We’re members in a lot of wonderful Facebook communities, (special shoutout to Women In Business NZ), and recently the following question was asked:
I follow a few [social media] marketing professionals as I may need one myself one day, yet so often I see that they have 500+ followers and post almost daily...however they receive few likes and comments...So why aren't the pros themselves getting any comments/likes?
We responded to this question with our insights, and received such good feedback that we’ve decided to answer this more fully in a blog.
Why don’t social media professionals have high engagement?
It’s the age-old conundrum; chefs rarely cook at home, a builder’s house usually remains unfinished, and designers find it incredibly difficult to work on their own branding. In short, when you spend your entire day doing something for other people, there’s little time or energy left to do that same thing for yourself.
Here are a few reasons why many social media professionals don't have high engagement on their business pages:
Getting high engagement on posts typically relies on heavy engagement with other accounts every day. This is very time consuming and often just doesn't fall onto the priority list of agency owners/social media pros, as they're usually investing their time into doing this on behalf of their clients. A better gauge is to see their case studies and the accounts of people whose accounts they actually manage. If there's an expert/agency you like the look of, ask to see specific examples of how they've driven engagement for their clients.
Organic content is getting harder and harder to gain lots of engagement on without ad spend. Simultaneously many social media experts direct their ad spend to conversion-based objectives, such as website clicks or lead generation forms as it's more useful for attracting qualified leads, rather than ‘boosted posts’. This means that their ads are shown to people most likely to visit their website or fill out their contact form, as opposed to engaging with their Instagram profile.
The levels of engagement vary depending on the content being posted. Posts with people in them (congratulatory posts or posts about team members for example) receive way higher engagement and comments in comparison to non-human shots. If you think about it on a personal level, what kind of stuff do you actively go out of your way to comment on when you're trawling social media?
Engagement also will vary depending on platform and audience. Typically Instagram and TikTok receive higher engagement than Facebook, and women tend to engage with social media content than men. This varies again when age and other lifestyle factors are taken into account. Therefore if your product is one that’s targeted towards a demographic who aren’t typically Instagram users, for example, then investing your hard-earned marketing budget into driving Instagram engagement is probably not going to be a worthwhile investment for your business. Maintain a presence, by all means, but prioritise the bulk of your budget for growing your email database and invest in targeted advertising and SEO instead.
So why do social media professionals even bother posting if they’re not worried about engagement?
Engagement or no engagement, having a consistent presence is incredibly important for pretty much any business these days. Prospective customers will often look at your social media page as part of their buyer journey. Having an infrequent or unused social media profile can appear careless, or even as if you’re no longer in business (something we’ve discussed further in this blog). For social media experts, social media pages act more as a portfolio of work that is easily accessible for anyone on the internet.
At the end of the day, engagement is only one metric for success, and may not even be a relevant metric for your business. A good marketing professional will tailor a strategy to suit your business and define which metrics are the most valuable for you.
Looking for assistance with your social media or marketing strategy? We’d love to help you grow up digitally. Get in touch with us and let’s get growing.