15 Reasons Why Social Media Isn’t Working for Your Business
Social media is an extremely effective platform. Used properly, social media is a tool for businesses to:
- Engage with customers (existing and potential)
- Boost brand awareness and reputation
- Develop an online presence
- Generate more leads for your goods or services
Though there are multiple perks to using social media for business, it’s key to remember that a solid marketing strategy is vital to getting the results you’re after.
If you’re a new, established, or struggling business coming to grips with social media, you may be wondering, ‘why isn’t social media working for my business?’
As mentioned above, social media has a wealth of benefits for all businesses (big and small), but just being online isn’t enough – it’s your content strategy and interactivity that make it work. Rethink and restructure your content marketing approach, and social media should work better for you.
At alldayPA, we can help make social media work for your business – but first, let’s have a look at some pointers that’ll help make your brand a hit on social media!
How can social media be a useful platform for businesses?
The only barrier between business owners and customers these days is a screen!
Now that social media marketing is constantly continuing to expand, everyone from your relatives and friends to businesses from all industries are using social media. Be it Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn – or the plethora of social media platforms that are available to individuals all around the globe nowadays – social media is a platform with an abundance of opportunities for your brand and business, regardless of your industry or size.
Increasing your online presence as part of your business’s digital marketing strategy allows you to:
- Boost brand recognition
- Directly address customer enquiries
- Attract new customers
Simply put, individuals can’t become your customers if they are unaware of your business and who you are. By putting in a reasonable amount of time and effort, social media can help you reach a large audience (even your target audience) and increase your brand exposure to potential customers.
Additionally, there is no risk involved in setting up a social media account to boost your company’s presence online, since most – if not all – major social media platforms are completely free to sign up for and set up. Not a penny involved!
15 reasons why social media isn’t working for your business
We’ve already outlined and broken down some of the various reasons why social media is a useful platform for your business. Likewise, we have discussed why mastering your content and online marketing strategy is essential to getting the most from your social media.
So, with all this in mind, here are 15 reasons why social media might not be working for your business.
1. Posting with no strategy
Everyone (and we mean absolutely anyone) can post on social media whenever they want, at any time, throughout the day, as many times as they wish. Of course, simply posting to your social media does not guarantee any engagement whatsoever – some people may see it but not interact with the post at all. This is why a strategy needs to be put in place.
Posting without a strategy for scheduling, the time you post, what you post, who your posts are targeted for, and how you plan on users interacting with the post is practically pointless. It means not only is there less chance of anyone interacting with the post but also you have no plan on how to follow up to the post if anyone were to engage with it.
Also, if a social network post does wind up being successful but there was no strategy behind it, you have less chance of knowing what you did to make the campaign or post effective.
2. Posting at the wrong time
Linking back to the importance of planning, are you planning what times and when exactly you post to social media?
We can’t stress how important it is that you post your content at the right time when your audience and customer are most active, since there is going to be a much higher chance your audience will see your content and engage.
Posting at a time when your audience isn’t active – or when they’re asleep – is obviously going to lead to less awareness, fewer engagements, lower metrics and fewer leads. In other words, don’t be posting at 3am!
3. Not understanding your audience
When it comes to social media content, you need to give your audience what they want. You must have a thorough understanding of your audiences in order to connect with them on social media platforms, and really create content that they can relate to.
Many social media algorithms reward users who participate with their content, particularly through comments and chats. To do this effectively, you need to understand your audience. This calls for using terminology and conveying messages that they can relate to and delivering useful content in a way that appeals to them.
4. Focusing too much on yourself
Social media platforms are primary social channels for sharing views, status updates and information (sometimes useless information), or for sharing photos and videos that portray personal experiences and interests.
Not everyone is bothered about just your brand. If you are trying to sell, promote the product the best you can, but building your online presence involves focusing on the audience and others too.
The more you focus on trending topics and stuff that interests your audience, the more they will want to come back to you for more content, as opposed to seeing the same old posts from you repeatedly.
5. Having no personality and uniqueness
Users will unfollow social media accounts with very little personality and a lack of uniqueness, according to research. Therefore, you should avoid becoming repetitive, monotonous and overly formal.
Businesses can have personality too – and it can be your content that defines it. This can be set through your tone, the content you post, stories, how you interact or even how you react to users.
Be social, engage with your audience, and make yourself a likeable business online.
6. Lack of user interaction (don’t leave me hanging)
Social media algorithms favour posts that have a lot of interaction and engagement, especially when discussions take place on them.
People demand an immediate response when they message or comment. Therefore, you must respond promptly if you want to have interactions with them. If you wait too long, more often than not, they’ll have moved on in the time it takes you to respond to them.
Here, alldayPA can help with bespoke business support, taking on your customer queries and responding promptly in a tone and style that matches your brand. Our team is quick, engaging, and motivational to users to boost engagement – this will enhance your customer service significantly.
Social media customer service is equally as important nowadays.
7. Lack of consistency
‘Consistency is key’ – a term we hear very often in many life situations – is also relevant when it comes to social media. Don’t sit around and be lazy with your content, posting the odd post in dribs and drabs without any consistency or thought behind why and when you post on social media.
Keep in mind, however, that consistency does not mean high frequency. By this, we mean: remain consistent with your posts, but do not put out a post every single day for the sake of it, as this will become too repetitive.
