5 SIGNS THAT SHOW YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IS FAULTY AND HOW TO FIX IT

Building a loyal and engaging social media audience is hard work but nonetheless every business’ dream.

But what happens when you put in all the required effort and still don’t get the results you really want?

Here’s how to tell your social media strategy is faulty and how to fix it.

1. Your Community Is Not Expanding

The number one reason a brand should be active on social media is to build a vibrant and engaged community of people who love and are loyal to your brand to the point where they will willingly recommend you to family and friends.

In this case, number matters. But it isn’t always equal to quality; which is what you should be aiming for. For example, 1,000 actively engaged followers are more valuable to your brand than 100,000 followers who ignore and never engage with your content online.

However, if your community of followers and fans isn’t increasing consistently then something is wrong.

The Fix

Reach out to more people who match your ideal audience (organically or through ads) and Interact with THEIR content to make them notice you.

2. Low Engagement Rates

One of your brand’s marketing goals should be to be so connected to your ideal target audience that you understand deeply and are able to predict their needs in real time. This transforms your content creation strategy because you can then create content to match every step of their buyer’s journey.

But, if the above is missing, your content becomes boring or irrelevant, and your followers will have zero motivation to engage with it. Try to understand what your audience needs and tweak your strategy accordingly.

The Fix

It’s no news that Instagram and Facebook have cut organic reach to the barest minimum, and there are rumors that Twitter will soon follow suit. So you have to pay for the exposure you once enjoyed for free that brought you most of your current followers.

If you can’t afford ads right now, you can beat the algorithm by doubling your content marketing efforts. Put up posts that strike a chord, spark an emotion in the reader to entice them to engage and more importantly SHARE your content willingly.

3. The Wrong Audience is Contacting You

When putting up content on social media, you do so with a specific target audience in mind; people who will be interested enough to interact positively with it.

So when the only engagement you’re getting is from bots who leave spam comments and likes or the people interacting with your content and contacting you are not your ideal target audience then something is wrong with your marketing strategy.

Your branding isn’t coming across clearly and you may be targeting the wrong audience mistakenly (e.g. using the wrong hashtags) or out of error on your part (creating content that is too generic or of very little value).

The Fix

Define your target audience clearly. When in doubt, check your competitors account and see who is following and interacting with their content and what posts got the most engagement.

Define the goals you want to achieve with each piece of content and make your content more specific and practical.

Post with a purpose, address common pain points of your audience, inform and educate them.

4. You Slowly but Consistently Lose Followers

When some brands first start out, they either buy fake followers or follow just about any and everybody in order to push their numbers up because like it or not, numbers still matter and people still use it to rate your brand before following and eventually doing business with you.

But brands who begin like this soon realize that there’s no shortcut to social media success, because even though they have large followings, there’s very little engagement and conversion. To make matters worse,  they start loosing followers after a while.

This happens because, fake accounts are constantly being shut down and deleted and the crowd you zealously followed at first may not be interested in your brand and content so they leave quickly and quietly.

The Fix

If you’ve done the above, it can be salvaged. Start now to build your ideal audience from scratch, only follow and engage with people who match your ideal target audience. Then create content they would love and share with family and friends.

5. When You Run a Social Media Contest and The Only Participants Are Your Own Employees/Family Members

When you run contests and giveaways and no one is bothering to participate except your own staff, family and friends then something is wrong.

Contests and giveaways often serve as free publicity for your brand because most of them require participants to share and tag people to something. To pull this off effectively, you, therefore, need a sizeable and engaged audience who love your brand enough to contest for your product or service.

The Fix

Run Social Media Ads.

If no one is participating in your competitions, it’s time to get fresh eyes on your content.

Gone are the days when brands could get away with relying strictly on organic engagement so get used to the idea of spending money for promotions to reach a wider audience.

Social Media platforms are brands that need to make money too. A huge advantage though is that they provide you the cheapest and most specific way to reach and engage with your target audience.

In the end…

It is important to understand that the PRIMARY AIM of Social Media is to engage with clients/customers and prospects and build a vibrant community. While Social Media may bring in Clients, do not make your Social Media page a sales page where all you do is to sell. This will bore your followers and perhaps even get them to unfollow you quietly.

Social Media can be beneficial if done professionally with the right mix of content that can add value to your followers. It can help to build brand perception, create a community of loyalists and even bring in Clients.  In order to ensure the success of Social Media Marketing, have a strategy in place and implement it with the best tools and people.

Looking for help with managing your social media pages? We can help. Reach out to us here.