Frustrations of social media professionals in 2017 - Do you feel the same?

I've just got back from an interesting three days at Social Media Week in London. It was my first time there and in addition to the talks themselves (more on those to follow on the Fresh Egg blog soon), I really enjoyed meeting some new people and chatting about the good and bad aspects of their jobs.

After a few conversations it became apparent that many people in social media roles (both in-house and agency) are experiencing all of the same frustrations.

None of these were a surprise and many have been said by people working in digital marketing for a few years now, however what is interesting to

• The organic algorithms of platforms are crippling brands (and they don't have the budget to run lots of paid activity)
• They don't simply have the budgets of some of the super brands/publishers and therefore are constrained on creativity or being able to try something new
• They know video is important (a key topic at Social Media Week), but again don't have endless budgets
• If they work in B2B they aren't getting much support and help from the community compared to B2C peers - most conferences, blogs etc focus heavily on consumer campaigns, especially retail ones
• Engagement metrics ('views' or 'impressions') are all very well, don't show how the channel helps the business (and therefore help justify budget)
• Many of them are juggling a number of different skills within their roles (including running paid social, because it's seen as 'social media'). Sometimes they are having to be responsible for both social and content (or other marketing), which prevents them from being creative as they have too much 'BAU' stuff to do
• Many still have senior management teams that either do not understand the role of the channel or see it as "fluffy"
• Departments are really siloed still - this leads to campaigns and activity that are not joined up at all
• If you work in an industry that's heavily regulated (finance, pharmaceuticals), then social media is a much harder task to do

If you're a social media professional (or work in digital marketing in general) do these sound familiar to you? Let me know in the comments below and feel free to add your own!