Instead, stick to around 3 or 4 posts a week, remain consistent with the time of day you post them (e.g. 12 pm or 6 pm every 2 days), and stick to posting on specific days every week (e.g. every Tuesday and Thursday) so that you stay as consistent as possible. You may have a specific day you post every week with a specific type of content just that day – for example, you might do a ‘Motivational Monday’ post every Monday.
Check the analytics for your posts and engagement to determine which times and days are the best for you to post on a consistent basis – you’d go off what works for your own schedule and what receives the most engagement from your audience.
8. A heavy focus on followers
Since as far back as one can possibly remember, almost everyone has desired to have a lot of money – the only numbers or figures that some people once cared most about. However, in an era brimming with social media and content creators, everyone desires to have the most followers – as if it’s some sort of empowerment or hierarchy. But followers aren’t what it’s all about when it comes to social media marketing and management.
Of course, the more followers you have, the more your post is going to be seen by people. But, what does this matter if your content isn’t good or if your followers aren’t active? You’d rather have 100 active followers where 75% of them engage with your posts and are actual fans of your content than have 1000 followers who are inactive and only around a 5% engagement rate from the lot of them, right?
Don’t focus too much on trying to gain followers since there is a substantial difference between followers and ‘a following’ on social media. Followers have simply clicked one button and can see your content in their feed, whereas a following is a group of active people who support everything you do – follow counts don’t define this.
9. Lack of compelling visuals
Graphics and visuals are key to drawing in that much-desired attention from audiences. You could create punchy and compelling visuals that captivate audiences – some of which may capture the attention of all users. However, you can post graphics that are designed to simply attract only the target audience you want to reach out to.
Social media is, without a doubt, an extremely saturated market – likewise, some graphics will jump out at users, even for the wrong reasons, while others will get lost among the rabble. While fascinating visuals are crucial, simple graphics like gifs, recycled content or memes can be just as effective in forming powerful content.
10. Not making use of paid advertising
Although social media is completely free of charge to sign up and post unlimited amounts of content, many platforms do offer paid advertising options for you to boost or promote your content, account, or page. So, if all else fails, paid advertising could be your best move.
Of course, there are ways of getting the most from social media without having to spend a penny, but paid ads are certainly an effective way of promoting your business – even for just a tenner. This could be a profitable strategy for you.
11. You don’t know (or understand) your audience
We mean it – knowing your audience is essential because, if you haven’t yet identified which target audience (there may be multiple) is likely to bring in money to your business, it means you’re probably aiming to convey your message to a larger than necessary audience.
With social media, this means your content isn’t specific and could wind up getting lost in the algorithm. Once your target audience has been marketed to, and they are engaging with your posts, you must then ensure you’re being responsive or else they’ll likely disappear again.
At alldayPA, we offer outsourced social media management, handling all your social media interactions whilst making our communications seamless with your company’s tone.
12. Posting on the wrong platform
Not every social media platform is the same.
LinkedIn and Twitter have similar elements – you can post updates in the form of a written post or you can post photos and videos in which users can like, comment, repost and share on their feeds with their own thoughts. However, the two are designed for different audiences.
LinkedIn is a powerful network intended for business professionals and legitimate businesses that are often a much older demographic and want to share a great supply of content.
On the other hand, Twitter is a popular social media app/platform for active users usually aged 20 to 34 to share views and interests. It can often be a source of news consumption that challenges major news outlets.
Do your homework, research, and determine which platforms are (and which aren’t) most suitable for your target audience.
13. Failing to analyse what works best
To achieve the best from anything, you must take your time and be patient, trying and testing out a number of ways to approach your content strategy and engage with your audience.
Social media marketers can help you determine what works best for your brand. Or, you could do this yourself through analysing analytics and metrics to see what sort of content is bringing in the most interaction from users – both those who do and don’t follow you.
You may get it right the first time – or it may take you a fair few attempts to get it right. But, once you’ve found what works best for your content strategy, it will be worth it in the end.
Social media usage is always increasing, so people will be active a lot to help you test new ideas and strategies without even knowing it.
14. You aren’t authentic enough
In social media marketing, authenticity is not only incredibly vital for interacting with your audience, but it’s also rare to see – a multitude of businesses are inauthentic in the way they present themselves online. Since customers are more aware than ever, they can often tell when you aren’t being authentic.
For example, many companies simply try too hard, and it’s obvious to users that you just want them to follow you, click a link or buy something that your business is offering.
Avoid being too ‘salesy’ -instead, be more down to earth and genuine with audiences. This way, you can also form personal bonds with customers, and increase the chances of them buying one of your products or taking in the message you are trying to convey to them, since they can relate to you more.
15. You’re not making new content
While you don’t want social media to take over your entire day – or social life – you should spend some time making sure your website has enough new content to retain the interest and attention of your audience or other users and, in turn, to drive your social media’s productive output.
Staying relevant in an already competitive market that is becoming more and more saturated, growing rapidly each day, is crucially important. Make sure your new content is fresh, exciting and relevant, while keeping your competition in mind so that you can, ultimately, create the best content that keeps users coming back.
If you are struggling to answer all of your replies, questions, and direct messages, why not turn to alldayPA for help?
Here at alldayPA, we can handle all aspects of customer service, 24/7, 365 days a year. From call answering to a virtual receptionist, outsourced call centre, and, of course, social media – we can do it all.
Get in touch with us today to see how alldayPA can help you to transform your social media strategy, taking the management of interactions on social media off your hands so that you have the time to do what you do best – growing and marketing your business.