Melissa Darcey 20 October 2016

Categories Social Media

How to Solve the Two Biggest Challenges of Social Media Marketing

Most small businesses spend more than 6 hours per week on social media marketing and more than one-third post at least once per day. Along with finding the time, the other biggest challenge professionals face is finding the right content to post. If you’re experiencing these challenges, keep reading because we’re going to help you solve them.

Did you know that 94% of all small businesses in the U.S. use social media to market their services? And 60% of those businesses say that social media marketing garnered them new clients.

But we all know those kind of results require work and time. Most small businesses spend more than 6 hours per week on social media marketing and more than one-third post at least once per day. Along with finding the time, the other biggest challenge professionals face is finding the right content to post.

If you’re experiencing these challenges, keep reading because we’re going to help you solve them.

Challenge #1: Finding the Time

You’re busy as it is with your main business – being an advisor. It’s hard to find additional time to put on your marketer hat and post on social media. Here are a few tried-and-true tips for making time in your schedule and cutting down the time you have to spend on social media.

• Schedule a specific time each week for social media. It’s much easier to find time if you schedule it in your calendar. Make a daily or weekly time commitment to keep yourself accountable. It could be Mondays and Thursdays for an hour, or 15 minutes every day when you first get into the office.
   
• When in doubt, KISS. Don’t overcomplicate your strategy and keep it simple, silly. You don’t need to be a social media guru breaking ground. All that matters is you know who you are marketing to and what kind of content they will enjoy and find valuable.

• Get help. The great thing about social media marketing is that there are so many tools and services readily available that can save you time and expedite your tasks. Schedulers, such as Hootsuite or Buffer, help you schedule posts in bulk. Apps like Flipboard make it easy to find content to share. And content services, like FMG Suite’s Social Foundation, provide you an automation tool that posts content on your behalf.

Challenge #2: Finding Content to Post

One of the most challenging aspects of social media marketing is finding enough content to post — even when you know there are millions of videos, articles, and visuals out there from which you can choose. If you’re struggling to come up with content options, try some of these tips.

• Curate. Don’t limit your social media posts to original content. Sharing content from other sources can be just as valuable. While you want your social media to drive traffic to your website, not every post needs to accomplish this. Sharing other people’s posts still helps establish you as an informed professional and keeps you top of mind with your audience. Our favorite app for curating content is Flipboard, which we mentioned earlier.

• Re-post. Many professionals find social media frustrating because of all the noise. With so many people online posting 24/7, your post is “old” in a matter of hours. But you can use this to your advantage by re-posting content multiple times. To automate this task, consider using Edgar, which is a smart scheduler that helps breathe new life into your content by re-posting after certain periods of time.

• Outsource. Just as you rely on other team members to help with tasks, you don’t need to go it alone with social media. You can outsource the task to a professional who can create posts for you. Or, you can use an automation service, like our Social Foundation tool.

Social media is much less overwhelming when you know there are tools available to help. While it requires a little strategy and planning, you can stop making a mountain out of social media and start building your audience, frustration-free.