Social media is one of those topics that seem effortless, but it’s complex and time-consuming in reality. A simple formula of a “post, share, comment, repeat“ has much more depth to it. That is why it would be wise to hire an experienced social media manager who can tackle many platforms at once.
I’ve prepared a simple guide if you are unsure whether your social media efforts are working out. It should help you detect the mistakes you might be making and provide some guidance. After all, we all want our social media game to be strong, both on a professional and private level.
What is a social media strategy, and why is it important?
A few decades ago, hardly anyone expected social media to play any kind of role in developing a business. Nowadays, it’s (or should be) an essential part of your sales funnel. Unfortunately, many companies don’t have any kind of strategy.
However, social media is still evolving. New updates and features are coming out almost daily. So, we need to study it and test everything on it. Yet, while you’re busy figuring it out, your competition might already be far ahead of you. Without devoting most of your time to this kind of marketing, chances of you succeeding could be pretty low.
To thrive on social media, you must have a social media strategy. You can’t post whatever and whenever. You need to set up clear goals and targets. You have to have a content calendar with posts and captions ready to post, at least a week in advance. Also, you have to study your target audience, their behavior on each social media platform. You need to know your target’s preferences, dislikes, pain points, to say just a few.
In short, social media strategy is everything you intend to do and hope to achieve on social media. That includes your activities, analysis, and goals.
Red flags in your social media strategy
What if you might already have a social media strategy in place, but you’re not sure if it’s working out? Or, you may be making some typical mistakes without even knowing it? You can find some of them below. If you recognize yourself in it, it’s time for a change!
1. It feels like you don’t know what you’re doing
You might have found yourself in the middle of the conversation about social media. Some weird words were swirling around: CTR, reach, engagement, and so on. Or you might have googled some tips and found yourself completely lost. If this is the case, it is a solid reason to believe that you’re tapping in the dark.
Social media takes experience and skill. An excellent social media manager knows the current trends and how to make the best use of them. Technical terms can be googled, but your understanding of it and putting it into your business’s context makes the difference. Consistency and presence in the world of social media is the key to achieve success. If you’re only doing it for a few hours or even minutes a day, you’ll have difficulty catching up.
2. You feel overwhelmed
Being active on social media platforms can be time, energy, and resource-consuming. It would help if you had a detailed strategy and professional help in creating content and engaging the audience. If you are not a full-time social media expert, you most likely don’t have time to dive deep into it. The outcome is a lot of time wasted with little or no results. This way, you’re wasting the potential that social media can provide for your business.
After all, you want to present yourself and your business to your community in the best possible way. That is why a designated social media person is the way to go.
3. You aren’t reaching your goals
You’ve been active on social media for months or years, but the results aren’t there? Your followers aren’t piling up, and neither is their engagement with your content? These are clear signs that something is off.
I can’t stress this enough – to achieve any results, you need a good social media strategy in place and social media expert by your side. Without this, there is no point in continuing with social media efforts.
4. You’re doing everything manually
The beauty of digital marketing is the fact that you can automate many processes. Automatization saves time, money, and nerves. Besides, everyone’s already hopped on the automation wagon, so you might as well join them.
The word ‘automation’ might sound scary, but it’s elementary. Some tools can help you with posting; some can help with analytical insight; some can help you with advertising, and so on. For many such tools, you don’t even need to be tech-savvy to use them. All you need is a little time and effort.
5. You don’t know where to start with ads
Social media advertising can be fun, but it can also be a pain, especially when you don’t know how to use it. Want to sell your products? Get more traffic to your website? Increase the number of followers? You can do all this with social media ads. Ads can let you target your ideal customer with any content you wish.
But, if you’re not a social media expert, it’s most likely you don’t know how to start with advertising. And you probably shouldn’t. These things cost money, and it’s wiser to let someone experienced do it for you.
6. You’re on too many platforms
There is a platform for everybody and everything, but that doesn’t mean that you should use them all. If you’re a candle maker, you should go for Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. Being active on LinkedIn will not do much for you. On the other side, a SaaS company could achieve better results on LinkedIn than any other social media platform.
Being everywhere will not make you more successful. If anything, it will generate a workload you will not be able to cope with. Keep it simple and focus on the platforms your target audience is using. This way, you can’t go wrong.
7. You’re a serial spammer
If you think that posting every day or even multiple times a day will do the trick, you could be very wrong. People don’t like too much of the same content on their feed. Imagine if you went to a dinner party with your colleagues and one of them couldn’t stop talking. You would get fed up with their stories and want to hear what others have to say as well.
This annoying person at a dinner party is the equivalent of a social media spammer. Someone who is on everyone’s feed 24/7 will get blocked. And getting blocked is worse than being insufficiently active, trust me.
8. No time to respond to messages
Last but not least, no time to respond to messages is a clear indicator that you need help with social media. Social media is a great tool for you to promote yourself and your business, interact with your target audience, and listen to them. If you don’t have time to stay in touch with your audience, why are you even doing it?
Addressing concerns and answering questions might be crucial to your success. The magic of social media is in the opportunity to reply in real-time. That enhances the customer experience and guarantees the growth of your business. So, it’s pretty safe to say that you need to prioritize it.
In case you recognize yourself in these mistakes, don’t despair! Read our blog about 7 ways to avoid the most common social media mistakes and find out how to do things better.
How to know your social media strategy is working
Okay, so now you have a brand new approach and want to know if it’s working. What are some clear signs that you’re doing a good job?
The first sign that you’re doing things right is a steady growth of followers and engagement rate. That means that more people will subscribe to your content and interact with it. More likes, shares, and comments will come flooding your way.
The second sign that everything works are social media leads landing in your sales funnel. For this, you need to make sure that you’ve set up metrics in your CRM tools that track your leads’ source. You’ll see, once people start getting interested in your business on social media, the sky’s the limit. That is one of the easiest ways to get future customers to your funnel.
Finally, you could start feeling the effects of your social media efforts in real life. People can often talk about the content posted on social media if it’s fun or relevant. WOM (word of mouth) is still very important, so should be your online branding. If people like your online brand presence, they will also like your offline brand/product/service.
Conclusion
We’re sure that you can’t wait to evaluate your social media strategy after reading this post. The best advice we can give you is, to be honest with yourself. That is the only way to detect those pain points that might be weighing your business down. It’s never too late to start doing things right!
Our marketing team is here for you if you need any extra help. We would be delighted to help you figure out what works best for you. Get in touch with us; we’re waiting!