Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. So, if social media isn’t working for your business, are you insane to keep at it?

Call me crazy (or insanely punny), but you’re not deranged if you still spend time on social media marketing — even when it’s not making customers break down your door.

Hear me out. Because there’s a method to the madness of social media marketing and why you should stay the course through good times and bad. First, social media marketing is a long game. (More on that below.) Being visible and consistent on the channels you identified as making sense for your business still makes sense.

Don’t get me wrong. There are good reasons for changing your approach to social media marketing if it’s not working. Your gut could be telling you that you’re spending too much time on a social media channel that isn’t the best fit for your business. Perhaps it’s Instagram. Or Twitter. My gut’s pretty smart, and I bet yours is, too. If it’s urging you to remedy your company’s social media, listen up.

CPM, Then and Now

Instagram’s still somewhat new and shiny. Twitter feels dated and often hate-filled. But think for a moment about more traditional advertising on the radio or in newspapers. For years, businesses spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote their products and services and were told the estimated cost per thousand (CPM) for their ads’ “impressions” on listeners or readers. The CPM gave the advertisers comfort because they knew their ad dollars would get their message in front of that channel’s particular (and desirable) audience. These impressions felt like “results” — or at least they resulted from the ad buy.

If you advertised on the radio or in the newspaper, you knew that every one of those 1,000+ people wouldn’t come calling to buy your products or services right after they experienced your ad. But there was a value exchange when you paid for the advertising exposure.

We’re Online Squatters, Friends

Social media is free unless you’re running ads on the platforms. Unlike a traditional ad, you can’t expect the same type of results for something you’re not paying for. We’re online squatters, and we typically don’t pay a dime to our social media landlords.

If you’re running ads on social media, however, you could apply the same “my CPM means I’m getting results” mindset. Your boosted post on Facebook is supposed to be shown to X-amount of people, based on what Facebook tells you that is — and how much reach your ad money buys you. (Of course, we’ve all seen and ignored hundreds of ads on social media.)

Is it worth good money just to have an ad on Facebook that people scroll by? Some would say yes, it’s still valuable for brand exposure. But I’m getting away from my main point.

We All Have Doubts About Social Media’s Effectiveness

Most of the graphic designers, branding pros, web developers and small business owners I talk with aren’t running ads on Facebook or Instagram. They’re spending time on social media marketing each week, or they’re paying someone like me to ensure their channels are active and creatively filled with content. Or they’re not spending much time on it at all. (Sad to admit, but that’s often the case for me. I don’t do a lot of social media marketing for my business, because I’m spending time helping businesses be seen on social. But I’m getting new business, thanks to other marketing efforts.)

Some of the creative pros and business owners I know are getting frustrated about their lack of results from using social media. They’re in good company, too. Because the social media marketers I know personally (and those I watch from afar) also have doubts about social media’s effectiveness.

We think the same “it may be time to give up the ship” thoughts about channels that no longer seem to be effective. We see the reach of our posts being way down when compared to a year or two ago — and we’re getting less engagement (likes, comments and shares), too. We wonder if social media marketing is worth our effort when we can’t map any leads or sales to what we’re doing.

Is There Anything Good About Getting Zero Results?

Keeping a focus on social media marketing — even when the results are less than stellar or hard to define — does still have value for your business. Here’s why.

People still spend a chunk of their day on social. Despite it being the thing we love to hate (or say we hate as we scroll nonstop through our social feeds), we still spend serious time on the platforms.

According to a Globalwebindex study, people in the United States spend 1:57 hours each day on social media. (This includes both the time spent on social networks and on messaging). Back in 2012, we spent an average of 1:22 hours a day.

Are people spending the same amount of time listening to the radio or reading the newspaper today? Not likely. So it makes sense to be marketing where people can find our efforts.

Your competitors are likely to be active on social media. Almost three-quarters of small businesses invest in social media, according to a survey by The Manifest. So chances are your competitors are visible on social, too.

Have you looked to see what your competition talks about on Twitter and Facebook? Do you know a friendly competitor you could contact so you can compare strategies and results? Or does your industry publish social media stats so you can learn what’s typical?

It’s good to seek out this information because we can learn from others’ strategies and successes.

People expect to find not just their friends and family on social, but they look for favorite brands, too. With social media being in our lives for over a decade now, there’s a feeling of legitimacy when a business has not only a website but also several social media accounts. And those accounts should be active, by the way. “Active” is subjective, of course. But if you have a social media channel you’re not using (for example, one with no new posts showing up over the last six months), why not just delete it?

According to Clutch.co’s research on consumers and social media, 72% of people are likely to recommend a company to others if they have a positive social media experience with that company. That speaks to legitimacy and also responsiveness on social media.

