10 Obstacles in Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a broad term to address the many tasks of being a social media marketer. In social media marketing, there is content creation, strategy, branding, messaging, engagement, responding to followers, crisis management, and more. Social media marketing is a fun job where creative people can flourish, but it does come with unique obstacles. We recently posted a question about the issues faced by social media marketers. We found 10 issues that are the most common hurdles to jump for most people. Identifying the problem is necessary to identify a solution. Let’s look at 10 common obstacles in social media marketing and a solution for each.
Consistent posting
Keeping up with trends
Engagement
Not enough content (images, videos, etc.)
Authenticity
Proving ROI
Drops in engagement
Managing multiple platforms
Crisis management
Overwhelm/Burnout
Consistent posting
The overwhelming top issue is consistent posting. The key to consistent posting is to schedule posts in advance. Work in specific time increments and batch create content. Batch creation helps with the problem of, “what do I post today?” because you already have posts created and scheduled to run. This is especially helpful when taking a few days off or taking a vacation because you already have content scheduled so there’s no change in frequency of posting.
Ideally, most businesses should post at least once daily on social media. This can be any kind of post. Scheduling posts is the only way to manage multiple accounts, and posting consistently is necessary for organic growth.
Keeping up with trends
Trends are great when they fit your brand or strategy. They're not great when they become a distraction, or worse, when they don't generate engagement after a lot of effort. If there's a trend you love, do it. If you don't love it, don't waste time on it. This take on trends may be controversial because it seems so many people feel the need to do every trend ever made, but if it doesn’t serve your brand and strategy, it isn’t worth your time. Many trends are time-consuming and exhausting to duplicate. If you love it, do it. If it becomes more of a hassle, it’s simply not worth it.
Low Engagement/Drops in engagement
Low engagement as you are building your brand online is a common complaint. “How do I get people to engage?” The answer is frustrating unspecific. Keep showing up and posting content. Add in moments of authenticity where your followers get to know you as the business owner. Show behind the scenes as you set up for a photo shoot, or share a photo someone took of you getting ready to shoot a wedding, an athletic event, or other photo event. They key in being successful online is to invite people to get to know you through your business. Share what you love about what you do. Share successes and bad days. We are humans who crave humanity. Show up as yourself and people will begin to engage.
There are drops in engagement from time to time. Flywheel encountered this with an account recently. Our approach is to take a look at posts that performed well and posts that did not. We also consider the period as it relates to the specific business. Finally, we looked at the fact that in the first 90 days of managing this account, the reach and views were significantly higher than in the previous 90 days; however, in the previous 90 days, there were no consistent posts on any regular basis. While we noted that the reach was higher in the first 90 days, we also determined that Meta will often penalize a “new” account after it is active when no paid ads are placed. What we saw was that the first 90 days were great and then performance dropped for 90 days even without change to content. We also found that certain types of posts performed better, and we began to focus content on these types of posts.
If you can determine why you have dropped in engagement, then you can address it. Sometimes, platforms change algorithm rules without explanation, and those dips in engagement do not last. Keep showing up consistently.
Low content
Working with brands and businesses regularly gives us one important lesson for every other business out there. Take more photos. Take more videos. You can never have enough photos and images. If you normally take 10 photos, take 20 instead. If you normally shoot 5 videos, shoot 10 instead. Always take more photos and videos than you need. On low-content days, extra images can be repackaged to fit a new post. Take bloopers shots, and behind-the-scenes shots, and use your creativity to take photos and videos in a new way. Quality photos and videos are necessary for the success of your business. If you haven’t taken photos in months, you are making marketing very difficult for your social media manager. If that’s your job, you’re just making it hard on yourself.
Authenticity
Consumers value connection and authenticity. When you see an account with a huge following, consider why they have such success. Pay attention to their posts and content. Generally, they invite people in to see a glimpse of their life and they are viewed as authentic. Followers want to know people behind the screen as if they were their neighbors next door. Consider how you can be authentic and genuine in sharing your business online. What sets you apart from your competitors? What makes your business unique? Why do you love what you do?
Sharing authentically is a way to invite people in to get to know you. It builds trust with followers and is necessary for organic growth.
Proving ROI
Social media marketing does not require a large budget depending on the size of your brand. One thing we love about social media marketing is that you can start from scratch with very little money and establish your brand presence online in a matter of weeks. It’s a combination of strategy, authenticity, and consistency that drives your brand on the platform.
When you start from scratch, it’s easy to see the ROI as you build your brand online. If the brand is established online, it’s important to start with a baseline of insights so that you can demonstrate your strategy is working for the brand.
Flywheel recommends taking insights at the starting point and every 90 days after. Annual reports reflecting the growth can be shared with brands so they can see if goals are being met.
Managing multiple platforms
Multiple platforms can be tricky and overwhelming. Create content to share across platforms to lighten your workload. A social sharing platform might be a good investment.
Engaging with other accounts
If you spend a lot of time posting content, it can feel like too much time to focus on engagement. It's still necessary though. Set a timer and purposefully interact and respond to other posts. When the timer goes off, you're done.
Addressing a crisis
Crises can be overwhelming by themselves, but ignoring a problem is worse. Website down? Post on social media to let people know. Post again when it's working. Whatever the issue, it's always best to address it right away.
To be clear, letting followers and consumers run away with hysteria as to why your website is down is worse than just addressing it right away. “Tell the truth, tell it all, tell it now” is a well-known phrase in public relations management. Social media management is an extension of PR. Your business's ability to weather a crisis will be determined by how quickly you tell the truth.
Overwhelm/Burnout
Social media marketing can be overwhelming at times. Schedule time to be off. That might mean working on content ahead of time so that you can take days off. The world won't stop just because you don't post. 5 billion people use social media. They will find something else to watch, and then they will be glad when you're back.
Burnout is a common problem with any job. There comes a point where the bucket is empty and needs to be filled. There are often simple things that can help replenish creative energy. Change the place you commonly work. Head to a local coffee shop instead. Take a walk to clear your mind and enjoy the beauty around you. Head to a store to grab a few magazines. Spend $10 and get some fresh ideas for content from the creativity you see in print. This is a favorite idea of mine, and gives both fresh eyes to work with and fresh ideas to use.
At Flywheel Marketing, we work for clients who are experts at their craft, but their craft may not be social media marketing. We partner with these clients to allow them to flourish at what they do best, and we work to meet their social media goals alongside them. We provide expert consultation to achieve the social media goals for your business. We would love to work with you. Click the button for a free quote and consultation today.
