Social media is a great way to get more readers for your blog and connect with your target audience. It’s a great tool for businesses to connect in a more personal manner with their customers. On top of that, social media can be quite effective at building your email list.
However, if you feel like you’re not getting results from your social media marketing, you might be making one of the 6 crucial mistakes without even knowing it.
Here are 6 reasons why your social media efforts are failing and how you can fix them.
6 Reasons Your Social Media Efforts Are Failing
You Don’t Understand Your Audience
It’s been said that companies value the informed customer. But when you don’t know your audience, you can’t connect with them effectively. Who is your audience, where are they and what are their interests? Before creating a social media strategy, you need to know who are you targeting. Getting to know their demographics and their interests will help you understand them better and know which social media channels they like to spend their time on.
Once you have a clear understanding of your audience you can come up with a social media strategy that will appeal to them the most at their preferred networks.
You Don’t Have a Plan
Posting on social media just for the sake of posting is a surefire way to get nowhere. Your social media plan should include all the goals, channels, time-frames, methods and allowable budget but should still be flexible enough to cater to social media changes.
When you begin forming a plan always start with the end goal in mind: what do you want to achieve from social media? Start by giving a precise response that includes both an objective and time-frame. An example of a precise response is:
I want to gain 2000 new Twitter followers by the end of 2016. The goal is precise, includes a time frame and can be measured.
You’re Not Engaged
Scheduling a number of updates and then running for the hills is no way to build a loyal following. If you aren’t answering the comments and mentions, in other words, if you’re not engaging with your audience you might as well be talking to the vacuum.
The fix here is simple, all you have to do is respond when needed. Thank those people who commented on your latest and greatest video, and remember to mention them by using their social media handle. Welcome new followers and engage them in a conversation.
To make this process easier, sign up for a social media management tool which can help you set up custom notifications for mentions of you or your brand.
You’re Not Tracking Your Results
If you want your strategy to work you have to track the progress and results. Without knowing how your social media efforts are going, how are you supposed to know what’s working and what’s not?
Most social media platforms allow for some basic tracking which you can use to analyze the performance of your content. If you need more advanced features consider signing up for a specialized app that will allow you to measure the engagement rate, find the best time for you to post on particular networks as well as allow you to track the number of gained and lost followers.
You Don’t Have a Call to Action
Even though social media is primarily about sharing information with your target audience, every status update should include a call to action – whether that’s inviting your followers to share your link, click on it to read your latest blog post or to encourage them to sign up for your email list.
Without a call to action, your posts will go un-noticed among thousands of others. If you share an article, ask people if they agree, if you promote an event encourage them to attend, if you share a video you created ask them to leave feedback. No matter what, always give your followers an incentive to engage with your content.
You’re Not Testing Different Options
By now, we’ve established you should be tracking your data with an analytics tool to give you an overview on your strategy progress. But even if you’re getting good results, that doesn’t mean that there is no room for improvement. Likewise, what works on one social media network won’t work on the rest of them.
Experiment with posting time and frequency to see which options bring you the highest reach and engagement. Consider alternating the days you post on and set a definite period of time in which you will experiment with different options.
Change up your posting frequency and see if you get more engagement or less. Alternate the type of content you share – if you always share articles, consider sharing a graphic or a quote. Include asking questions in your content updates – from simple fill in the blank questions to more complex ones that require a longer answer.
Be sure to test your own blog posts as well. Consider creating two different graphics for your post and post them at different times to see which one performs better.
Final Thoughts
Social media isn’t something you can do haphazardly. People can tell when you are posting to just post and can see right through the veil of someone screaming all about themselves at the top of their lungs. It’s important to genuinely connect with others by sharing what they have said more than you saying what it is you have to say. Asking for feedback here and there will only garner you that much more respect because not everyone is an overnight guru.
Without proper strategy, social media can work against you rather than for you. But by following the tips outlined in this article and creating a plan, social media can quickly turn into your best lead generation asset and help you with your overall list building strategy.
What do you think? Did we miss something? How can we improve for you? Let us know in the comments below.