Social media campaigns are a norm rather than an exception these days. However, it would be unwise to consider such campaigns as a shortcut to success. Given a sound plan and committed execution, a social media campaign can recover its ROI quicker than most other marketing campaign methodologies. However, there are several roadblocks for businesses when it comes to running successful social media campaigns.
In this post, I talk about the 7 most common roadblocks to successful social media campaigns and how your business can avoid these roadblocks.
1. Free
I meet several clients who want to run social media campaigns because it’s ‘free’. This is a common misperception and a perfect recipe for disaster for your social media campaigns. Before you start a campaign, make sure to account for the manpower costs as well as the recurring technology costs associated with your social media campaign.
Devise a sound social media strategy, define your expenditure limits and track it on a periodic basis.
2. Pitch
Social media or not, a pushy campaign always ends up as a disaster. Whether it’s your Facebook page or your Twitter feed, mind the pitch of your campaign. In fact, this is one of the biggest mistakes companies make – being too self-promotional in their posts to fans and followers. Keep your self-promotion within limits. Be mindful that self-serving posts drive your audience away, so make sure you follow a suitable pitch to keep your audience interested with valuable and useful content.
3. Content
If a social media campaign lacks original content, it’s not worth the time and effort spent. If you are simply copying your competitors, such campaigns will do no good to your business’ cause. While I agree that producing original campaign content isn’t the easiest thing in the world, you need to follow the golden rule that content is king and base your social media campaign around original content.
4. Time
Are social media campaigns quicker than traditional methods in terms out of outreach – I’d say yes! Do they drastically reduce the amount of human time needed – I’d strongly say NO! In fact, I’m amazed that a lot of businesses simply resort to social media campaigns as they consider it as an excuse to save time. I don’t think that’s the case – like a traditional campaign – you still need to create content, interact with customers and measure the ROI in a social media campaign.
Like its traditional counterparts, social media campaigns need time and perseverance – the results will follow.
5. Interactivity
As in any campaign, customer interaction is a key part of social media campaigns. The idea is to get customers interested, answer their questions and adopt a caring and proactive approach to ensure sustained customer interest in your social media campaigns. I’ve often seen Facebook campaigns falter when they’ve adopted a lax approach to responding to customer queries. If people do not get answers that they’re looking for, they’ll gradually lose interest in your social media campaigns.
6. Management
Lack of management support is commonly perceived to be one of the most common roadblocks to launching social media campaigns. Senior management is often interested only in how the campaigns will impact their bottom line. The idea is to lay down a concrete plan for your social media campaigns and how the ROI would be measured.
7. ROI
Last but not the least, it’s crucial to be able to measure the ROI of any social media campaign. If you fail to do so, the campaign wasn’t worth the effort. Though most businesses treat the number of followers and mentions on social media platforms as a ROI metric, it can often be misleading. The idea is to know how many people is your social media campaign reaching and how many of the prospects are actually being converted into customers.
I strongly believe that any business must be prepared to face the roadblocks outlined above in order to launch a successful social media campaign. Have you experienced any other roadblocks to adoption of social media campaigns? Let us know.
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