Social media marketing yields profitable results, but only when used correctly. A walloping 93% of marketers leverage social media to increase brand awareness and generate higher sales. However, the volatile algorithms and new updates make it hard for businesses to scale on social platforms. And since the social media channels have overtaken other marketing platforms, scaling a business on social media has become even more challenging.
However, since a significant chunk of your consumers spend time and buy products on social media, you can’t afford to overlook social media marketing in 2022. Therefore, we are sharing the common social media challenges and surefire ways to deal with them. Continue reading to grow on social media by leaps and bounds.
Social Media Marketing Challenges You May Face This Year
1. Dipping Organic Reach And Plateaued Engagement
Many small businesses that can’t afford paid advertisements leverage organic (unpaid) reach. They post content consistently and engage with the target audience to scale their business. However, lately, the organic reach route has been inundated with hurdles, making it harder for brands to reach their ideal customers. The social media algorithms place only handpicked, reputable businesses on users’ screens, overlooking thousands of brands trying to achieve visibility. Amidst the millions of businesses on social media, algorithms prioritize credible ones to offer an enhanced experience to the users. Therefore, earning reach and interactions remains an uphill battle for many growing brands.
One of the primary reasons brands relying on organic reach is sidelined is because social channels want them to invest in paid ads. But if you can’t afford paid promotions yet, we have efficient workarounds for you to achieve your business goals on social media. Here they are:
- Understand what drives the most interactions. Examine your top-performing posts and look for a common element in all of them. This element is the reason behind higher engagement on those posts. While assessing, don’t only focus on the content but evaluate the post timings, content type, and formatting.
- Consider collaborating with influencers and brands. Partnerships are a great way to piggyback off reputable brands’ and content creators’ social influence. This will help you tap into a newer audience, increasing your brand awareness.
Figure 1: Gymshark’s IG post featuring their influencers. Source: Social Republic
- Post reels and videos to drive your reach. Reels drive 22% more engagement than normal videos. Besides, they are more discoverable as they are featured on the Explore page, where most users explore new content.
2. Measuring ROI Of Brand Campaigns
ROI stands for Return On Investment. It is the most important metric helping you determine how much return you receive on the amount you spent on marketing. Accurately measuring ROI has remained a perennial social media problem. Brands often get to know their post likes, comments, and follower count through native analytics tools on popular social channels. However, they are unaware of the actual return their brand campaigns have gained since there is no straightforward metric. To that end, they cannot assess how well their newly adopted social media techniques and strategies are performing, if at all.
For brands looking to calculate ROI, here are 3 viable solutions:
- Identify your key performance indicators. These are quantifiable performance metrics that help you reach your business goals. They are key targets you need to track to reach a specific goal. So if your goal is to enhance brand awareness, track brand mentions, impressions, reach, and engagement.
- Set up analytics to track performance. Most social platforms offer analytics tools for performance measurement. Ensure you have access to the analytics to understand your social performance clearly.
Figure 2: YouTube analytics. Source: Hootsuite
- Compare social media goals to the overall business goals. Ensure your social media efforts are a conduit to your business goals. For example, suppose your business aim is to get more conversions. In that case, your social media should make way for more website visits — improved website visit means more chances of converting site visitors into customers.
3. Lost Time In Juggling Between Multiple Social Platforms
Having over one social media account is often a necessary evil for businesses with different types of customers. Multiple accounts allow brands to post relevant and localized content to serve their target audience in a specific location. This results in increased engagement.
However, managing multiple accounts is challenging, especially if you have a well-established business. You may face productivity dips when logging in and out of different accounts and responding to all comments. Posting valuable content on all platforms can also be demanding. To top it off, you may have a hard time remembering the optimal posting times of every platform.
Fortunately, there are specific strategies you can implement to manage your social accounts without getting frustrated efficiently. Here they are:
- Define your “priority” network and focus most of your efforts there. Identify the account where most of your customers reside. Examine where you have the most meaningful interactions. This will prevent you from wasting time engaging with “sleeping” followers. Investigate which social account has successfully grown and aligns with your business goals and spend time there.
- Adopt a social media scheduling tool to stay consistent. Set aside a day to create valuable content in bulk for each platform and schedule the pieces so that they are automatically uploaded.
Figure 3: Popular social media scheduling tools. Source: SocialPilot
- Consider outsourcing or sharing responsibilities. Hire a social media manager to streamline the process.
4. Failing To Understand Social Media Goals
It is useless to mindlessly upload content on social media because “everyone else is doing it.” Without a proper roadmap tailored to meet your specific business goals, you’ll waste your time. You may consistently post but won’t get any results. Besides, you will attract people who will never convert into loyal customers.
