Five reasons your social media strategy stinks

The question every business owner wants to know is whether or not all this relentless tweeting is actually bringing in any money? Well as a business owner myself I have a figure that may surprise you. In the past six months, 53% of my company’s revenue has come from our social media marketing efforts.

We conduct paid advertising on search engines and run ad-retargeting. Additionally, we use content marketing methods and email strategies. Social media can be a very lucrative way to generate income.

So where does it all go wrong for businesses? Here are five key reasons why your social media strategy stinks, and how to improve it:

Social PR

A key mistake businesses make is spending too much time trying to build up their follower and fan numbers. These are vanity metrics that don’t drive results. It also take years to organically grow a large following. Don’t fall into this trap.

One of the key shifts businesses need to make is to treat social media more like traditional PR. This can be illustrated with an example: an author who writes Roman historical fiction. We were asked by the author’s publisher to assist in increasing sales of his books, and we had six months to do so.

We went out and found social media profiles with large followings that would appeal to his target audience. One of the pages we found was a Roman history Facebook page that catered to his demographic and had a large fanbase. After talking with them and introducing them to the author’s books we discussed content. They agreed the books would be of interest to their fans and happily shared a post about his latest book. We were able to access more than 35,000 readers, many of whom went out and bought the book.

Conversations

Many businesses don’t talk to other users and companies through social media. They don’t develop a rapport with potential customers.

When building a social presence you need to build relationships, just as you would at a networking event. Show that you have actually paid attention to their tweets and their profile, and this will allow you to break through the noise.

And it doesn’t stop here: to make this a powerful tool in your arsenal you need to keep the conversation going. You can extract value over and over if you maintain the relationship.

Twitter lists are a great way to keep track of those you have engaged with and why. You can always go back to a previous tweet and see the full conversation to recap on what has been said.

Data and analytics

A huge mistake is not to be on top of your data and your analytics. A lack of insight can mean valuable businesses resources are being squandered.

I still speak to companies who can’t tell me the peak time for them to post. They don’t know the key online influencers in their industry, and they can’t tell me which posts are generating the best engagement. Treat your social media analytics and data the same way you treat your Google analytics. This data will allow you to understand what is working and what isn’t.

Data is where social media campaigns are won and lost. Those who pay close attention to the analytics and what it tells them can excel and augment their results.

But like any form of data you need to collect a sufficient amount. Don’t make a decision on content after just one week of tweets. You need to give it at least a month to ensure you are making an informed decision.

Businesses also need to escape the vanity metrics. It’s nice to collect followers and likes but if they aren’t leading to revenue, it’s not relevant. Talking to 10 people who all go out and buy your product is more powerful than 1,000 who don’t care about it at all.

Software

I hear people complain that social media takes up too much of their time. If that is the case you aren’t using the right software. There are many tools to maximise your efficiency when it comes to managing your social media marketing.

You need tools for research, analytics, conversation and content. If you have your tools set up correctly, it can be a simple half an hour a day job to keep everything moving smoothly. And if you don’t have half an hour, there are many capable freelancers who do.

Content is still king

A huge social media mistake is not thinking about the value you can give to your online audience. Dramatic results can only be achieved if you maintain high-quality content. Find your voice and deliver value to your social audience.

You need to go deeper than the standard social statuses showing off your latest blog post. To find this initially you really have to think who your customer is: what language do they use and what advice or information would they value?

Your analytics will help you to understand what your audience is connecting with. Using that data you can improve your content even further to keep advancing your impact.

Patrick Walsh is the owner of PR and marketing agency Publishing Push

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