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You started out with an awesome social media strategy, one that you just knew was going to bring in all sorts of traffic. And it did. But then it all stopped . . . you haven’t changed anything, but the traffic isn’t increasing and your followers have stopped growing. Now what?
A stagnating social media strategy is one that needs some tweaking. The very nature of social marketing demands constant changes in the way we do things. In fact, if you continue to do the exact same thing all the time, you’ll find that you hit a plateau after a while, where nothing really goes forward.
To help you prevent this common problem, here are a few tips:
1. Re-evaluate your target market. Maybe you’ve saturated the existing market and need to branch out. It can be worth taking a second look at your target market and see whether or not you need to adjust your aim. You might need to reach some other people, as well, in order to continue growing.
2. Try something new. If you’ve only used text until now, why not try making a relevant video and sharing it? Sometimes just the excitement of doing something new can draw in more followers and interested potential clients. It’s certainly worth a try. Contests, video, audio and free reports are all excellent methods of giving your readers a bit of a boost.
3. Add a social media account. Once you’ve become familiar with Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, it might be time to add another network to the mix. Reaching out to a new area will help increase the number of people you come in contact with, as well as increase the visitors to your site.
4. Be more active. Sometimes you just need to be a bit more approachable and that often happens by upping the amount of time you spend on social media. Even increasing by ten minutes a day can have some great effects and get you out of that rut.
5. Make a plan. Do you have a plan as to what you’re going to do each day on social media? If not, take a look at your goals and then decide what you need to be doing every single day. Don’t be vague, make notes on specific topics to cover, etc.
There’s so much you can do with social media to promote your business, but if you’re finding that you’re stuck, then it’s time to change things up a little. Re-evaluate where you are and what you’re doing with your marketing and come up with a better plan that will allow you to get out of the rut and start growing again.
We often discuss the tactics and techniques that we implement at the beginning of the strategy but don’t discuss those that we need to implement in the middle.
Another tip that I would suggest is figuring out where your strategy stands with employees, executives, etc. If they aren’t truly embracing the strategy and making it a part of their business model you might want to come up with a way that the company can leverage social media to provide results that they can stand behind. It all comes back to communication – Communicate with your clients to figure out what they want and see how you can get them there.
Great post and definitely some solid insight…I have a feeling this will be a topic a lot of SM Marketers will be discussing in the future.
This is a great framework for small business owners organizing their social media plans. Thanks!
Thanks a lot, it’s very insightful information I would surely pass this to our staff.
Great Post!! It shares and explains thoughts that one must be socially literate on social media networks.
Great post!!!! I think one must focus on the “base of operations”.
Really!!! Nice description of where strategy is missing and why it’s important.
This is great, especially your insight about “moving beyond our current definition of “social media” as a PR tool and thinking of it as something that can evolve the way we work, communicate, interact and collaborate at a core business level.”