Think Social is a Waste of Time?

Before you give up and throw in the towel think about three key areas that impact your social marketing efforts.

1.  Why?

You need to ask yourself two why questions and answer them truthfully.

1.  Why are you using social networks for marketing?

The answer to this question is the foundation to the content you post and how much effort you are truly putting into social marketing.  Your why for everything determines how hard you work at it.

2.  Why are you doing this alone?

The answer to this question will tell you if you need to take a step back and get some help.  Use someone like me to consult with you, to help you learn more about the social networks so you can fully take advantage of them.  A consultant is a great way to learn and honestly puts you on the fast track ahead of your competition.  Be aware, don’t hire the first consultant you find, interview them and test their knowledge.  Or simply start doing your own research.  Two great websites to start with are mashable.com and marketingprofs.com, there are many more, but these are a good start.

 

2.  Content

Ask yourself these two questions and answer honestly. 

1.  Have I truly been posting content my audience will like, share or comment on?

You analytics won’t lie, plus if you are about to give up then I would assume the true answer to this question is no.  Which means you need to take a step back and evaluate your target audience.

2.  Have I been posting content just to post content?

Most of the time, if someone is ready to give up on social marketing they usually have to answer this questions yes.  Which means you are not the only one, there are a lot businesses doing the same thing but in order to make progress you need to come up with content guidelines.  This will tell you what type of content to post on which social network and what time.

 

3.  Analytics

I have two more questions for you to ask yourself and answer honestly.

1.  Do I know what my social analytics are telling me?

One thing to understand about social analytics is that it tells you more than just age, gender and location of your audience.  It tells you about your content, if they are engaging with your content or not.  It also tells you so much more if you know what you are looking at and read it properly.

2.  When was the last time I looked at analytics for all my social networks?

You cannot judge your social marketing results based on one social network.  First of all social marketing is just one piece of your marketing pie and each social network is just a tiny sliver of that piece.  Your analytics should be telling you which network is most successful for you and which networks you are failing on.  Analytic are there to tell you where you are and how to improve in order to get the desired results you want.

 

Before giving up take are good look at why you are using social networks for marketing, what your audience is or is not doing with your content and look at your social analytics.  There are literally hundreds of social consultants out there, pick one you can trust and pay them to help you.  FREE won’t get you where you want to go!