Top Social Media Marketing Challenges
As the number of social media users worldwide increases year after year, it’s clear that social media needs to be part of a brand’s marketing strategy.
The advantages of social media marketing have been well documented. But what are the challenges of social media marketing? Understanding some of the biggest obstacles brands face on social media can help to pave the way to success.
Top challenges of social media marketing
According to a recent report surveying thousands of marketing professionals, not having enough time and/or resources tops the list of the biggest social media challenges businesses face. As many as 54% of them say it’s a current concern.
This is followed by measuring impact, an issue 46% of brands have. These problems are not exclusive to social media marketers. Incidentally, time and resource constraints and difficulty with measuring a strategy’s impact are also the two biggest challenges of influencer marketing faced by businesses.
Third on the list of the top social media marketing challenges is gaining followers. 39% of brands name it as a concern. This is followed closely behind by content creation, with 38%. Coupled with time constraint issues, it should come as no surprise that 81% of marketers outsource content writing to third-party providers.
Proving the value of social media marketing is the fifth-biggest challenge faced by businesses. Nearly one-third (31%) of them have trouble doing so. This, together with the difficulties brands have in measuring the impact of social media marketing, highlights just how challenging it can be to quantify the success, impact, and effectiveness of a strategy.
Whether it’s photo-sharing platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, the short-form, video-sharing TikTok app, or messaging apps like WhatsApp, there are so many popular social media networks for marketers to use that it can be hard for them to fully understand and master the tools available. Sixth on the list of the biggest challenges of social media marketing is having sufficient knowledge and experience to execute a social media marketing plan well. As many as 25% of marketers say they struggle with the know-how of social media marketing.
Securing a budget and internal position round out the list of the top social media marketing challenges, with 15% and 14% of brands saying it’s a problem they face, respectively.