From community management and content creation to measuring the success of your activations, brands that invest in social media marketing each face unique challenges. Whether you are a one-man show or have a whole marketing team behind you, social media can be one of your most important marketing tools. If you use it to its full potential, it can truly be a game changer for your business… but oftentimes there are roadblocks that can make it feel like more of a cog than a well-oiled machine.
We asked you, our Core readers, about the biggest challenges you face and here is what you said…
Top 6 Biggest Social Media Challenges of Core Readers
1. Creating Content
As a social media marketer myself, I am well aware of the time it takes, not only to create content, but also to generate creative ideas that will captivate and resonate with your audience. With seemingly endless options out there, your brand’s content needs to go beyond just a pretty picture and connect on a deeper level if it’s going to make an impact.
Trust me, I know that maintaining a robust content calendar sounds time-consuming enough. So we understand it may sound too overwhelming to also have to worry about sharing consistent, impactful content that resonates with audiences and embodies your unique brand personality. Fortunately, each year we create a social media calendar that you can download for FREE to give you content inspiration and ideas for almost every day of the year. Check it out here!
2. Establishing Goals and Objectives
Establishing goals is the very first step when it comes to level-setting with your team. Getting everyone on the same page early will allow you to work together to be running towards a collective finish line. As marketers who provide social media services to companies with a range of existing resources, we know it is imperative to determine what that finish line looks like in order for you to be successful. So how do you start to create successful, yet attainable goals?
There are a few things we encourage you to consider when setting goals:
- Review your overall numbers from the last year to gauge your success and identify areas that might need more attention.
- What did you do well?
- What could be better?
- Determine your budget.
- Is this lower or higher than last year?
- How can you adjust your goals based on changes in spend or based on the growth of your communities?
- Decide how and in what ways you will show up on social media on a monthly basis.
- What platforms will you be present on?
- How many posts will you be sharing on each platform?
- How much do you have to spend on advertising each month?
- How many promotions will you be running?
If this is something you need support with, we set and measure KPIs for every brand that we work with! We can help you set goals and measure success for promotions & giveaways, co-branded collaborations, monthly advertising, and more. Don’t be in a boat alone – let us help!
3. Time Management Concerns
As a full-service marketing agency, no one knows better than us the time-consuming nature of full-scope social media management. Unfortunately, there is no getting around that fact. If you want your social media to make an impact, sell, or inspire your audience, it is going to take time, effort, and strategic thinking. But don’t worry, there is hope! We are here to support you in any way that you might need, whether that is by providing you with a social media plan so that you can execute it yourself, or by taking the load off of you entirely. We have tons of different offerings based on your needs, all the way down to providing monthly batches of content to get you started or fill a gap for a period of time (for a very affordable price)!
To learn more about how we may be able to support you, check out our social media services or request a call!
4. Measuring Success
There are so many different ways to measure social media success. Of course, the one that most companies look for is an impact on sales. While social media certainly drives sales in a big way, some of the other direct measurements we track in order to ensure our efforts are making an impact include:
- Community Growth
- Engagement
- Website Clicks
- Video Views
- Post Frequency
- Post Reach & Overall Impressions
- Conversion Rates
- Social Media Ad Performance
To get a more in-depth look at these particular measurements, check out our post on Measuring Social Media Success!
5. Nurturing Online Communities
Between all of the different social media channels, keeping up with your communities can feel like an entire job in itself. The number of messages some brands receive in a day or week is enough to keep you busy for hours per day. To keep us on track, we use a tool called Sprout Social that has many different features to help improve the way social media management is done, but one that is a game changer when it comes to nurturing and managing online communities is the smart inbox. This automatically populates every message across all social media channels into one feed where you can respond to each message directly… or just hit “like” and move along! It also allows you to collaborate internally for tag-team responses. Beyond just responding to comments on your posts or posts you are tagged in, Sprout also offers the ability to scan the greater web for keywords related to your product. This helps expand your reach and engagement even further, so that when and if it makes sense, you can jump into other conversations about topics related to your product.
If this is something your team might be interested in, let’s chat! We’d love to tell you more about it and can even work with you to help your internal marketing team get the best pricing. Reach out to us to learn more.
6. Budget Concerns
No marketing myth frustrates us more than when people assume they need a million-dollar budget to garner great results. While more money certainly never hurts, strategy is where the real results come in and THAT, we can help you with!
We have experience with clients of all different sizes with range of budgets, so don’t be intimidated by what you have to work with. Whatever social media challenge you are facing, we are here to serve as the extension of your team and lend a hand! Let’s chat.
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