Nowadays, it is very important to know the relevance of proper social media marketing as it relates to your brand or business, especially since we’ve seen how social media has led to massive results. Businesses have risen from customers’ success stories, new initiatives are being successfully built, new trends set and moreover, and lives have been changed.
Obviously, these results were or are not achieved by simply being a social media and doing nothing. I want you to note the fact that using social media resources effectively actually works if adequately utilized. But the problem here is… YOU DON’T THINK YOU’RE READY for Social Media.
Why You Think You’re Not Ready
Let’s talk about major reasons why you think you’re not ready for social media and how these factors are hindering your success online
In one of my posts, I wrote about why you think you’re not ready for social media VS the actual truth, you might want to read that after this. Check it out below.
10 Signs You’ll Never Be Ready for Social Media
At this point, I’ll really need you to take a close look at these because if not addressed soon, you’ll definitely never be ready for social media and will never succeed at it if you eventually try.
1. You don’t know who your audience is.
You don’t know who is actually reading your posts; all you want to do is just post whatever strikes your fancy, hoping that “everybody would be interested in it“. Also, you don’t bother to measure anything and assume that everything will function on its own. Then you keep wondering what you did wrong, despite the fact that you have no idea what you are actually doing.
A couple of my clients found it difficult to fully commit to social media after a few months. Despite their best efforts, it was ultimately preferable to retreat and restrategize. I’ve also seen that many people, even brands face this issue. Funny thing is, a lot of them are already online, but they are not ready for actual results.
2. You don’t have a content workflow process in place.
Workflow is the overall flow or process that determines how you churn out your content and effectively manage your marketing needs. The goal of this workflow is to keep things exciting and diverse without losing sight of your target audience. Your workflow would either make or break your marketing – on the other hand, a well-defined workflow that is documented facilitates the creation and management of content while guaranteeing timely delivery of high-quality content.
You can create particular methods to accomplish your online marketing with the use of workflows to guide you and your team on what to do, how to do it and when.
Download the FREE social media workflow templates here
3. You’re working in isolation
One thing I’ve learnt from working with different clients to implement social media marketing needs is the fact that I cannot do all the work on my own. A lot of times, we try to pull all the strings alone even when it seems tiring and inefficient.
You need to start working with actual people to deliver different areas of the work. You might need a graphics designer, a copywriter etc to deliver on other areas of the work to meet up with your brand’s needs and deliver the required standard.
4. You don’t know what a sales funnel is
Sales funnel is simply a journey your customers go through before an eventual purchase. If you don’t understand the concept of sales funnels and how it works, then you are definitely not ready for social media.
Your primary goal with your sales funnel is to move people from one stage to another until they are ready to purchase—i.e from a stage of interest to a stage of eventual purchase.
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5. You think social media is FREE
I know you think social media is free, well, we all do but I want you to look at it from this angle – Facebook is free, Twitter is free, Instagram is free, tumblr.com is free, Google is free, everything is free, social media is free… really??? Of course not, social media is not free!
Social media has now developed into a highly effective tool for generating income, hence, it is now a pay-to-play thing. The fact is social media involves investments; think of the financial investments when you run paid adverts, the manpower involved, when you have to pay someone to create valuable content for your platforms, the time you have to spend creating content yourself and keeping your pages engaged.
Do you still think it’s free? well, that’s up to you now.
6. You expect to see results ASAP
Digital marketing is not magic, and neither is social media one, else I would simply advise you to go get a magic wand to pull the result as soon as possible (ASAP).
You need to first go through the process of creating, publishing, converting and then before sales. Even the best content marketing strategies rarely produce any form of returns on investment until nine to twelve months.
There is a process and you need to understand that process before it can work for you else, you’ll never get the result you seek from social media. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t monitor your progress and make sure you’re moving in the right way; you must do that too.
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7. You don’t have a strategy that can convert
The most important component of a successful content strategy is quality and value. This will help you get people interested in your content and eventually buy into what you offer.
Your job is to create quality content to generate interest and then encourage conversions and move qualified leads (visitors) further down the sales funnel.
To achieve this, you need a strategy because spur of moment kind of content will only amount to a total waste of time and you may not be able to track what’s working and what’s not.
8. You keep asking people for the sale
Most businesses have long used “asking for the sale” as part of their sales process approach. My guess is, that you think you have to ask for the sale whenever you speak with a customer, after all, you won’t get the sale if you don’t ask for it, right?
The world has evolved. Those sales tactics that were successful in the past are less effective now because people are now more educated and aware of those tactics, more so, anyone you keep asking to buy is more likely not to buy in the end so quit requesting the sale and start giving valuable content that would make a customer ask you to sell to them instead.
Read my article on How to Create Content That Convince and Convert to learn how this works.
9. You don’t know how to be helpful
The goal of social media and your business/brand’s operations is to win over people’s hearts using your actions rather than your words. Remember I mentioned above that your content plays a major role, yeah?
So your content should seek to solve a problem which your audience is facing, offer them help, proffer solution to a pain point. Just like you gain repeat business by providing excellent service, you gain more interest/leads on social media by being a helpful and trustworthy brand that shines a light on people needs and not just what you’re selling.
10. You’re not willing to put in the time to create content
For your content marketing to work, you need to be involved in the development and implementation of that strategy, even if you wish to outsource the work. You own the idea, therefore, you have to groom other people to understand it before they can develop a strategy for it.
Your team, your thought leaders, and you all have different and unique concepts, perspectives and views of point, hence, your communication will be more engaging and persuasive if developed in a way that captures all these unique ideas together. Especially that of the founder, which is you.
Bonus Point
Using social media revolves around being social and social can refer to a “social gathering” as well as a community, dialogues, publicity, common collective, and alignment of values. You’re not ready for social media if you are not interested in any of these.
NOTE: In marketing and sales, emotions are crucial. The objective of all marketing is to arouse the emotions of consumers, and social media is and excellent tool for this. Social media might not be for you if you have trouble relating to people in the contexts mentioned above
Final Words – The Solution to “Never Being Ready”
Social media must be built and managed in a way that will help you save a significant amount of time and money whilst getting your desired results. Take your time to create the strategy, automate the processes, learn the industry standards, understand the trends and build.
You’ll get lost in the crowd if you just go in there to post because you have to post and not because it’ll lead to a result. The moment you understand this, you’ll get more results with little effort.
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