5 Reasons Why Small Businesses Fail at Social Media

Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vayner Media, posted recently on LinkedIn with his ideas on why small businesses aren't winning with their social media endeavors. He has some good thoughts on the subject, and he should -- after all, he is in the business of social media and has used it to successfully promote his father's wine retail store. But, I would suggest that here are some other ways that small businesses are truly missing the mark in their social media attempts. 

1. Scattershot methodology that wastes time and is inefficient in attracting target audience

If your company is jumping on every social outlet there is, blasting away your latest promotion or product, you're wasting precious time. Sure, the idea of throwing everything at the social wall and seeing what sticks may work for some situations, but if you're just blindly posting to every site without considering your audience, you're wasting your efforts. 

Plugging your men's grooming products on Pinterest won't exactly garner the admiration of its heavily female audience. Nor will constantly trumpeting your automotive repair shop services on Facebook win you likes or followers. By all means, experiment, of course. But analyze a social media outlet for how it functions and develop a strategy for using it.

2. Obliviousness to what consumers want to learn about and how they want to interact with brands

So many companies on Facebook are flailing wildly, unsure of what to post or how often to post or how to get users to interact with their posts. The Clymb is an example of a business that really nails Facebook advertising. Instead of blasting fans with product data on its outdoor living items, it shares stories, photos, and videos of outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers. It holds photo contests and provides equipment and training advice guides. The Clymb genuinely gives their fans and followers a reason to pay attention. The company that is simply announces its latest products is merely shouting "Look at me!" without giving their customers a reason to care.

3. Equating increase in Twitter follows with increase in brand popularity and marketing efforts success

I spoke with an inbound marketing specialist recently who was elated at the outstanding success of the company's Twitter presence but was baffled as to why the company's Facebook profile remained woefully ignored. A cursory glance at Twitter account revealed that the company actually had very little reach on Twitter and that it was mostly followed by spam accounts. Unless you are actually seeing an influx of business from Twitter, your social media presence on there is probably pretty much your company shouting into the ocean. The reason their Facebook was lagging behind was simply because it is much harder to create a fake Facebook account to follow a company and following a company on Twitter is just another drop in the sea of content. Use analytics tools to see what results your social media efforts are actually causing.

4. Assuming your clients care about your brand in any other facet of their lives

Your company is a big deal to you. And in many ways, a big deal to your employees. And to some extent, depending on what you do, you can matter quite a bit to your customers. But, honestly, customers feel about your company news announcements mostly the same way they feel about hearing latest accomplishment updates from the friends who have have young children. People only care about how their business relates to you. That is it. So, announcing every little business news tidbit is just going to annoy your customers. And they will un-follow you.

5. Attempting to use social media as a substitute for good customer service

The best social media campaign you can run is to blow the minds of your customers with intensely good customer service. If you can take an issue and solve it for your customer in a way that is considerate, helpful, and goes above expectation, then the client becomes the most powerful social media campaign because nothing holds greater weight than a personal recommendation. And if your customer service experience is tweet-worthy or compels that customer to announce it on Facebook, you're going to have exposure to that client's entire social media audience in a positive light. Fail miserably with your customer service and no amount of social media promotion is going to compensate for making a customer angry or disappointed.

Bonus: Listening to "social media experts" and taking their word as gospel

Declaring yourself a social media guru, ninja, rock star, and "expert" means nothing. As Ad Age reported in January, there are 181,000 Social Media "Gurus," "Ninjas," "Masters," and "Mavens" on Twitter. So, take everything you read with a grain of salt, even this post.