5 Signs Your Social Media Marketing Efforts Are Failing

You’ve worked your pants off to build a loyal and engaging social media audience. But, in spite of your efforts, you don’t see the results you were expecting.

While it might feel discouraging or down straight confusing, there are a few telltale signs that can help you understand what is going wrong.

1. Your Community Is Not Expanding

In most cases, quantity doesn’t always equate quality. 5,000 actively engaged users are more valuable than 50,000 ones that ignore your every message. But, if you are not acquiring new followers on social media, then something must be wrong.

Look at what you are giving to your audience and assess whether it’s appealing to them or not. Is your content relevant to your target audience? Or are you just posting funny cat pics and inspiring quotes that have nothing to do with your product or business? Are you truly connecting and building a sense of community?

2. Buying Fake Likes or Followers

It goes without saying that buying likes or followers is not an effective social media strategy. Sure, it’s nothing wrong with buying the first 100 followers or so to get the ball rolling. But, keep in mind that these accounts are often fake or have nothing to do with your industry. So, if you continue on this path, you’re just building a graveyard where no one engages with your content or takes action.

A qualitative social media strategy focuses on getting followers that are truly interested in you. They might not be tens of thousands as you wish, but they will be loyal to your brand and eager to read your latest posts.

3. Inconsistent Posting Strategy

A clear posting calendar is vital to your social media effort’s success. Don’t get the wrong idea: if you’re sharing content on your Facebook and Twitter profiles two or three times a day it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re “doing social media.” An effective posting strategy needs to have an intention. That means sharing content that is relevant, helpful, and informative and also keeping a well-thought balance of posting frequency.

If you post too little or too much or on a very inconsistent basis, you will simply scatter your potential audience away. Try to share something at least once a day, but never more than maximum three times a day. Otherwise, you risk tiring your audience.

4. Low Engagement Rates

One of your marketing strategy goals is to keep a constant connection with your target market so that you can learn how to tend to their needs better. But, if your content is boring or irrelevant, your followers will have no reason to engage with it. Well, in fact, they might interact with your posts, but negatively just to let you know that your content is not at all helpful. Surely, that’s not what you’re aiming for with your social media marketing.

Try to understand what your audience needs and tweak your strategy accordingly.

5. Overly Promotional Tone and Approach

You might think of advertising as a surefire way to bring in sales and conversions. While ads are a big part of your overall marketing strategy, they have their specific time and space. Always sounding like a despicable salesperson can have a different outcome than the one you were expecting. People are so tired of marketing messages that what they are craving now is authentic communication with brands. So, make sure to give them that and keep your promotional content to a minimum.

There are a lot of thing you can improve with your social media marketing. But, in the end, remember to stick to a clear plan when it comes to your social media efforts and to keep it intentional, interactive and rich. Your audience will know how to tell the difference.

Image: WOCinTech Chat