When social media emerged, all considered it to be a passing trend like so many others. However, against all popular opinions, it has stayed and is growing by the day. It has risen to the extent that organizations and businesses alike, have separate departments that overlook their social media profiles- right from updating them regularly to being in touch with their contemporaries in the field.
Social media began with Facebook and Twitter, now expanding to Instagram and Snapchat have changed the way people communicate with each other. This has had a significant influence, on not just personal relationships but also professional and business communications. Earlier, social media was used to bring in customer engagement regarding the company. With the rise in the presence and ever-expanding field of social media, companies are now utilizing this magnitude of power to influence a customer’s decision in buying products among doing other things.
Through the help of social media, sales, human resources, product research and development as also market research have launched successful campaigns. The flip side to this coin, are the challenges that are faced by social media managers, some of which are yet being figured out by these managers to create success stories for their organizations.
Not all campaigns bring in the same result, and a change in the result means that something didn’t quite work out that needs to be figured and fixed. However, that is just how social media works: no two campaigns can bring in the same result. Before we get too ahead of ourselves lets find out the daily challenges that are faced by the social media managers and ways how to solve them:
1. Creating fresh and meaningful content
When you begin your social media journey, it is essential to create awareness about your brand or business. At the same time, it is also vital to engage your customers to increase their loyalty towards your company.
To do this, it is required that you put out fresh and relatable content out on your profile every day. Doing this helps your brand to remain on top of your customers’ mind. However, achieving this is a challenge since coming up with meaningful content for daily posts is not easy. It is easy to repeat types of content but not easy to curate new and out-of-the-box content.
2. Social Media ROI
Social Media ROI refers to the returns that you receive for investing your time, money and resources into social media marketing. However, it is difficult to comprehend the value of your Tweet or post shared on your page compared to clicks on an ad.
Having measurable goals with a number attached to them helps determine the progress as the strategy is put to work. With strategic goals and right tools in place, it becomes quite easy to check your social media ROI daily.
3. Getting client approval
Clients, in the beginning, help in setting goals for creating a social media strategy. However, convincing them that it’s about being “social” and not just selling your product is the challenge. Pushing the products on customers will only drive them away. Hence, getting halfhearted approvals don’t work, and that brings an effect on the results.
4. Improving a decline in reach
It is disappointing when you pool in your time and resources into publishing something that doesn’t do well. But in all fairness, there are over 95 million photos and videos uploaded on Instagram, over 500 million tweets sent on Twitter and 350 million posts added to Facebook, daily. In this crowd of content, it is a real competition for yours to stand out.
Using a social media management tool is the best idea to manage and monitor content since this helps to find a performance graph that lets you know what works and what could be discarded for your audience. Knowing this will help you reach your audience effectively by tailoring your post accordingly.
5. Treating your audience humanistic-ally
Social media is an excellent tool when it comes to brand awareness. However, if you intend on retaining these customers pushing your content on them may not the best idea. Although most people follow a brand through social media, most get annoyed through excessive promotions.
You can’t always be selling. Hence, to increase brand loyalty, you can make use of the technique of storytelling that is followed by major brands like Nike, Dove and Always. These brands publish thoughtfully the kind of content that resonated with the audience while also representing their business.
6. Managing customer queries on posts
Social media is a two-way communication street, but often, it is used only to promote content. Companies use this platform to improve their brand while the customer makes use of this to reach out to brands. However, brands reply only to 11% of their audience. This could be as a result of the overwhelming number of messages that posts receive daily.
You can make use of tools like Social Sprout and make sure that none of your messages goes unnoticed. So, with all of your messages in one place, you can provide cross-channel support and quickly identify if it is an issue to resolve or a chance to delight a customer.
7. Tracking progress
During the execution of your social media strategy, it is crucial that you track and maintain your growth. Doing this not only helps you know what you have achieved but also enables you to understand what you need to know to manage your progress and help elevate it. It can also help you to weed out the flaws and improve your strategy for the better. However, it can get challenging to keep track of how much you have progressed on your strategy which can be solved by making use of tools that not only integrate your plan but also help you create track of the same.