Your brand’s social media presence expansion woes are shared by many others.
Right now, brands across the board are engaged in a heated battle for the attention of the 71% of consumers who are logging more social media hours per week. To make matters more challenging, a slew of new networks have emerged, and followers have higher expectations than ever before.
This article addresses eight of the most widespread problems with social media marketing that companies face today. We’ll give you some suggestions for what to do next that will be specific to each problem.
1. Dwindling engagement and fewer post interactions
It’s no secret that organic social media engagement has been declining.
When there are more people and companies on a network, everyone must work harder to attract new customers and loyal followers. After all, there is a finite amount of social contact available.
Though the decline in user engagement has been most noticeable on Facebook and Twitter, it is now also having an effect on brand pages on Instagram.
We’ll put our necks on the line and say that one of the most difficult aspects of social media marketing is finding ways to get around algorithms. Gaining exposure and engagement can be difficult without investing in paid promotion to supplement organic content. Although, it’s not an unwinnable battle.
Solutions:
- To find out what motivates the most engagement, analyse your best-performing posts. Explore the possibility of a unifying theme among these comments (think: timing, content themes, post types, formatting, voice).
- Your content should be geared toward reaching your current base of fans, buyers, and community members. Content based on questions, user-generated content campaigns, and replies to shout-outs and comments are all examples.
- To increase the number of times your brand is mentioned, you should think about forming partnerships with influential people and companies.
2.Being noticeable in a crowd full of commoners
Afraid your opinion won’t be heard?
As was mentioned earlier, competition is high in most fields. The beauty industry is a prime example, full of brands and advocates eager to display their wares in action.
Competing with well-established businesses, including well-known names in your field, can be challenging for a startup.
We suggest Prioritize building your own identity and network before worrying about anyone else’s. It’s easy to get caught up in pointless comparisons of follower counts and engagement rates, but doing so serves neither you nor your followers.
Keep in mind that the success of a smaller, tight-knit group is more important than the appearance of success in the eyes of the masses.
Solutions:
- Make customer interaction the centrepiece of your marketing efforts (think: user-generated content, responding to questions, comments and tagging)
- When crafting your brand’s voice, don’t forget to inject some character (think: humour, relatability) to help you stand out from the crowd.
- Engage your staff to expand the brand’s content beyond your own social media channels.
3. Time wasted switching between different social media sites
Notifications, messages, etc. Time limits on content. Actually, I could keep going on and on with the list.
Lost productivity is likely one of your biggest social media challenges if you’re attempting to build a presence across multiple platforms.
Having a presence on multiple platforms necessitates posting and responding to comments on multiple channels, which can be exhausting if you don’t have a plan in place.
Given that each day has only 24 hours in it, it’s essential to prioritise tasks without jeopardising connections with clients or derailing your own plans.
Solutions:
- Determine which connections are most important to you, and prioritise them. Where do you spend the most time with people who matter to you? To what extent do you believe certain regions are experiencing accelerated development? Which medium is most conducive to realising your company’s objectives?
- Choose a social media management platform, such as Sprout, to centralise your online profiles and content. As a result, you can spend less time switching between networks and more time actually working.
- If your in-house marketing team is too small, think about expanding it or delegating tasks to others.
4. Because of the lack of social media literacy among key stakeholders
No longer is social media a “shiny new toy.”
However, not everyone in an organisation will agree that social media should be a top investment priority.
In fact, the impact of social media on expanding a company’s client base is well-documented, covering everything from lead generation to customer nurturing and beyond. In fact, four of the top five marketing priorities for 2023 are directly associated with social media and their respective budgets.
Solutions:
- Tracking key social media metrics can help you quantify the value of your social media efforts for a variety of business objectives, including but not limited to: brand awareness; lead generation; customer nurturing; and sales.
- You can get closer to your targets by highlighting key metrics that have changed over the past year (think: traffic, mentions, reach, engagement).
- Learn how to use market research and competitive analysis to convince your industry that a robust social media presence is essential.