Is social media a waste of time for business?

Social media is a very powerful platform that can help you grow, but it can equally damage your brand if done in the wrong way. For most small businesses and solopreneurs, social media can be a waste of time. Financial and human resources are important assets and should be used wisely.

bettermarketing.pub - When Is Social Media a Waste of Time for Your Business? - Better Marketing

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Don’t take this the wrong way. Social media is important, as it can boost your brand awareness and help grow. But I notice many small businesses wasting time (and frequently money) on it. Financial and human resources are important assets and should be used wisely. Believing that you have to post something on Facebook just because your big competitor has posted something is wrong and ineffective. Instead, use this time to assess other marketing options and evaluate where your marketing efforts would have a bigger return. Strive to achieve more in that field instead. For most small businesses and solopreneurs, social media can be a waste of time. No, it’s not. Social media is a very powerful platform that can help you grow, but it can equally damage your brand if done in the wrong way. The reason why every business wants to be on social media is that their competitors are there, and this peer pressure is what makes social media a must-be place. There is this belief today that every business should be on social media. There’s even a saying “If your business doesn’t have a Facebook page, does it really exist?” In short, yes, it exists. Social media doesn’t define presence.

It’s only one of many ways to market yourself

What Is the “Wrong” Usage of Social Media?

I've seen businesses dedicate way too much time on social media with way too little reward. There are business owners who insist on having multiple social media channels and too much time in handling them. Often, they don't see the desired results, and then wonder why they aren't getting the return on their investment.

The reasons can be as follows:

You have no clear plan: irrelevant and inconsistent usage

If you aren’t going to plan your social media strategy from A to Z, it’s better not to jump into it at all. Personally, I advocate that the poor management of social media accounts is more harmful than beneficial. If you come to a realization that “oh, I haven't posted for two weeks. I have to share something now,” it's a wrong approach.

Social media, like everything else in business, requires thorough planning and strategy.

Your consumer who discovers your sporadic and unplanned posts will think that you're not taking your social media game seriously, and they will never click the follow button. It's relatively easy to fix this. Dedicate some time each month or week to plan your social media strategy. Avoid sporadic posts. Random posts, in fact, will weaken your brand's message to consumers. An effective branding communication on social media will reinforce your value proposition, and it’s hard work. Posting sporadically will just water down your brand’s communication efforts.

You’re not setting any goals for your social media presence

If you’re on social media just because your competitors are there, most likely you have no clear goals set for having it. That’s why working on it is a waste of time, because, in fact, it serves no purpose. Whatever you do, you should set certain goals for achievements. Thinking that you want to get 100k followers is not a constructive goal, but it’s a start. How about starting to measure the engagement rate, the number of people who land on your website because of social media, the virality of your posts, impressions, or total reach? If you start doing this, the work that you do on social media will start having a meaning. You should also try to improve with time. The analysis of the metrics will help you choose better tactics and strategize better for future social media activities. Social media is work. It’s much more than “ah, just post”. If you set clear goals and work towards achieving them, social media will become a powerful tool for your marketing efforts and you’ll stop wasting time on it.

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You have no clear voice in your message

Your social media accounts are there to strengthen your position as an expert within a certain field. This means that your followers want to be updated and know the industry-related news, be it new product launches, industry news, or business updates. You have to own your voice for it. If your posts are flat and dull, they won't attract followers. To me, flat and dull posts are the ones that keep repeating the same message, hard-sell products, or push consumers to like and follow the brand. This type of messaging has long stopped working. Social media users today are very savvy and desire to get the latest information with your unique twist on it. They want to know what value you're bringing to the industry and why they should rely on and choose your services. That's why companies that manage to position themselves as an industry thought leader will always have a constant growth of new followers. Their sales will also grow, as people will trust their expertise in whatever they do.

You are a copycat in your posts

Consumers aren't stupid. Most likely if they are following you, they are following your competitors as well. Copycat posts happened to me multiple times in my career. When I started working with social media of a big payment company and the engagement rate, the number of followers, etc. started to grow drastically, the biggest competitor started copying our posts. I was flattered but super annoyed at the same time. In the end, it was my work that was used by someone else, which wasn't cool at all. So, if you see that your competitor or any other business is doing something well, don't copy them. Instead, try to look for something unique that would work for you. Social media is about experimenting and if it worked for them, it doesn’t mean that it will work for you. In my case, another company was copying our Facebook captions. Word by word. Changing the brand name only. Each post has a date and time, so the consumer will be able to see who was the first to come up with the content. You're risking to be either publically humiliated, or ignored. In our case, our competitor was totally ignored by the consumers.

Your posts have no captions

Again, if you wouldn’t be interested in seeing such a post on your personal feed, don't post it. I've seen many businesses that post a photo or news article with no caption at all. It's super irritating because as a consumer, I give my attention to your brand. At the same time, I have no time nor desire to guess what a post without caption means.

If you share industry news, for example, a newspaper article “Consumer tax to rise in Q2 2020”, you should explain what it means to your business and your customers. Does it affect you? How will it affect your consumers?

The same goes for photos. Sporadic photos with no caption make consumers confused. And it also signals that you run a super poor marketing strategy for your brand. I've worked with a company where the big boss had access to the company’s official social media accounts. Once a month or so, the big boss posted random posts of poor quality photos or industry news, because he believed that it was important for the followers to know. Fair enough. What he didn't know that each post like this forced dozens of followers to unfollow.

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Bosses are frequently busy and have no time to come up with engaging, well-thought-through captions. Instead, they should share the information they want to convey to the followers with the marketing team and have it properly communicated.

You're not social on social media

Social media is all about socializing. You cannot expect people to engage with you if you're not intending to engage with them. The secret to growth on social media is socializing. You have to dedicate time and effort to engage with accounts that are interested in you and your niche. It is frustrating for a consumer to engage with business and get no response. It happened multiple times to me and I simply never engage again. I run a food blog and when I share my opinion about restaurants on social media, few brands like, comment on or share my posts. This is not good marketing. I tend to ignore such restaurants and am very unlikely to go back. Those that are very proactive in communicating on social media, who engage with their consumers, are amongst my favorite ones and I'm sure to visit them once in a while. Therefore, if you're not engaging with your consumers, or aren't active in networking within your niche, you're losing the social media game. Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn can be great places to network and to find out the main pain points of your business or figure out what has actually worked out.

You're on too many social media networks

I get it. It's hard to choose what social media networks to be on, especially when there are so many of them. Quantity in marketing does not mean that you'll be more successful. On the contrary, it can harm your band. Firstly, what you should actually do (if you have all these accounts), go to your website's Google Analytics and check what social media platforms drive traffic to your website. These platforms should be your priority. Deactivate the rest until you have a bigger team to manage them all. I'd suggest sticking to up to three social media accounts. Most likely, it will be Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter or Instagram (depending on what your business is).

You should treat each social media account with care. They all require attention and time. How much time can you spare? Can you spare one hour per day on your social media management?

If you can, then it’s only 20 minutes for one account (if you end up having three). And in all honestly, 20 minutes per account is not enough, because you should adapt your message to each of them. You should come up with the artwork that will go along your posts. You should also spend time engaging with the users on these accounts.

That’s a lot of work.

Don't forget that you will also need time to analyze the performance of your accounts. This may also require an additional 1 hour per week. So, if you have no time to be on social media, don’t be there. Stay and focus on activities that you allocate your time to.

bettermarketing.pub - When Is Social Media a Waste of Time for Your Business? - Better Marketing

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