Social media comes with many benefits, including improving your brand’s reach and authority. But, while nearly every business uses it now, it’s not as straightforward as it seems. So, it’s only natural to wonder about the common issues surrounding social media marketing.
Get comfy because, today, I’m walking you through 12 of the most frequent problems that businesses go through when tackling social media. Yes, yes, I’ll give you practical solutions for them, too. Read on!
1. Not having social media
The worst problem businesses have with social media marketing is, well… not having one. I’ve noticed this in many small business here in Upstate New York and I think it’s a shame.
Statista says that 92.1% of companies with 100+ companies are using social media in 2022. To me, that means roughly 8% of these companies are missing out on the benefits of social media – and who knows how much that number is going to balloon if they counted smaller businesses.
Solution: Create a social media page for your brand! Immediately!
2. Using social media without a strategy
If your plan on social media is to just post about your products and services for the heck of it, you’re doing it wrong.
There are a few other things you’ll want to figure out, such as who you should promote to (i.e. your target audience), which social network you should be using, what campaigns you should run, the tone you’ll be using, and other things.
Having, at the very least, a rough strategy helps ensure consistency between each of your posts. Thus, helping your brand establish its personality.
Solution: Plan your content. A content calendar that maps out the type of content you’ll be posting, the date it’s going to be posted, hashtags you’ll be using, and other relevant things is a good place to start and helps encourage consistency.
3. Executing your strategy without tracking your results
Let’s assume you have a good strategy in place and you’re executing it to the tee. Good. But are you tracking your results?
Not tracking the results of your strategies also blinds you to their successes and failures. And, without those, you’d be hard-pressed to reproduce its accomplishments while avoiding its pitfalls.
Tracking your results also allows you to see what your audience wants. From there, you can formulate ideas that may very well launch your brand forward.
Solution: Use social media tracking tools. Many social media platforms have tracking tools for businesses, so be sure to use those. If you have a website (and you should), you can also use Google Analytics and Search Console for deeper insight.
4. Posting the same content on every social network
Many networks have similar features. For example, Instagram’s stories are the same as Facebook’s. Youtube also now has shorts similar to TikTok’s. As sports announcers like to say, it’s a copycat league.
But, just like sports, there will always be not-so-subtle differences between the different social media platforms.
For example, people look to Twitter for short-form news and updates from their favorite brands. Pinterest is great at pooling together ideas and inspirations through images. TikTok (and, recently, Instagram) is focused on short clips.
With that said, posting the same type of content on every social network your brand is a part of will put a low ceiling on its success.
Solution: Plan the type of content you post on each social network your brand is a part of.
5. Not catering your content to your target audience
Different people have different interests, so they’re not all going to be interested in what your brand has to offer. However, they can be generalized somewhat into a persona that you can target.
Failing to realize your audience’s persona (e.g. age, gender, interests, buying patterns, etc.) can lead to generic content that doesn’t maximize the power of social media.
Remember: The reason why social media is such a big part of digital marketing is that makes your brand feel more “human”.
Solution: Create a buyer’s persona that represents your target audience. Tailor all of your content from that persona to best leverage your audience’s patterns and interests.
6. Not making your hashtags both unique and easy to remember
While it’s more common on Twitter and Instagram, hashtags are used on just about every social media platform. They’re powerful tools that set your brand apart from your competition while also making your campaign easier to find. It might even inspire user-generated content.
However, using hashtags that aren’t unique to you is very likely going to bury your content in a crapload of unrelated posts (i.e. hashtag hijacking). If you make them too hard to remember in an attempt at being singular, then your audience might not use or remember them.
Solution: When crafting hashtags for your campaign, make sure they’re unique and easy to remember.
A few examples include Apple’s #ShotOniPhone, Nike’s #JustDoIt, and Coca-Cola’s #ShareACoke.
7. Thinking negative comments are the end of the world
…or your business, at least.
The truth is that it happens. Even the biggest, most successful companies in the world can’t make everyone happy. Your business won’t satisfy everyone, too, especially as you gain a larger following.
Solution: Take these negative remarks as honest opinions rather than a jab at your brand. Doing that helps you take steps to make your product or service better. It also shows that you listen to your audience which, again, circles us back to making your brand feel more “human”.
8. Leaving your audience hanging
On a similar note, let’s say your posts are getting the attention you planned for them to have. You’re getting a lot of messages, shares, likes, and the whole nine.
Your mistake is thinking your job is done. You will have to respond to your audience, too. No one likes to be left hanging – not on a high five, not on a text, and not on social media.
Solution: Focus your attention on comments and DMs, and make your audience feel heard.
9. Making all of your content about you
The difference between traditional marketing and inbound marketing (which social media is a part of) is that the latter makes it all about the audience rather than the brand.
On that note, everything you post doesn’t have to be about making an immediate sale. That just looks spammy, salesy, and honestly, annoying.
Solution: Create content according to the different stages of the buyer’s journey then promote your different content to the people who’re in that stage of their journey. Also, you can always share posts that aren’t yours as long as it represents the niche you’re in.
10. Not partnering with influencers
Influencers are people who have established themselves as experts in a particular niche. Also, virtually every niche has an influencer with a large and highly engaged following.
Brands and influencers often pair up for mutually beneficial partnerships. Influencers help sway their audience into trusting the brand, thus leading to more sales. On the other hand, the brand gives the influencer whatever it is they agreed upon.
Thinking you’re above these partnerships can be a mistake because working together with the right influencer can help skyrocket your brand’s visibility.
Solution: Reach out to an influencer. I’m sure you have many options regardless of what niche you’re in. Choose the ones that you feel best represent your brand’s image and vision.
11. Getting too caught up in your social media success
Let’s say you ran a successful social media campaign and now you have a larger following, more engagement in your posts, a whole set of user-generated content, and a bunch of shares and likes.
Sounds awesome, sure, but if all that “success” didn’t equate to more sales, all you have are bloated vanity metrics.
To be clear, I’m not saying you don’t need those (because you do). What I’m saying is don’t lose sight of your end goal just because of the glitz and glamour of social media popularity.
Solution: Once you have a large enough following and established your authority in your space, start making moves to convert your audience into leads. Make every campaign you run a stepping stone to, ultimately, drive your sales upwards.
12. Biting more than you can chew
Ideally, you’d want your brand to be visible on all social media platforms. But let’s be real here. You’re a small business with a small team. Trying to cover all social networks will likely lead to burnout – and fast!
Your campaigns will become subpar, engagement with your audience will be delayed (if not non-existent), and your brand’s good name will be tarnished.
Solution: A better route to take would be to focus on the social media platforms that your target audience spends most of their time in. Take the sniper approach instead of spraying your bullets all over the place and missing the target.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that many social media marketing issues are preventable with a good amount of research and planning.
Don’t know what to post next? A content calendar would have fixed that. Decreasing engagements? Perhaps you left your audience hanging in the past. You and your team are burnt out trying to manage different social networks? Focus on where your target audience spends its time the most.
Speaking from experience, I think it’s okay to make these mistakes on social media. Some business owners learn best that way after all. But, if you want to avoid these issues, we can help.