Have you spent time creating high-quality content, to feel disappointed when your follower count and various engagement metrics haven’t changed?
First things first – don’t feel disheartened.
As content creation specialists with years of experience in the digital marketing space, we see common occurrences where content marketing campaigns and posting strategies fail to see the social growth (or lead generation) expected.
And it’s hardly surprising, given the ‘dos and don’ts’ of social media are constantly changing.
If you’ve been grinding away at the keyboard, coming up with delightful graphics and supporting captions, then you’re ready to move across the line from ‘almost there’ to ‘SUCCESS!’
Here are our 3 common ‘trouble’ areas to turn your time and effort into social media domination.
Social Growth Mistake 1: You aren’t solving your target audience’s pain points
The average adult sees 6,000-10,000 content pieces per day. That’s a lot to take in. From newspaper articles, blog posts, TV ad breaks, signage, and the thousands of social media posts on their feed, it’s no exaggeration when we say – your audience is being bombarded.
To cut through this noise, you need to stand out, and to stand out you need to be creating content that ticks two very important boxes: specificity and usefulness.
For example – If you’ve recently posted a meme to your company’s social media page, did you post it because you found it funny or because it touched on something that your audience would find funny?
Creating content is an essential part of social media marketing, but if that content is too generic and isn’t created with your target audience in mind, it will fail to generate the interest and engagement you’re looking for.
As digital marketing genius Neil Patel says, “If your content is not helping people to solve a problem, readers have little reason to believe that you’re going to be of value to them.”
If you aren’t adding value to your content: why should someone read it?
Your social media engagement is easy to improve through nailing your audience’s pain points, solving problems, providing them with useful information and still “playing around with their empathy or ego”.
So, before you jump back into social content creation, take time to ensure you understand your followers and prospects.
Not sure where to start? We’ve built a free persona profile template that will enable you to really understand who you’re targeting and what content is likely to have the biggest impact on them.
Social Growth Mistake 2: You’re forgetting to use call-to-actions (or they’re too forced)
Call-to-actions boost engagement and generate leads, and yet many people forget to add them to the end of great content pieces.
Once you’ve finished writing your latest batch of social media captions (and yes, we highly recommend creating in batches) your call-to-actions should do exactly that – tell the reader what action you want them to take next.
If you’re wanting to get new accounts to view your post, you may encourage your followers to ‘tag your fave business owner in the comments below’ or ‘share these top tips with your network’.
Alternatively, you may want to generate some open conversation in the comment section to help build relationships with your followers. If your post is about banana bread for example (hello lockdown 1), throw in a ‘Have you ever made banana bread? Let us know about your wins and disasters below!’.
Across most social media platforms, comments help boost your reach and guide algorithms to show your posts to more people, including non-followers. This gives you the perfect opportunity to increase your brand awareness and improve your social growth.
But remember, always think about your call-to-actions and try to avoid anything that may come across as too pushy or forceful. You may lose followers this way.
TOP TIP – On Facebook, in-post links are sometimes flagged as promotions and can reduce your ‘reach’ per post. To avoid this, try popping the link in the comments section or ending with ‘Check the sale out now by clicking the link on our page!’
Social Growth Mistake 3: You aren’t interacting with your network
Creating engaging content isn’t the be-all and end-all of social media marketing. In fact, it’s only the very tip of the iceberg.
If you’re looking for real social media growth, you must interact with other social media profiles. After all, how will anyone know that your page exists and that you’re posting valuable content unless you put yourself out there?
When it comes to social media engagement, there are various ways you can do this…
- You can respond to comments on your own posts
- You can comment on other people’s posts on your timeline
- You can start following relevant hashtags and engage with these posts (Instagram and LinkedIn only)
- You can check out the ‘Explore’ page and engage with these posts (Instagram only)
- You can react to other people’s stories (or fleets as they’re called on Twitter)
Every time you comment on someone else’s social media post, you’re increasing the visibility of your own profile. To really maximise your reach, try targeting profiles that have lots of followers from your own target audience (For example, if you sell vegetarian cookbooks, interact with healthy eating pages and veggie influencers).
How 10X Marketing can support you
If consistent content creation and social engagement seem a little overwhelming, why not reach out to the team here at 10X Marketing?
As organic content marketing specialists, we know exactly what it takes to stand out online and can help you to achieve real growth through various social media support packages.
To find out more about these packages, click here.
We’ve got plenty more jam-packed FREE resources that can help you plan, write and repurpose your content. Follow the link to browse our many free downloads to help you navigate social media.
