you to go from start to finish in crafting your own social media strategy that will produce real and tangible results for you.
If, however, you don’t think that you want to write your own strategy, I also offer strategy development packages where I work one-on-one with you to get all the necessary information and generate a fully actionable strategy customized for you and your business. Having this strategy designed for you gives you a clear roadmap for the year ahead and allows you to really focus your social media efforts so that you can see the success you deserve.
If you are interested in a strategy package or talking with me one-on-one for more help and guidance, I would definitely like to work with you! Just contact me and let me know what you’re looking for and we’ll get you quickly on the path to social media success!
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