Businesses who start out with Social Media Campaigns often complain that their efforts do not show results. It is true that Social Media Marketing may not always produce instant results that are expected by a generation of business owners who have grown up in the “instant gratification” culture of the modern society. On the other hand there are certain obstacles that entrepreneurs and business owners need to be able to overcome for their Social Media Campaigns to be effective.
Understanding the media and the participants needs
It is easy for business owners to get attracted to Social Media just like a child being drawn to a shiny object. While it is possible to find a way of buying 1000 Twitter followers, this strategy does not merit longevity. How does the business owner know that the followers are interested in what they have to say about your products or services? A business should first understand the audience they are trying to reach and communicate in a language of their customers, not theirs. Just like SEO, you might have keywords that are accurate, but don’t represent the customers’ perception of the business. It is important to find out what customers want in terms of content, information, resources and give it to them.
Developing a unique voice
To find out why some entrepreneurs and business owners find it difficult to communicate effectively using Social Media, while others don’t, it’s important to examine their Behaviour offline. Often people who are unsuccessful in being social online are not social in their day to day lives. Just like an author who finds his or her “voice”, businesses need to find their own social voice. The easiest way to do this is by taking action. By getting on the social media platform, learning the “language” that others are using and then joining the conversation using the same language. Social Media Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have their own set of explicit rules published in Black & White that must be followed. However there are unwritten rules involving social etiquette and other things that are acceptable by group members and others that are not. There’s no way of knowing what these are, without actually participating.
Matching resources to needs
The secret therefore is finding out what others are interested in, their problems & frustrations and finding out how you can use your resources to make it easy for them to get value out of the content that is posted. This is a far better strategy in attracting followers and growing a network than simply buying followers.
Creating content that adds value
Another obstacle that needs to be overcome is content generation. It’s always important to generate fresh content to keep readers coming back to read posts and blogs. Often businesses turn to automation, using software to add content that has already been published elsewhere. The danger here is that it is not possible to develop equity as no value is being added. The way to overcome this obstacle is to leverage crowdsourcing, by building a community where like, minded people can do things that are interesting to them and make it easy for them to connect with each other. Part of that interaction would be your content which would be shared by users which is what you want them to do.
Just like learning any new skill there is a steep learning curve to mastering Social Media. The best way to overcome obstacles is to participate regularly, keep aware of what others are looking for and add provide solutions through value added posts.
