5 Reasons Why You're Destined Not To Succeed With Social Media

During the past 7 years, I have worked with dozens of businesses and hundreds of individuals, all of whom wanted to learn how to use LinkedIn and social media to raise their business profile, whilst engaging with more potential new clients. Most felt that the workshop they attended would be their ticket to social media success, when in reality, they were destined to fail from the outset and here's why?

1. Realistic expectations

If you approach social media with the expectation that by connecting with enough people and sharing regular content, new customers will come beating a path to your door, then you're going to be in for a disappointment, as it's unlikely that this will happen for your business.

Yes, you will get your brand seen, more often, by a percentage of your social media audience. As long as that audience is made up of the right type of people, then increased brand awareness is clearly not a bad thing, it just isn't going to change your world, not anytime soon at least.

To put my last comment into context, Facebook's continual changes to its algorithms mean that, as of 2016, if you operate a Facebook business page, then you have virtually a zero chance of your organic content being seen by any of those individuals or businesses who have liked your page. Facebook Zero has become a reality. Unsurprisingly, Facebook owned Instagram news feed would appear to following suit. In both cases, you will now have to work much harder to get your 'fans' to actually be able to see your content at all.

Also, if you're an active LinkedIn user, you will undoubtedly have noticed that in recent months, the number of connections who view and engage with your Published Posts, shared on the platform's Pulse news feed, has gone into decline and as for LinkedIn groups, well, the less said the better.

What should your expectations be?

Unless you are a digital marketing agency, a marketing company or you happen to be a dedicated social media resource, employed by your firm, then here's what you need to know - you're going to have to be prepared to pay your preferred social media platform to use their paid advertising options, if you want any kind of guarantee that your followers and connections will see your content, it's as simple as that. Or, you're going to have to dedicate more time, each week, to creating or curating content which you will then encourage your friends, family and followers to share regularly.   

Realistically, your weekly social media efforts, which will probably mostly consist of posting and sharing updates, will keep you top of mind, with your audience but it won't drive sales, you need to add a Social Selling element to your activity for this to happen.

2. Finding time to manage your social media activity

This is going to be your biggest hurdle. Certainly, if you're a small team or possibly the business relies on just you, then it's likely that social media will be shoe-horned into the week, to fit alongside your other tasks and projects. Unless, you're going to make time to implement a considered social media strategy, then don't expect results and by results, I'm mean likes, comments and shares, and new enquiries - it just isn't going to happen, unless, as I stated above, you are achieving high levels of engagement from your social media posts. If not, then the majority of your audience are simply never going to see your content.

3. Content shock could be scuppering your plans

Another reason why you might be struggling to gain engagement, is due to a phenomenon, known as Content Shock. Here's how author and marketer Mark Schaefer explains content shock; "In any human, natural, or economic system, when there is an overabundance of some commodity, and there is a limited capacity to consume that good, something has to change". Here, the commodity in question is web and social media generated content - there's just too much of it out there, that you and I struggle to consume even information we have an interest in.

It is estimated that in the next 5 years, the Internet is set to grow by another 40%, which only means one thing - more content! To counter this challenge, you will have to produce better, more relevant, solution focused content and have a strategy to ensure it is being shared regularly with your network of connections and followers.

It's not all doom and gloom though

Despite the challenges of getting your content seen these days, all is not lost but it does mean that simply creating better content or more of it, isn't going to increase your engagement. You're going to have to get your content to work for you better and more to the point, you're going to have to get others to do this for you.

Building a network of trusted contacts, who know, like and trust you has now become more important than ever. If social media sites, reward content which receives more likes, shares and comments (engagement), then you need the help of your network to make this happen. To increase your content's visibility, your close connections and followers must work as multipliers on your behalf and share your content with their networks and for even greater coverage, their networks, must, in turn, do precisely the same. Networking just became even more important! 

4. Is management really interested?

Whats gets managed, tends to get done.

If you attend a LinkedIn//social media workshop or you send your team on one, without making any provision to manage the implementation process, when you or they return to work, then your investment in that workshop will have been a complete waste of time and money. At best, you or your employee will return, with a degree of enthusiasm, some newly acquired knowledge (soon forgotten by the way) and a desire to put into practise what was learnt during the workshop. However, any enthusiasm, to turn this new found knowledge into practical application in the business, will soon dissipate, unless there is a plan, in place, to regularly review and monitor social media activity and a support structure to help sharpen these new skills on an ongoing basis.

Whether you attend personally or send others on a social media workshop, without planning for what happens when returning to the business, then your social media objectives are destined not to succeed!     

 5. A simple lack of application

Any lack of progress with your social media plans will most likely come down to a simple lack of application, possibly determined by some of the points described above but nevertheless, unless you intend to apply yourself to implementing social media in your business, then results won't happen.

You must have a plan, a strategy for social media use in your business and at a high level, your plan needs to include:

• Clarity about why you are using social media. 
• A clear understanding of who your social media audience is.
• What you intend to say to your audience, that they'll find relevant, engaging and inspiring.
• How you will manage and resource your social media strategy.
• What the measurement criteria will be (brand awareness, more website traffic, increase in new enquiries etc) 

It's hard to get social media right, so here's what to do

Unless, as I stated earlier, you have a full-time, dedicated social media and digital marketing resource, employed in your business, then here are my Top 3 activities that you could implement, to get better results from your social media activity.

1. Accept that your social media updates and posts will maintain some level of brand awareness for your business and increase the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) value of your website - your website will be more visible because you use social media - but it won't create miracles. Less is more, so create fewer pieces of content but ensure that what you do share is inspiring, engaging and relevant to your ideal target audience.
2. Create a list of potential and relevant multipliers, ambassadors, who are well connected on social media and encourage them to share your content regularly. One way to ensure this happens will be by making sure you share their content also. 
3. Network - use social media to Social Sell. Locate, connect/follow and build relationships with those who can refer you to the types of businesses you want to work with. Do the same with people you don't know yet but be prepared to play a longer game. New connections will only do business with you or refer you to others, once you have built some know, like and trust with them. Social Selling is not cold-calling or door knocking - social selling is different and it's why many salespeople struggle to make it work for them.

There is light at the end of the tunnel

It would be easy to reflect on this post and consider that social media, for your business, is simply not worth the time and effort but as someone who has built his business, over the past 7 years, on the back of using LinkedIn and social media, I can prove differently. This is not because I run a LinkedIn and social media training company, as many of my clients, as you'll see here, have also made social media work for them and achieved real and measurable results.

2 years ago, it was much easier to create engagement on LinkedIn and social media but then that was true of email marketing and virtually any other kind of business promotion. What has changed is that an increased number of people and businesses have recognised the importance of embracing new technology and the playground has become much busier. In the school play ground, the most popular child was often the one who had the biggest bag of sweets, had sports cards to swap or had the biggest number of friends who wanted to play in their den after school - in short, they had something the other children desired and wanted. 

To make social media work for your business, to increase website visitors, enhance your brand awareness and create more selling opportunities, you need to make more friends and provide them and their friends with something they desire and want.

Many thanks for viewing my post, I hope you found it useful? If you did, would you share it with your network who might also enjoy it and before you go, would you use the comment section, below, to let me know what you found most interesting about what I had to say – how was it relevant to your own circumstances? 

If you have any private questions on the subject matter you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send me a message, or else you’ll find my contact details on my LinkedIn profile uk.linkedin.com/in/stevephillip. 

If you need help to improve your sales and marketing skills, particularly using LinkedIn and social media, then please get in touch and check out our website  www.linked2success.co.uk. 

You can also follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Linked2Steve or https://twitter.com/stevejphillip