Why Isn’t Social Media Making Me Money?

Why Isn’t Social Media Making Me Money?

You’re a small business owner and you’ve set up a website and Facebook account to hop on the social media marketing bandwagon. Great! A couple of months pass by and although business is picking up, you noticed that you get little to no business from your social media. “OK, well my business has a Facebook, shouldn’t I be buried in money now?”  Not necessarily. This is one of many common misconceptions about social media marketing.  Social media marketing is not just about posting statuses, tweets, and pictures. It is all about strategy on how to generate new leads using your social media accounts. Here are a couple of reasons why social media is not working for your small business:

• Not enough people know you exist
• Little to no interaction with their followers
• Not enough time because you’re too busy with generating income
• Don’t know how to use social media for business
• Posting uninteresting content

As a small business owner, you should know that marketing is a necessity. Marketing is the foundation that an organization builds their awareness and reputation upon. Traditional marketing methods are declining because 80% of consumers now would be more inclined to buy from a company that has a positive presence online.

So what needs to be done?

1. Develop a strategy. Think about how you’re going to translate this into sales and generate traffic to your website. But mainly, think about your target market. What demographics are you trying to reach? Whatever demographic you’re after, be sure to maintain a daily ritual to attract new customers and cultivate new interest in your products and services.
2. Update, update, update. Don’t overcrowd your followers’ feed with irrelevant content, however. Followers don’t want to see you talk about yourself all day. You’ll want to update interesting and relevant posts. For example, when going on a date, imagine how boring you’d be if your date only likes to talk about themselves instead of talking about common interests that you share.
3. A 30/60/10 golden ratio is recommended. 30% of what you share should be content you created, for example your blog, your photos, your videos, etc. 60% of what you share should be content you curate. For example, links to content created by others that is relevant to your brand, industry or community. 10 % should be call to actions. For example, discounts, promotions, sign up for a demo, 7 day trial, etc.
4. Generate trust. Brand yourself, but be a human, meaning don’t act like a promotional robot. Put your point of view or commentary on certain updates and ask your audience what they think their point of view is.
5. Don’t stop at just one social media outlet. Cross promote with other accounts that makes sense to your business. If you want to interact with people on a live feed, consider creating a Twitter account. If you are in a B2C industry, consider creating a Pinterest to promote your product with a visually attractive picture. Have a face to face video chat with multiple people while interacting on social media with Google+’s hangout feature.

Having a just a social media presence does not make you money. You must have some sort of engaging activity on your social media in order to gain new leads and followers.

When is the right time for you to outsource your social media marketing? If you determine that you really can’t find time to actively post on your social media or assign it to one of your staff members, consider outsourcing your social media marketing, but only after you’ve determined your marketing plan strategy, but BEFORE it is too late. Facebook will now decrease your business page’s visibility to others if you are not active on your page. This means people will be less likely to find you, and you will have to do a lot to make up for it, in order to fix it.

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