6 Social Media Problems and How to Fix Them
By Andrew Patricio
April 13, 2016
Small Business & Entrepreneurship
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By the small business content developers at BizLaunch.com.
People are either very excited about social media or not excited at all. If you’ve ever felt either one of those extremes about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Periscope, Pinterest, or Google+, you might be a small business owner frustrated with the vast volume of options you have when you develop your social media strategy.
When almost 2 in 3 people have a social media profile on one of these sites or another, it makes sense to harness the power of social media to talk to your target audience. Unfortunately, finding an advantageous method isn’t always easy or straightforward. In fact, with the unceasing upgrades, redesigns, and adjustments that websites and apps have these days, it is an endeavor fraught with difficulty. However, there are best practices that you can start using today to help you build and strengthen your social media audience.
If any of these issues ring true, take notes on the solution.
1. No one's sharing your content.
You post and you share and you comment, but no one is engaging with your profile. It can be discouraging to find your brand in this situation, but if you examine the content of your posts, you might find that there is not enough enticement and allure to engage your audience. Your posts should offer some sort of benefit to those who you’d like to share your content. Does it make them look smarter? Or more sophisticated? Think about how your posts can help your audience and act accordingly. Remember, if you want someone to do something for you, you need to help them too.
2. The wrong people are following you.
Watching your follower or ‘like’ count go up is very exciting, but the old saying “quality is better than quantity” applies to your follower base as well. If you find that your social media audience does not align with your target audience, you still can swing things your way. Find a thought leader in your audience’s demographic and engage them. Retweet their posts, like their images, and initiate interesting conversations. With the right selection of influencers you can connect quickly with the appropriate audience.
3. Your stream is just automated content from your blog.
The challenge of social media is tailoring your content to your audience on each channel. In addition, it can get boring for followers who connect with you on more than one channel to see the same broadcast or bulletin on every medium. When you create innovative, engaging, and distinctive announcements for your content, you increase the likelihood that your audience will click through and engage, increasing the value and ROI on your social media posts.
4. You don't know when to schedule your posts.
Many social media dashboards will instruct you as to when you should schedule your posts to increase your chances of audience engagement. If you haven’t availed yourself of this information, you must start now. If your audience is strongest three time zones ahead of your own and you’re posting updates during their late night hours, you miss opportunities and do the equivalent of shouting into the void. Facebook is one social media site that is very good about keeping track of your audience, so use their analytics to make sure that your posts go live when your audience is active.
5. You have too many accounts or not enough.
If you’ve signed up for every social media website in anticipation of finding your target customer in whatever nooks and crannies they may be hiding, you might find that scattershot effort detracts from your overall strategy. On the other hand, if you limit your social media outreach, unsure about how to best reach your customers, you might miss a large swath of your market if you select the wrong social media site on which to concentrate your efforts. The best thing to do is identify your market and put your social media efforts into the sites where they tend to congregate.
6. You're not promoting the accounts you do have.
If you don’t promote your social media accounts on your email signature, your blog posts, business cards, and other marketing outreach efforts, you are missing out on engaging with your already-established audience -- the very people who are your best social media ambassadors. The extra work you put into making it easy for your audience to connect with your brand or share your promotions are engines for building social media influence.
Whatever the social media headaches you face, there are solutions. Try to identify the source of your challenge, whether it’s low engagement or limited enthusiasm, and be creative in uncovering a solution. It might even make for a great conversation with your customers and be the means to create meaningful connections with them.
People are either very excited about social media or not excited at all. If you’ve ever felt either one of those extremes about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Periscope, Pinterest, or Google+, you might be a small business owner frustrated with the vast volume of options you have when you develop your social media strategy.
When almost 2 in 3 people have a social media profile on one of these sites or another, it makes sense to harness the power of social media to talk to your target audience. Unfortunately, finding an advantageous method isn’t always easy or straightforward. In fact, with the unceasing upgrades, redesigns, and adjustments that websites and apps have these days, it is an endeavor fraught with difficulty. However, there are best practices that you can start using today to help you build and strengthen your social media audience.
If any of these issues ring true, take notes on the solution.
1. No one's sharing your content.
You post and you share and you comment, but no one is engaging with your profile. It can be discouraging to find your brand in this situation, but if you examine the content of your posts, you might find that there is not enough enticement and allure to engage your audience. Your posts should offer some sort of benefit to those who you’d like to share your content. Does it make them look smarter? Or more sophisticated? Think about how your posts can help your audience and act accordingly. Remember, if you want someone to do something for you, you need to help them too.
2. The wrong people are following you.
Watching your follower or ‘like’ count go up is very exciting, but the old saying “quality is better than quantity” applies to your follower base as well. If you find that your social media audience does not align with your target audience, you still can swing things your way. Find a thought leader in your audience’s demographic and engage them. Retweet their posts, like their images, and initiate interesting conversations. With the right selection of influencers you can connect quickly with the appropriate audience.
3. Your stream is just automated content from your blog.
The challenge of social media is tailoring your content to your audience on each channel. In addition, it can get boring for followers who connect with you on more than one channel to see the same broadcast or bulletin on every medium. When you create innovative, engaging, and distinctive announcements for your content, you increase the likelihood that your audience will click through and engage, increasing the value and ROI on your social media posts.
4. You don't know when to schedule your posts.
Many social media dashboards will instruct you as to when you should schedule your posts to increase your chances of audience engagement. If you haven’t availed yourself of this information, you must start now. If your audience is strongest three time zones ahead of your own and you’re posting updates during their late night hours, you miss opportunities and do the equivalent of shouting into the void. Facebook is one social media site that is very good about keeping track of your audience, so use their analytics to make sure that your posts go live when your audience is active.
5. You have too many accounts or not enough.
If you’ve signed up for every social media website in anticipation of finding your target customer in whatever nooks and crannies they may be hiding, you might find that scattershot effort detracts from your overall strategy. On the other hand, if you limit your social media outreach, unsure about how to best reach your customers, you might miss a large swath of your market if you select the wrong social media site on which to concentrate your efforts. The best thing to do is identify your market and put your social media efforts into the sites where they tend to congregate.
6. You're not promoting the accounts you do have.
If you don’t promote your social media accounts on your email signature, your blog posts, business cards, and other marketing outreach efforts, you are missing out on engaging with your already-established audience -- the very people who are your best social media ambassadors. The extra work you put into making it easy for your audience to connect with your brand or share your promotions are engines for building social media influence.
Whatever the social media headaches you face, there are solutions. Try to identify the source of your challenge, whether it’s low engagement or limited enthusiasm, and be creative in uncovering a solution. It might even make for a great conversation with your customers and be the means to create meaningful connections with them.