One of the best ways to appreciate quality social media marketing is to take on a DIY approach.
In the beginning, many digital marketing lessons are learned through trial and error. Even if you don’t succeed, it provides a solid foundation for future campaigns and can be beneficial if you choose to hire a social media marketer.
One of the biggest issues for a DIY project is that many online tutorials only highlight the benefits, not the downsides. DIY social media marketing is doable, but it takes a lot of time and effort to achieve long term success.
Here are 10 downsides to DIY social media marketing and how to avoid them.
1. DIY Social Media Marketing is Time Consuming
Many business owners prefer to take a hands on approach for their digital marketing channels. It’s daunting to hand off your public reputation to an intern or new hire, but as a result many business owners spend over an hour a day keeping their social media running.
If you’re already working full time, that amounts to almost an extra day of work a week!
Not only is it exhausting, but you may find yourself cutting corners in order to stay on schedule. That can be harmful to both your social media presence and your business as a whole.
Solution
Keep a log of how many hours per day you spend on social media. If you have certain days where social media isn’t fitting into your schedule, alter your future posting schedule accordingly.
Maintain a posting calendar and fill it in two weeks ahead of time to schedule your content. That will give you a buffer so you’re not scrambling for new posting content on a busy day.
Remember, consistency is key!
2. It’s Too Easy To Spend Money
As helpful as Facebook Ads Manager can be, always remember that their goal is to have you spend money.
They make it remarkably easy to set up a campaign, but a successful ad campaign doesn’t always correlate with money spent.
In fact, spending money on a poorly planned campaign will only serve to reinforce negative marketing habits. A quality campaign should continue to provide growth even after its finished, but spending money on poorly structured clickbait will only boost your growth for the duration of the campaign.
Solution
Establish a social media marketing budget from the start and adapt accordingly.
Focus on local demographics and community outreach instead of paying more to expand your geographic range. Don’t lose sight of your target demographic, they are what will help you achieve sustainable growth.
Never feel obligated to spend your marketing budget surplus. As your revenue grows, so will your advertising costs. Saving money from the beginning will allow you to grow exponentially as you build up your online presence.
3. DIY Marketers Sometimes Forget The Essentials
The allure of social media marketing makes many people anxious to get started.
Before you make your first post, however, there are several key bits of your profile that must be intact.
Skipping the essentials will sabotage your campaign right from the start, and potentially damage your brand reputation.
Solution
Establish a checklist right from the start.
Make sure you have a profile picture and a cover photo that aligns with your branding strategy.
For Facebook, ensure that all of your business information is available on your business page. That includes your bio, address, operating hours, and contact information.
For Twitter and Instagram, be sure to include a relevant bio and a link to your website. Many social media campaigns are designed to funnel new users to your website, it would be a shame if they can’t find it!
It also doesn’t hurt to establish a post history before you start paying for advertising. Customers will often scroll through your posting history, and if all you have is paid content then they’ll likely leave.
4. It’s Hard to Keep Up With Customer Service
One of the best reasons to engage your customer base on social media is to provide better customer service.
Social media gives you the ability to offer remote assistance and answer questions instantaneously without having to pay for customer support. Before social media, you had to hope that satisfied customers would tell their friends and family about their positive experiences. Nowadays, you can demonstrate how much you care for your customers to the rest of your customer base by just staying active and answering their questions or concerns on your public pages.
Unfortunately, this can be a double edged sword that can cause serious damage to your public reputation. If a prospective customer sees questions go unanswered, they’ll think badly of your customer service and your brand reputation will suffer.
Solution
One of the most common issues amongst DIY social media businesses is that there will be several people accessing the account at once.
Delegate a staff member with positive customer service skills to stay on top of customer inquiries.
If you do your own social media, avoid setting aside a certain time of day. Otherwise, a customer may end up waiting 23 hours for a response if they missed their window of opportunity!
Another option is to follow a customer service model similar to Translink’s Twitter page.
Despite being the company account, several Translink customer support agents work around the clock to provide timely responses for anything from bus delays to train cancellations. Each Tweet is signed with the initials of the agent, meaning that customers are able to continue their communications on a more personal level instead of a generic company account.
5. DIY Social Media Is Difficult To Do By Yourself
As we discussed earlier in the article, it can be difficult to hand over your social media to another staff member.
After all, negligent social media posts can have long lasting repercussions for both your brand reputation, and consequently your bottom line.
One of the most important aspects of social media is to keep your communications consistent. As a result, the more people contributing to your social media, the more people that have to be kept on the same page.
Solution
Before you get one of your staff members to operate your social media, have them sit with you and observe the way you’ve been doing it.
Even if they’re more tech savvy about certain aspects of social media, it will be beneficial for them to see the personalized touch that you add to each of your posts.
Above all else, don’t just ask a staff member to run your social media. Pay them to do it instead.
Even if their job duties aren’t as essential to the day-to-day operations of the company as yours, asking a staff member to take on extra work for no additional pay is not a good idea. You’re essentially giving your employee a reason to be frustrated, and access to a public forum to vent their frustrations while representing your company. For an extra couple dollars an hour, you won’t regret it in the long run.
It’s understandable to feel uneasy while hiring someone to do your social media. Many large companies pay more attention to your money than they do to improving your bottom line.
Fortunately, von Essen Digital Marketing will gladly speak with you about building your next social media campaign. My fully customizable approach allows you to work within your budget and maintain creative control over your marketing channels while I take care of the rest.
It really is that easy.
Learn more about how you can boost the effectiveness of your social media campaign and increase your site traffic.
Make the easy choice and contact von Essen Digital Marketing today!