As I begin to dive further and further in to social media marketing, I begin to realize, social media is not a trend but something that will be around for generations. Social media has given people the ability to connect with others around the world. It has improved relationships, built trust in businesses, and allowed businesses to engage with their customers. With all of these added benefits, why are some companies still opting out of social media? I believe there are 3 main reasons for not adopting social media. In this blog post, I will go over these reasons as well as give you some tools for overcoming the obstacles.
Lack of Understanding
Part of the reason some people do not give social media the light of day is the simple fact that they do not understand the different platforms well enough to try to adopt them. For many business owners, social media involves too many platforms and not enough content. In addition, different platforms are used for different parts of business. For instance, LinkedIn is great for showing the business side of your company. It is also great for generating leads in the B2B environment. Facebook is great for showing the personal side of the company as well as generating leads in the B2C environment. In order to develop an understanding of the different social media platforms, I would recommend going to each social media site and see what your competitors are posting and how their content changes from platform to platform.
Too Time Consuming
Another common reason I see for not adopting a social media presence is the myth that it takes too much time. I can see why many feel this way, but there are many tools out there to help you. For example, MioDatos allows you to post to all your social media accounts at once. And to take it one step further, you can schedule all your posts ahead of time. Some may be thinking, “That’s great, but the bulk of time is committed to finding the content.” Don’t worry, there are tools for that too. For example, Content Gems allows you to simply enter a topic in the search bar, and the website does the rest. It brings you relevant links to content you are looking for and allows you to easily post it to your social media accounts.
Information Overload
The last main problem people have with social media is information overload. I mean there are Tweets, Retweets, Favorites, Mentions, Direct Messages, Follows, Unfollows…ugh. And that’s just Twitter! When considering all the different social media actions it can seem overwhelming. The good news is there is a lot of overlap. You’ll find many of the same functions on each social media site. Once you understand the first social media platform, the rest will be relatively easy. You can start playing around with analytics and find out what works and what doesn’t on your page. LinkedIn and Facebook both have usable analytics, but Twitter does not. To find out what options you have for Twitter analytics, click here.
Adopting social media can seem like a very overwhelming task for your business. But once you get the hang of it, the rest will fall into place. Using the tools I have outlined in this blog post should help you adopt social media and begin engaging your customers. Is there any other reasons you know of for businesses not adopting social media? Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Leave a Reply