As we’re getting closer to the end of 2019 and towards 2020, the realm of marketing is witnessing tremendous challenges as well as opportunities, with social media marketing becoming the bellwether of all marketing strategies. Therefore, in this article, we look into the ten essential challenges for social media marketers in 2020.
Designing and adopting a Social Media Strategy
According to a Globalwebindex report, 28% of people focus on social networks for their online merchandise research. Social media marketing is one of the most powerful branding instruments, but merely associating with an Instagammer or a Youtuber won’t generate significant results. More than 3 billion users worldwide use different social media platforms; therefore, a prudent marketer cannot ignore framing a right strategy for social media platforms. However, framing a right strategy becomes all the more difficult and complex as investing in social media marketing strategies tends to increase engagement and grow traffic.
Proper management of time
After selection of a strategy, the other biggest challenge in implementing a social media marketing strategy effectively is time. The work of a social media manager is constantly growing more and more difficult to fit in a day. Managing numerous social networks, creating and publishing content, engaging with the audience, managing social media campaigns, and achieving social media marketing targets will be a challenging task if the time management isn’t executed properly
Getting the right type and volume of followers
Getting the right type and volume of followers on social media has been one of the biggest challenges that a social media marketer faces in the current scenario. Major businesses and brands are more focused on increasing the volume of followers as they can be translated into consumers. Moreover, in the current social media environment, if the volume of followers is low, the brand is labeled as unpopular. In addition, there’s also a huge possibility that the low follower volume means that the content is not diffusing to enough number or right type of people, thereby reducing the overall outreach of the brand.
Re-connecting and Re-engaging with audience
Apart from increasing the volume of followers, keeping the existing followers engaged will be a major challenge in the coming times. The social media platforms are used by brands to interact with followers, promoting a merchandise and increasing potential customers. However, with the greater use of social media, the marketer faces a key challenge of constantly identifying ways to re-connect with the audience for improved brand engagement. Generating engagement with followers won’t be an easy task as it’s not merely sharing and liking posts.
Developing unique and fresh content consistently
The social media platforms have a deluge of irrelevant and unnecessary content in the present scenario as everyone is generating content at a remarkable pace. To utilise the social media platforms to a greater extent, the need is to generate customer centric customized content. This ambitious task is a major challenge; however, this extraordinary task can be attained with the advent of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Therefore, cutting through the noise will remain a challenge as well as panacea in the growth of a brand through social media marketing.
Tracking progress of the campaign
The tracking of engagement and conversion of followers to customers is a major challenge. Merely investing in social media advertisements without checking the conversion rate is a futile social media marketing strategy. Moreover, for a social media manager, tracking teams and their progress in achieving tasks using a single tool for plethora of different platforms will be a challenge.
Consistent improvement in brand connection
Any new and nascent brand is highly enthusiastic when it embarks on its business journey and creates big bang posts, videos, infographics, and advertisements to allure followers and readers. However, overtime, the brand connection and content quality tend to diminish with the burden of new challenges in business. Therefore, keeping the connection alive with the audience will be another major challenge for marketing managers.
Maintaining the consumer trust
Keeping the consumers’ trust intact will remain a major challenge as people have started to distrust corporations as they focus majorly on generating profits without keeping the welfare of consumers in mind.
Managing the essence between personalisation and privacy
Since May 2018, businesses and social media in Europe have to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation. This led to the Personalisation Privacy paradox amongst social media marketing managers. On the one hand, to deliver improved consumer experience and generate engagement, social content and interactions need to be personalised. However, on the other hand, social media marketing agencies and managers need to be highly sensitive about the consumers’ privacy. Going forward, keeping a right mix of personalisation and privacy will be a challenge for social media marketing managers.
High cost and limited return on investment
In the current scenario when demand for social media marketing and branding is at a peak, the supply of influential platforms is limited and cost is high. To enhance visibility on overly-crowded social media platforms, various brands are fighting to the tooth and nail. Moreover, user filtering, click bait links, and advertisement blocking have added to the challenges. Hence, management of exorbitant costs of advertisements and audience’s fleeting attention have limited the return on investment on social media advertising.
Author bio
Laura is co-owner at Outreach Lab, who specialise in providing content writing and SEO Outreach services to businesses around the world. Having worked in multiple start-ups over the years, she has experience in building businesses from the ground up. Laura enjoys writing content on a variety of topics, from business strategy, to marketing, SEO and sustainability.