To avoid spending time on social media just for it and to thoughtfully engage, you need a social media marketing strategy. This will factor in the type of audience you serve and help you create content relevant to them. A winning strategy will position you as a thought leader in your industry. Here are actionable steps to take to understand your purpose of being on social media:
- Jot down goals and expectations and double-check that you’re focusing on the appropriate KPIs. Make sure your social media goals align with your business goals.
- Figure out a schedule and publishing frequency after identifying your purpose. This way, you won’t post at random times or when your customers are fast asleep.
- Conduct an audit to analyze what’s working and what’s not in terms of content, timing, etc.
5. Creative Roadblocks And Burnouts
Running short of creative content ideas is a social media challenge that every brand and influencer faces. When you have to upload relevant content to impress your audience every week, it is natural to run out of ideas, frustrating. Creating a strong online presence is a rollercoaster ride — sometimes you’re brimming with fresh ideas, and sometimes you’re struggling for ideas!
Many business owners even get emotionally drained and are burned out by the constant demands of social media. If you are dealing with the same, here are some ways to overcome it:
- Repurpose content from blogs, tweets, ebooks, etc. Content repurposing is a common social media practice that encapsulates uploading already published content in a different format best suited for social media.
- Hop on to recent trends to understand what’s hot on social media. Explore the popular Reel trends and utilize them. But make sure to add your own twist to impress your target audience.
- Keep an eye on your competitors. Take inspiration from the content they are producing but don’t just copy-paste the content. Also, use social listening tools to understand your audience. This will help you create content relevant to them.
Figure 4: Well-known social listening tools for 2022. Source: Netbase Quid
6. Ineffective Customer Service And Lack Of Responsiveness
Social media has bridged the gap between customers and businesses. It has become a platform where customers can quickly get in touch with their favorite brands, share their queries, and get answers. However, you need to stay active on social media to offer efficient customer service. Quick and positive responses will help you create a strong connection with your audience, compelling them to stick with you for longer.
At the same time, the lack of responsiveness can backfire and taint your online reputation. Follow the strategies given below to respond to your customers and keep them satisfied quickly:
- Develop a specific social media crisis plan. Negative comments and backlash are a common hurdle for brands. If you want a positive identity, you need a crisis plan to deal with such issues without tainting your reputation.
Figure 5: Starbucks’ professional response to a negative comment. Source: Flagship Social
- Learn your customers’ most common objections, issues, and concerns to anticipate them in your responses.
- Personalize your responses to customers. Avoid copy-pasting the same answer to a specific concern. Instead, personalize your responses for a better relationship with the troubled customer.
7. Creating Consistent Stunning Graphics And Visuals
Figure 6: Shopify’s good-looking IG feed. Source: Hopper
Another common social media challenge brands face is creating visually appealing graphics. First off, many businesses don’t realize the significance of fascinating graphics. Social media platforms are driven by good-looking, high-quality content. While creating valuable content is essential, presenting it in a captivating manner is equally important. Remember, visuals are the second most important factor determining your social media success. Therefore, you can’t get away with creating shoddy posts, as this can harm your identity in the market.
Since not every business owner has the time and skill to create appealing posts, many businesses suffer in terms of diminished visibility and stunted growth. Here are certain solutions to help you overcome this social media issue:
- Create brand templates for a uniform aesthetic. Design with consistent brand colors, palettes, and logos to have a cohesive identity. Your audience will quickly recognize your posts after a mere glance.
- Have go-to sources of great visuals like high-quality stock photos and original images.
- Ensure each image is properly sized for specific networks. This will make your feed look visually pleasing and prevent your posts from being cut from the edges.
8. Failing To Find The Right Influencer For Your Brand
For every dollar you spend on influencer marketing, you get a whopping $5.20 in return! More and more customers are relying on product recommendations by content creators. Therefore, brands partner with influencers with a broad follower base for brand endorsements. The best part is influencer marketing is cost-effective, especially when you hire micro-influencers.
However, the biggest social media challenge that brands leveraging influencer marketing face is finding the right creator. Since there are thousands of influencers, finding the credible one with a similar target audience is difficult. Here are some ways to overcome this social media challenge:
- Try micro and nano influencers to understand how to work with influencers initially.
- Sort out relevant influencers based on their content, experience, and engagement. Remember to personalize your pitch to encourage a response from them.
- Use an efficient influencer marketing platform, such as Atisfyreach.
Atisfyreach: Bridging The Gap Between Brands And Influencers
Atisfyreach redefines influencer marketing by connecting you with favorable influencers in the most stress-free way and with minimal effort! It is an AI-based platform that looks for the best-suited content creators with a history of successful campaigns.
Register today at Atisfyreach to get connected with experienced influencers who can skyrocket your sales!
