Are You Frustrated With Your Social Media Efforts?

So, you’ve been following the suggestions from me and others, using social media to promote your business. However, do you feel like you’re shouting into the wilderness and no one is actually hearing you? If so, here are a few reasons why this might be happening:

Not posting often enough: I realize that we all lead busy lives, but we also all have the attention span of a gnat! If you don’t post often, you risk your followers forgetting that you even exist. Personally, I think that you should post on Facebook and LinkedIn at least once a day; Twitter even more frequently as there are many more posts there. If you blog, you should post at least twice a month—I try to post weekly.

Posting too often: There really is such a thing as TMI. Telling everyone where you are and what you are doing every step of your day may seem fun, but ask yourself why you think your followers need to know this information. If you post too much, you risk people tuning you out—and missing your truly important posts. I follow people and bloggers who have obviously made it a goal to post every day. Unfortunately, they don’t always have something that needs to be said every day and it’s clear when they post useless, fluffy, drivel. Set reasonable goals—and be flexible.

Posting at the wrong time: Clearly, it’s a personal choice when to post, but there are studies that show when posts get more results. Dan Zarella recently posted information on Problogger showing that when someone posts a link to their blog on Twitter, it is retweeted the most around mid-afternoon. Posts were also retweeted more often later in the week, with Friday as the best day. Blog posts on Facebook are shared more when posted on the weekends. Dan also found that Facebook posts in the early morning are shared more often. Finally, he found that 80% of people read blogs in the morning, but 40% also read at night. This may seem confusing, but it simply shows that you should post your important information more than once!

Posts that aren’t useful: Before you post, think about what your readers may get out of it. Are you being a resource of relevant industry information? It’s OK to post about your products and services—just don’t do it exclusively. Even if you’re posting something “just for fun,” how will people interpret it? As I’ve said in prior posts, we work with people we know and like and personal posts help us get to know someone. It’s important to balance the information you provide.

There are many more reasons why you’re not getting the interaction that you expect. Re-evaluate your goals. Were they reasonable to start with? Maybe you don’t have as many readers and connections as you want, but it may be that the people who do follow you are the right people.

It’s key to experiment with when, where and how you post. What works now may not work in the future. What have you found that works best for you? What would you change if you could?