The Top 3 Problems Marketers Are Facing With Social Media And How To Avoid Them

Business owners, brand managers, and influencers will all tell you that engaging in social marketing comes with many challenges. Some marketers will struggle with lead generation. Others will find that their traffic levels and conversion rates may not be at the level required. Developing a powerful SEO strategy or excelling at traffic/ lead/ conversion rates might take the edge off, but it all needs to work cohesively to form a complete marketing strategy. Has your attention been lapsing? You might be costing yourself money and losing revenue - but it’s not too late to turn things around and improve your performance.

1. STAYING CURRENT WITH YOUR MARKETING STRATEGY

Marketing has undergone an undeniable shift in the last decade alone, thanks to the technological and social development we’ve witnessed. Print media - I’m sorry to any purists out there - is effectively six feet under (with a knife in its back, suspiciously covered in binary code fingerprints), with the vast majority of companies now employing online marketing methods. But online marketing strategies are constantly consuming themselves and regenerating in weird and wonderful ways, which makes the landscape difficult to master. There has been a perceptible shift to a two-way method of communication between potential customers and the companies that are courting their business. The vortexing of social media interaction and the rising significance of feedback has introduced a brand new dynamic to marketing, making it impossible to plan for or predict.

However, don’t fall into the trap of jumping on every new trend and forgetting your goals - you’re using these platforms to access your audience, and that core mission shouldn’t be forgotten. You need to stay familiar with your consumers - Who is your audience? Where do they hang out, what do they like? What’s the best way you can provide value for them and build trust? With the answers to these basic questions, you can cherry pick the best strategies that would supplement your goals based on how effective they would be for your audience. Once you have the answers to these questions, you can then begin implementing the latest strategies by following blogs that are considered authorities in your niche - a great way to do this is hunt the RSS feeds of other marketers that are getting great results, and study them. There are countless free resources online to help you - Hubspot have assembled a fantastic free resources library, ripe for the picking.

2. GETTING ATTENTION AND DRIVING TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE

If you think digital marketing is like fishing, where you can just drop a line in and reel up a great story for the grandkids, you’re probably missing the point. Imagine instead that you’re a Bird of Paradise, trying to find a mate - you need be tantalising and attracting attention. Once you’ve got their attention, you want them to follow your link back to your nest/website where the magic really happens. Two shortcomings that both marketers and Birds of Paradise suffer is a low volume of attention, while trying to attract attention in places that aren’t populated by their target market.

To generate awareness, it’s crucial that you are using the correct style of platform. There’s a long list of marketing strategies that simply aren’t compatible with all social media platforms, and will only work well in their intended format. This could be for many reasons, ranging from a lack of interest in the product itself, or simply because the demographic doesn’t match up to your most likely buyers. In any case, it’s important to know where your audience is located and to offer them something they need. You might offer a freebie in the form of a free download, e-book, or a blog you update with useful and relevant information. By establishing yourself as a reliable and helpful brand, you’re paving the way for casual visitors to evolve into loyal customers. Keep an eye tuned on your analytics to make sure that you’re getting the best results for your efforts.

3. UNDERSTAND AND IMPROVE THE ROI

Within the supernova of Facebook marketing, it is dangerously easy to blow an advertising budget with nothing to show for your efforts. The risks can be mitigated a great deal by implementing the latest analytical tools and tracking software to measure the value of your efforts in totality. A savvy marketer will be able to evaluate the cost and value of each and every customer. Keen insights like this are the only way to determine whether the ROI is worth the effort and budget allocated to it.

In order to be the most hot-damn marketer that you can, you should know where your customers are coming from. Make the most of your analytics tools to find out what is working for you and ramp it up accordingly. If there are any strategies that are lagging then they should rise to the surface when you start looking at the data - trim the fat and adapt your strategy with an eye on the ROI.

Social media marketing appears easy enough - I mean, come on. Everyone seems to be doing it; some might say Joe down the street is ‘marketing’ his lifestyle to his Facebook friends with those Newsfeed images of surfing trips down the coast and beers on the beach, with happy-go-lucky captions. But don’t get fooled into thinking you’ll have it that easy - there are a lot of elements you need to be aware of, and a campaign can fail miserably without the proper care. If you are falling over yourself to find out more about social media marketing, call our team for a chat - we’re happy to help.