Whether we’re tired of the obvious manipulation of the TikTok time sponge; irritated by the boastful solipsism of the Instagram lifestyle; embarrassed by distant relatives’ late-period racism on Facebook or enraged by the gormless shouting of Twitter, few of us have not, at some point, thought about giving up on social media altogether.
It’s a natural thing to think. The garden needs doing - so get digging, not scrolling. Those books are going unread - their slow satisfaction more rewarding than the instant hit of the apps. And there are people to see… but… but isn’t it easier to talk to them online? If it's words, what does it matter if they’re on paper or on a screen? And what’s the point of finishing the garden if we can’t post pictures of it?
We all go through these loops as individuals, but as companies, we plough on. Posting more and more online, assuming it to be part of the daily process. No longer thinking of the value or the reasoning behind it.
Some companies do stop to think. The bath bombers Lush have announced that, as of the end of this week, they will take down their Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok accounts in 48 territories.
It’s a big move - there will have been a lot of people delivering on a range of strategies in a range of markets. And the platforms they were active on will have resonated with their target markets. It’s a big gamble - though useful to note that they aren’t giving up on influencers using social media on their behalf.
But would you follow suit?
Lush are trying this for the second time, and say they will concentrate on their ‘owned’ channels for their consumer engagement - and that presupposes a scale and maturity of audience on those channels to make it worthwhile. Which it probably is in their case.
But let’s assume that your own website and email newsletters don't have the scale of audience and/or you don’t have the community managers to manage that kind of online engagement. Could you give up your social media channels?
The answer is, of course, ‘it depends’.
Lush say their decision was triggered by Frances Haughen’s testimony against the shenanigans of Facebook and if you want to take a moral stance then the social media giants’ harvesting of our personal data while ignoring a great deal of hateful content is not a bad place to start.
That’s your choice and if you’ve weaned yourself off personal social media and your own company hasn’t, then there’s an alignment waiting to happen right there.
But, without being cynical, it’s more likely that you’ll re-assess your social media choices out of expediency, rather than morality.
The question is - is your social media working? Are you getting enough referrals to justify the time and cost? And how do you choose between, say, Instagram and TikTok?
Again, these are questions only you can answer right now - though we’d love to help you audit the effectiveness of your social media channels. If they aren’t delivering referrals and business, it’s because:
Your audience isn’t on there.
It’s unlikely that your audience isn’t on social media platforms. It’s more likely that you aren’t on the same ones. Organisations which jump onto Facebook to target teenage students, for example, are more likely to be copying the habits of their own management than of their audience.
What you need is a platform strategy that matches your audience. All your strategies start with your audience, but, perhaps none more so than social media where habits can be promiscuous and audiences shift quickly and in great numbers. It only seems a couple of years that Instagram was the place to be, and now it echoes to the sound of footsteps running towards Tiktok.
Check this out where we help you consider why you’re on social media in the first place.
Your audience isn’t responding
Social media is built on the algorithms of engagement. Activity begets visibility which drives activity… making these platforms the time-sucking addictions that they have become.
So, if you’re losing out on that, it’s because your content strategy isn’t driving that kind of connection. You may be talking about yourselves too much - the kind of corporate updates about your CEO’s conference schedule which not even the CEO’s partner cares about. So talk about what you do, talk about your products, talk about how your audience would benefit from them. Love them even. Talk to us about content strategy.
Or it may be that you are saying the right things in the wrong way. That you have the right ideas, but your tone, your formats, your approach isn’t resonating. A young audience used to visual stimuli isn’t going to respond to your 800 words of corporate chatter about the long-term value of language education. Think about the manner of how you deliver content on social - at the very least, start with re-considering your tone of voice.
You haven’t the resource
This is the most common reason for either not doing social media, or for doing it in a half-hearted manner.
The argument might be based on a lack of tracking - that you don’t know where your customers are beginning their user journeys, so you assume they aren’t using the channels you only half pay attention to. Confirmation bias and all that.
The only answer to that is to use the data properly. Track the referrals to your site - from search, social, CRM, agents, partners and so on and measure what’s working and what isn’t. Don’t just measure people landing on your site, but also measure what they do - what is the value of those users?
Do they march on through the sales funnel and sign up, or do they bounce off?
Only then can you judge the value of all aspects of your channel mix.
And we can help you audit that and help manage that delivery strategy so that you get full value from your marketing - social or not. Get in touch and let’s see how social you need to be.
