For every client we have that’s well-versed in the ways of social media, we have two more who are starting on the ground floor and may not know a tweet from a hole in the ground.
Assessments of success come easier for those clients who are familiar with social media, but are much more difficult for clients who already are confused about its practicality.
No matter where you are on the spectrum, here are 5 signs your social media strategy isn’t working:
- You’ve given it time and the needle hasn’t moved.Expect 3-6 months’ time to get the ball rolling. This is the real world and for every person that goes viral, there are 10,000 more who have tried and failed. If you’ve been active for 3-6 months, are doing your sit-ups, and nothing’s changed, your strategy may be to blame.
- The audience you’re reaching is different than you expected, and you can’t account for the difference.It’s not always a bad thing to reach a different audience, but it is a bad thing if you’re reaching a different audience and can’t figure out why.
- Social media accounts for less than 10% of overall site traffic, give or take.By the time you’ve built a foundation and things have gotten going, you should be seeing about 10% or more of your traffic coming from social media. If you’re seeing less, people aren’t interested in your content, or worse, they aren’t even seeing it.
- People aren’t clicking your content.If you can see how many impressions you’re getting—how many eyeballs you’re getting in front of—and none or a very small percentage of that audience is actually clicking on your content, that’s a problem. That most likely means either that you’re not publishing the right content, or that your selected audience is wrong. Low engagement isn’t out of the ordinary for many unsexy brands, but publishing content and it never being seen is.
- You’re left wondering why you’re doing this.This isn’t a failure in and of itself, but your gut is usually right. There should be some signs that point to this being a good investment. If you don’t have them, it’s time to reassess.
In our eyes, not “going viral” isn’t a failure. Not driving traffic is.
Ultimately, success and failure depends on the goals you’ve set. Not making any sales from Twitter may not be a failure if that isn’t one of your primary goals on social media.
Don’t be so quick to point to your strategy, though. Are you devoting enough time to execution? Have you put experts on the case or have you simply passed it off to your intern? Did you ever have a strategy to begin with? All of these other things are possibilities that have similar symptoms to what we’ve described above.
What can you do if your strategy isn’t working? Tune in next week when we weigh in on next steps if nothing seems to be working.
Image Credit: CC by Alba Soler
