Most businesses have a social media strategy. This is the campaign by which they’ll grow their brand recognition across social media platforms – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Snapchat, Bluesky, Threads, etc., – and bring in new, engaged, easy to convert followers who will soon turn into loyal customers.
But there’s a lot you can get wrong about a social media strategy. The art of posting isn’t just about ensuring you have high quality images to share, even though social media is a visual place. Even though it relies primarily on images and videos to attract and retain attention, these visual elements will go ignored if they offer little to nothing else.
With no captions, no tags, and no links in place, your social media content isn’t going to bring anyone in to stay. It’s these elements that can make or break a good social media strategy.
So let’s discover what’s going wrong with yours. If you feel your social media growth just isn’t going anywhere right now, here’s what could be at fault.
You Don’t Understand What Your Followers Want
Got a good amount of followers but very little traction on your posts? That’s a surefire sign you’re not posting the kind of thing they really want to see. This isn’t quite an immediate killer of a good social media strategy, but it can become quite a deadly one if the issue is left for too long.
Not understanding what your followers really want will net you very little engagement on your social media feed. You won’t get many likes, you probably won’t get any comments at all, and as for sharing and saving? The rate is at an absolute zero.
If this keeps up, your profits are going to come to an absolute zero too. Social media is a great place for both finding new leads and retaining previous customers, but this low traction means your content isn’t maintaining either.
So it’s time to figure out what your followers do want to see. You can do this by asking them directly and honestly, but you can also track back through your previous content and see what performed well. What’s different about the posts with the good engagement rates? Is there anything they have in common? Look for points like these going forward.
You’re Posting at the Wrong Times
Posting at the wrong times can be an engagement killer. Most social media platforms don’t work on a chronological schedule. If you post something at 2pm, and your followers don’t really log on until 4pm, the post isn’t going to be sitting waiting there for them to find it after they clear the most recent ones from their feed.
It’s going to disappear into the noise instead, maybe to never be found by the people who have signed up to see your content in particular. Some of the more active users may stumble across it eventually after a few refreshes, but that’s not what you want here. You don’t want your content to only be discovered if something puts a concentrated effort into making it appear.
Start posting at the times your followers are most likely to be online. Social media platforms make this quite easy to discover these days, but you can also use third party tools to help here too.
On X, you can use a tweet scheduler that incorporates AI to figure out when your followers are at an active peak, which will then publish whatever you’ve got ready to go at the same point. Voila – your content is out in time for your audience to see it. And tools like these are available for every other social media as well, so you can start using them wherever you really want.
You’re Not Giving Enough Information
You’ve got an event coming up – awesome. What time does it start? Where is it being hosted? And when can people expect it to draw to a close?
You’re launching a new product – wonderful! When does it drop? How much is it going to cost? And will there be any discounts available?
Never forget information like this when you’re putting a social media post out. If it has something directly to do with your business, don’t make it difficult for someone to find out more. Make it very, very easy for them to stay up to date and get involved.
Putting out announcement posts is all well and good for generating some hype, but you can’t rely on this hype forever. You need to have concrete details to pass on at some point too. And above all, don’t just forget to include them in the post in your hurry to get something actionable up on your social media!
And finally, when it comes to passing on information on social media, remember that people want their links to be convenient! You can’t rely on someone to love the idea of your product so much that they’ll be moved to find your website on their own.
You need to make it easy for them to both stay on the app AND make their way over to your checkout. Include your links in your content (if the platform allows for this), and make sure your profile has a link in it too. This will make your homepage, or the dedicated product page, one of the first things people see when they click through to your profile.
Is Your Social Media Strategy Going Wrong?
It’s something that can happen to any business, and it can happen at any time as well. If you’ve had a really good month online, you could suddenly plunge into a very bad one. If you’ve always had an understanding audience, something could change and now you get no engagement at all.
In every case, however, it’s clear your social media strategy has failed to adapt. Don’t put up with this for long. Work backwards from the symptom you’ve noticed, figure out what caused it, and then put it right.