For example, if someone messages you on Instagram asking about your hours or if you offer a particular service and you never respond, your business could get a black eye. And that person may tell another person, who could tell another person about your crappy customer service. And who needs that?

How to Improve Social Media Results

You can’t! Ahh — I tricked you with that subhead, didn’t I? Well, you can’t always and predictably improve your results. But you can try new approaches, testing which ones are most effective and then adjusting your efforts over time, as the platform (or its algorithm) changes.

Here’s what I do for my clients to try to get more for their social media marketing time and money.

Post different times of the day or days of the week. Do this consistently for one to two weeks. Look back at the posts and see what type of engagement (likes, comments and shares) the posts received when compared to the previous time period.

Is the new posting strategy working? If so, repeat the effort. Or did it barely make a difference? (I see this more often than not.) Then you know it’s not worth a lot of energy to figure out the “perfect” time to post. I found it’s better to be consistent with social media posts versus trying to outsmart the system.

You also should check Google Analytics. It’s on your website, right? See if visits from your social channels increased or decreased during the test period. That’s a good indicator for how your social media marketing efforts are working for you. How? Because one of the goals with social media is to drive people to our website for more information.

Share day-in-the-life content. I live in the Phoenix metro area, and the majority of my social media clients are based in other cities. Since I’m not onsite with them to see what’s happening at their company on a given day, I periodically check in to see what social photo opp’s I could be missing or what’s new and noteworthy about what they’re doing so I can share them on social.

I’ve found when I post something that looks real-time, such as a photo of one of their customers (with that person’s permission, of course) — or when they’re working away doing their job and someone takes their photo — those types of casual, friendly posts do well.

Perhaps it’s because this of-the-moment content feels more genuine and not overly produced. Or maybe it’s because the company owner always resists showing his face on his business’ social channels. Who really knows?! But if real-time posts get you more engagement, make sure they’re a regular part of the content mix.

Post different types of content. Without fail, I see videos getting more engagement on my clients’ social media accounts, particularly on Facebook.

You may already know that you don’t have to share a professionally produced video to grab interest from your followers. Thanks to our mobile phones, we’re shooting and sharing videos of varying qualities and lengths and doing it without having to hire a video agency. (I do still love a professionally produced and compelling video, though.)

Here are Facebook analytics showing post engagement, based on post type, for one of my clients. While the average reach of one of their videos is 477 people, the average photo post’s reach is not too far behind at 457. But check out the post clicks. It’s nearly double for a video.

If a certain type of posts gets you more engagement — a video or a day-in-the-life photo —  then make sure that type of post is a regular part of your content mix.

When’s the last time you shared a video on social media? Is it never? Shoot a short video of something your business is doing, share it online and then, later, compare the engagement of a video post with a photo or text-only post.

Social Media Is Working For You When …

I want my social media marketing clients to get real-deal results from their efforts. When you’re able to attribute a sale to a customer who said they saw your Facebook page and decided to call you, that’s wonderful. But, unfortunately, that’s not happening all that much. I don’t often hear my clients say they’re getting customers, let alone leads, from social media.

But I do regularly hear my clients talking about other ways social media is working for them — including these comments:

• “I like seeing more regular activity on my social media accounts.”
• “It’s good to see the number of social media-referred visits to my website ticking up.”
• “I’m glad you’re getting my new blog posts out on my social media channels. I never made time to do that before.”
• “I can’t say exactly which new clients are coming from social media, but I have to think the efforts are helping my business.”
• “My biggest competitor uses social media, and I’m glad my business is now, too.”
• “We get good feedback on our Facebook page when we share photos of our happy customers.”

Can these comments be considered “results” that support social media marketing? I believe they are. Are they enough for a business to justify spending time and money on social? I think so. But you may feel otherwise, and that’s A-OK. Our gut often tells us what’s worth our time, and I trust my gut.

Marketing (of most any kind) is a Long Game

When we advertise or promote our business online, offline or in-person talking with a prospect, there are no guarantees we will make a sale. Marketing, especially social media marketing efforts, is a long game. We have to be willing to put in the time and energy for it — even when we can’t predict when, where and how our efforts will pay off. Having a long-term strategy, with long-term goals and milestones, helps us stay the course with our marketing efforts and remain patient along the way.

Having said all this, I don’t like wasting money or my clients’ money. That’s why I’m not afraid to suggest a client spend less money on social media marketing, if I don’t think it’s working for them or if there’s something else we could do that has more potential — such as spending time on email marketing if they’re not doing that.

If you’re feeling frustrated, confused or worn out about your social media marketing efforts, I’m here to help, so please contact me. I’m not only a long-time social media practitioner. I’m also a veteran marketer who understands marketing strategy, effective tactics, how best to measure and modify marketing efforts and how social media can fit into the broader mix.

Photo: Nathan Dumlao Via Unsplash