Are you seeing the results you want from your social media marketing efforts? Many companies have reported that they have not seen significant results from their social media efforts, so I put together a list of the top 7 reasons your social media efforts may not be working for you:
- You don’t know your target market. In order to be effective on any medium online or offline, you have to know your target audience. By knowing who you are talking to, you can cater your content to the needs of your target market. Take an in depth look into your target market including demographics (gender, age, income level, etc.) and psychographics (interests, likes, dislikes, etc.) and base your social media marketing on the needs of your target market.
- You don’t have a plan. Many companies randomly post on social media sites without having a social media strategy or plan. Your goal should be to have a plan. Your plan should include a written strategy on what you would like to accomplish on that particular social network, a content calendar that shows what you will be promoting each month, and key indicators that you will use to judge the success of your social media marketing efforts.
- You don’t post good content. Once you know your target market and you have a plan, you should be posting good content that your target audience will find entertaining, educating, and informative. Only a small percentage of what you post on social media should be a direct promotion of your product or service.
- You don’t post consistently. Whether you decide to post daily or weekly depending on your strategy and the platform you are on, you have to be consistent about posting. There are many social media tools that can help you by enabling you to schedule your posts ahead of time. One of the most popular, and my favorite is HootSuite. This FREE tool can help you organize your posts and schedule when you want your posts to go out along with other features that they offer to manage your social networks.
- You don’t have a strong call to action. When you do post about your product or service, make sure you have a strong call to action, tell your followers, fans, or friends exactly what you want them to do so that you can directly see the results of that promotion. It could be, “bring this coupon in for X”, or “register to attend this event”, or “download this eBook”, etc.
- You’re not having conversations. Much of what happens on social media is conversational, so your posts should be conversational topics. You should also be responding to any comments to your posts to keep the conversation going.
- You’re not participating in social listening. Social listening can be just as important, if not more important, than the social content that you post. Using tools like Google Alert will help you to be aware of what people are saying about your products and services, your industry, your competitors, etc. You can learn a lot by just listening to what people are saying and either responding directly or using that information to help create the content that your target market would find useful
What techniques do you use to make sure you are getting the best results from your social media marketing efforts?
