Jumping into the social media arena is like standing on the precipice of a cliff, faced down with adrenaline and fear. Most people feel something between excitement over the possibility of their growing connections and terror at all the things that can go wrong.The biggest source of frustration though is when neither of those extremes occurs. Instead, you put in a ton of effort and get very little reaction or return on that investment. There can be many root causes, but if you’re experiencing social media silence we recommend taking a close look at one of the following three issues. With a quick adjustment, you could soon have your social media efforts back on track.
1. A failure to resource properly
Succeeding at social media requires allocating resources in the form of staff time to get it done. A certain amount of investment needs to happen up front to correctly set up social media channels. Staff time needs to be allocated for content creation, technical administration, and most of all actively engaging with your fans and followers.
If you work with an outsourced agency, the budget has to be adequate to allow them to meet the same objectives. Social media is at its heart social – there needs to be content generated regularly that grabs people’s attention as well as avenues for connection and discussion. This requires human attention and time – so if your social media is failing, make sure someone on your team has enough time to coordinate and participate.
2. Not connecting actions to outcomes
Social media goals should be determined by your business goals. The reasons for getting on social media can be many, ranging from those that directly affect the bottom line like attracting new customers to simply building brand awareness in target communities. When deciding on your social media strategy, be clear on what you’re trying to achieve within the context of your business. For example, if your goal is to connect with customers but all your time is being spent on industry sites connecting with your peers, it’s time to adjust your strategy.
One way to accomplish this goal is to create a list of your top 3 reasons for being on social media, along with clear outcomes that would mean success. For example, if your goal is to attract more attention from mom bloggers you can then boil that down. Get more specific – the outcomes you’re looking for are to receive three reviews, articles, or interviews on your core products this quarter. Once the outcome is clear, the actions immediately become obvious: develop creative content geared toward mom bloggers, start showing up where they hang out, commenting on their blogs, reaching out individually, sending product samples, etc.
3. Bad content choices
One of the major reasons that social media efforts fail is due to bad content choices. Bad content choices come in a variety of formats:
• Little content is generated or shared – in other words, you don’t offer anything of value (how-tos, entertaining, educational, special discounts, etc.) in order to get people to visit and engage.
• Content is geared toward the wrong audience – the classic example of this is when a social media effort is supposed to be geared toward customers, but all the articles written, tweets, etc. are about the state of your industry. If you run a lawn care company, you should be writing about the latest in lawn care products, best lawn techniques, etc., rather than how to get the best deal on high end landscaping equipment that would be more appropriate for an industry association newsletter.
• Failing to use analytics to understand engagement – One easy example of this is Facebook Insights, which allows you to see which posts cause engagement such as likes, comments, and shares. Seeing what kinds of content your audience reacts to and using that data to craft future content can dramatically improve your response rate and social media success.
Contribute To Our Site By Write For Us.
