Since consumers nowadays spend hours online, it’s easier for business owners like you to figure out if your social media strategy is working or not. Are customers engaging with your posts? Are they clicking on links and leaving comments? And the most important question of all — are you flooding them with too many posts? If you are personally experiencing social media fatigue, chances are, your business can suffer from it as well.
Techopedia defines social media fatigue as a user’s “tendency to pull back from social media when they become too overwhelmed with too many social media sites, too many friends and followers, and too much time spent online maintaining these connections.” For businesses with online platforms, this can also refer to oversaturating your audience with too many posts, resulting in low engagement.
Revisiting your social media strategy can help you work around social media fatigue. If the numbers show poor performance, here are some solutions you can work on:
While most brands have official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube channels, you don’t have to be active in all of them. You can house your videos on YouTube and constantly update one or two channels where your customers are. Don’t spread yourself too thin, especially if you’re posting the same thing anyway. According to Econsultancy.com, Facebook and Twitter are the “can’t miss social channels” as these are two of the most-used platforms by customers.
Business accounts on Facebook and Twitter give you access to insights that help you get to know your audience better. These numbers give you a peek on what type of content they engage with, the demographics of your fan base, and the time they consume your content.
The most common and probably the most important of these metrics are:
Knowing these metrics is important so you’ll know if you’re talking to the intended market and clue you in if you need to adjust your social media strategy.
While posting every hour may not work for every brand, a better approach would be to contextualize and optimize your post scheduling so you have a better chance of getting your message across. Avoid saturating your audience with random content and develop a posting strategy which involves figuring out the frequency of posts, the best times to publish, and the consistency and tone of your content.
A single post or two that has content relatable to your audience or depending on your current campaign can go a long way. Brands pushing snacks and healthy meals can post in the afternoon, at a time when their audience are about to have merienda. Promoting coffee or breakfast oats? Try posting it early in the day.
Timing is also crucial. Based on your data, figure out what the peak hours are so you can schedule your content accordingly. As much as possible, don’t post during downtimes. Remember, social media fatigue syndrome works both ways — it can affect your audience negatively and cause them to disengage from you.
What kind of content do your customers engage with? Do they love watching videos or will animated images suffice? Are they okay with text or prefer infographics? Go back to your data and see how each post performed. Based on their performance, it’s best to devote your time to content that works to avoid fatigue from social media.
If you would like to experiment with new content types, go slowly and see the reception first. Set an experimentation timeline and determine if a new content type is worth pursuing or not.
Don’t just post on social media; talk to your customers by responding to comments and messages as well. Replying to consumers is an important part of your social media strategy as doing so keeps them engaged and feeling valued. Thank them for any feedback and welcome their ideas on how you can improve your business.
Plus, you can use customer feedback as content — think of it as a shout-out of sorts and they’ll be thrilled to share your post on their own timelines and feeds, for free!
Just like how you would take a social media break every now and then, don’t be afraid to practice the same habit when running the social media platforms of your business. Just because other brands are doing it doesn’t mean you need to follow suit. So if you feel that in the social media fatigue scale your business rates a 6 or more, take a step back and use that time away to see how you can improve your strategy and present fresh content to your audience.
Just because you’ve decided to pull back from social media doesn’t mean you have to go off the grid 100%. As mentioned, you can use the break to create better, more targeted content. You can also experiment with other sites and digital mediums, such as channeling your marketing and promotional efforts on email and SMS blasts, updating your official website and/or blog, and testing out new and not-as-frequented social media sites like Pinterest, Snapchat, or TikTok.
Social media advertising doesn’t have to be complicated. Find out how MSMEs can create their very own Facebook ads through Globe myBusiness and sign up here.
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