Social media marketing has brought the world closer and has immense potential for business. There are many advantages or upsides to market your products and services on social media, but it has multiple downsides or disadvantages too.
We have always said that you should market your brand on social media but at the same time also be aware of the drawbacks.
Social media teams usually have a lot at hand and they sometimes do miss out on these small but key things.
You can hurt your brand on social media in two ways:
- By your mistake or your own fault
- By the audience on social media
In both the cases, you can face damages. Let’s discuss the disadvantages or downsides of social media marketing.
If you are doing social media marketing or thinking to do social media marketing yourself. Then our book is meant for you.
It covers everything you need to know from choosing the right channel to business features, platform demographics and making a strategy with examples. A complete package for you – Available on Amazon.
Table of Contents
1. Negative Feedback
Your actions on social media unlike on traditional media, are subject to criticism also. It is not necessary that your audience would always be inline with your communications.
There have been many instances were the brand followers have out-rightly protested against the policy or products.
This happens because social media gives the power to the people to voice their opinion. Therefore, your actions are subject to praise and criticism at the same time.
A classic example of this can be seen in issues related to politics. It is very common that the government policies are discussed, debated and protested against on social media. We even do see politicians, getting spoofed and brands getting trolled.
Another example that we can take is of your products and services. There may be people that applaud and then there are people who would not agree to you. Such things are very commonly seen in airline industry and almost all major industries.
2. Tarnish Brand Image
This is connected with the above point of negative feedback. The direct impact of negative feedback is on brand image.
There a number of instances where you can see the brand image being tarnished.
As a brand your social media profiles depict your reputation. There will always be instances when other competitors or people who dislike you will try to tarnish your brand image.
You have to justify, your actions, products and services to your audience. It is a common trend seen, when something goes wrong from the brand side, people don’t wait and take it straight to social media.
Twitter is a classic place where you get to see these things very often. Where a passenger was wronged by an airline or the prime minister being cornered by questions on the bill.
Nobody then waits to know if it was wrong or right, it simply spreads as fire and tarnishes your brand image.
It takes no time for hashtags to come and spoil the scene further. It is better too avoid such conflicts and if it does, immediately respond and start damage control activities.
3. Never-Ending Content Planning
It is very difficult to build a meaningful following on social media platforms. It is more difficult to keep them engaged.
You will have to come up with content that is better, helpful and entertaining to your audience. It is always expected, that the new content will be better than the old one.
Therefore, content planning is a never ending process, it will go on till the time you choose to be on the social media platform.
This becomes more difficult, as the social media platforms have different content guidelines. The content on LinkedIn will not be the same as on Facebook. The audience is different and so is the mindset of the people.
The task is to plan content for all the platforms and it is an ongoing process as you do not want to loose the followers that you have earned.
4. Security & Privacy Issues
If you are on social media then you know what this is. All the major social media platforms are facing security and privacy issues.
Personal data being used by social media platforms in ways to meet their objectives, is something no one is happy with.
Facebbok data breach, Snapchat etc are all facing this.
It is the reason why we get so many policy updates from Google etc.
These complaints, issues and negative opinions, sanctions and cases that bring out the way in which personal data is being used, reduces the confidence of people in social media platforms.
One such example is Snapchat. Snapchat does have multiple cases where their technology was wrongly used by stalkers. This leads to serious risks and security concerns. These things have damaged the image of Snapchat and therefore they lost many users.
No matter how the good the features or platform is, when these things come to light, it does reduce the confidence in social media platforms.
As a brand, you may have put in a lot of effort to build your follower base but then these things can lead to a loss in followers without you doing anything.
5. More & More Engagement Requirements
The social media platforms dictate the rules on their platforms. One of the largest platform Facebook, we see a decline in engagement and organic traffic. This is due to algorithm updates and monetary motives.
The social media platforms do not charge their users but they do charge brands for using the platform features.
This helps the brand to put across its message to the audience. If your engagement starts to fall, it is very likely that your communication is not reaching to the audience. One such issue we have faced multiple times on Facebook.
On other platforms also, engagement is really important as it helps your post rank out others. The more engagement you have the higher you feature in hashtags etc. This helps you get organic traffic.
The race of engagement is due to multiple reasons,
- Keep the audience on the platform
- Monetary motives
As social media platforms compete with each other, they do not create content themselves, this adds pressure on the brands to generate more and more of engagement.
If you are doing social media marketing or thinking to do social media marketing yourself. Then our book is meant for you.
It covers everything you need to know from choosing the right channel to business features, platform demographics and making a strategy with examples. A complete package for you – Available on Amazon.
How to Overcome Them?
With the disadvantages, still social media marketing is very lucrative. It does have some serious downsides but there are always to overcome them.
- Always reply to your followers or to social outbursts. They either are or can be your potential customers. An immediate reply will give you time to analyse the situation and plan the remedy. It can strengthen your bond with your followers instead of breaking it.
- Negative feedback is a part and parcel of life. It will never be possible to please everyone. Taking corrective measures if possible can help you make a better impression and reduce negativity.
- Your content planning will be never ending, there is not much you can do here. The positive side is, by making great content you can influence the like minded audience.
- Security, privacy issues etc are things out of your doing. There is nothing much you can do there but it is important to be sensitive towards your audience.
Can SEO help ?
We get this question often, can search engine optimisation help in such a case ? and the answer is yes.
Doing the SEO correctly can help you get great deal of organic traffic. Using great content and reaching more people can reduce your burden of ads and get you organic engagements.
Social media platforms also promote content that engages better and you can benefit from it. The ability of tracking and analytics can help you understand your audience. It can answer questions like, which platform gives you more engaging customers and which gives you more traffic.
Though it does seem negative, social media has a lot of beneficial features and you can check it out in our blog by clicking here.
We at Leotics Consulting LLP help brands make the most out of their social media marketing and strategies to increase the revenue.
Using digital technologies in the best possible way to generate more and more of revenue is what we have achieved in the past too.
In digital technologies and eCommerce we have helped a number of clients to grow and achieve their personal goals / financial independence. Generating passive income that helps them spend more time doing the things they love.
We offer the following services:
- Analytics
- Digital Marketing
- Consulting
- Research
- Amazon Account Management
Want to know more about us, then checkout our website or connect with us.
