Image Source: www.freepik.comWell let’s be honest, making your brand or business stand out on social media in 2022 is no easy task! Navigating this social media maze through millions of profiles, fake accounts, spammy content and an eternity of competitors can get extremely draining and make you feel like your brand or business isn’t going to make it big ever.
Although this article is in no way a shortcut or a life hack to making it big on any of the platforms, but instead a guide to help you understand this highly complex ecosystem better.
So, for the sake of simplicity let’s assume that you have already created your brand or business’s profiles on all the relevant social media platforms and have been present on them for sometime now. But regardless of what you do, your brand or business just isn’t growing online or bringing your that sweet sweet revenue that you had hoped for.
What do you do now?
Feels like a standstill, doesn’t it?
Don’t stress…it could easily be one of the 10 Reasons listed below and if it’s not, then we at Saki Digital would be more than delighted to assist you!
Let's get into it!!
A shadow ban is usually referred to an action taken by a social media site or an online forum by blocking a user or an account without their knowledge. When a user or an account is shadow banned, their posts and comments are no longer visible to other users.
Sadly none of the social media sites or online forums have officially accepted that they shadow ban their users or accounts, but its common industry knowledge of shadow bans being placed on thousands of users and accounts every month.
This practice of shadow banning has picked up pace in the last 4-5 years, and a lot of times brand new accounts have been shadow banned without any reason or explanation.
- How do you know if your account is shadow banned?
1. Your friends, family, relatives & customers cannot find your social media accounts, even when they search for it.
2. Whenever you post, you get no organic engagement on any of your content.
3. Your followers/subscribers have not increased in a while or you haven’t gained any followers/subscribers since you created this account. (Note: This point is not valid if you have never created a post or do not post regularly)
4. No matter what you try, you never seem to get any kind of progress.
- How to confirm if your account is shadow banned?
Officially there is no way of knowing but you can try using a few tricks to get a general idea.
1. Search your posts or content using the hashtags you used in your most recent post. If your posts don’t show up, then most likely your account is shadow banned.
2. Search for your account from a device that has never searched for your account or logged into your account. This could be a friend, relative or a strangers device. If your account doesn’t show up in the search results, then most likely your account is shadow banned.
3. Search for your handle or username on one of the search engines like google, yahoo etc. If the search returns no relevant results, then most likely your account is shadow banned.
- What to do if your account is shadow banned?
There is no point in contacting the support for the social media site or online forum and wasting your time, as they never acknowledge following any such practices and will just make you run round and round in circles without any solution in sight.
By now if you strongly feel that your account is shadow banned, your best bet is to create a new account using a different email address and credentials, and make sure not to use the same username or any other information from your previous account, as this might lead the social media site or online forum to shadow ban your new account as well.
All social media platforms owe their existence to constant content being posted by users and that’s how these platforms attract advertisers and new users to sign up and bring them more revenue.
Hence their algorithms are designed to identify accounts that post on a daily or alternating basis and promote those accounts that contribute content most actively. By not posting regularly or posting a lot of posts at once and then being inactive, you are surely hurting your brand/business’s online presence.
Also failing to have a strategic social media marketing plan for creating quality and engaging content for your followers/subscribers & customers, you might be portraying a lack of interest in reaching out to your target audience. This can also lead to your potential customers to think that your business is not performing well or growing and in turn force them to choose your competitor over you.
Choosing the right agency/freelancer can make all the difference when it comes to strategy and content creation. Eventually, leading to the growth of your brand/business digitally.
Remember this saying when it comes to marketing digitally or otherwise:
“The one who speaks the loudest, shall make the sale”
Bad quality content is an eye sore. Especially when the internet is filled with millions of posts being shared every minute.
Badly designed, unplanned, strategy less, untrendy or cringe content can lead to your followers/subscribers/consumers to pick up on the unprofessionalism on your end, and in turn drive them to other trendier and more well-designed & planned brand/business accounts.
Usually in this case, it leads to what we call a “Digital Death” of the brand/business.
The best way to avoid this is to hire a professional and experienced agency/freelancer, who can identify the shortcomings of the brand/business’s digital presence, and fix them before it is too late.
Alternatively if you wish to handle your brand/business’s digital presence by yourself, self learning about digital marketing and practicing what you have learnt, is a good way of making sure you are always on top of your digital game.
While this could mean a lot of things and every platform has different “Terms of Use” so you must make sure to be aware of them.
An amateur business owner or marketeer could easily make the mistake of violating these “Terms of Use” and end up being suspended or shadow banned.
Here are a few reasons that could lead to the violation of these terms:
1. Posting aggressive content and hence being reported by a lot of users
2. Using racial words or imagery
3. Hurting sentiments of a certain sect of people unknowingly
4. Copying content from other accounts
5. Using copyright images, videos & music without purchasing the rights to use them
6. Indirectly promoting hate speech
7. Spamming your followers/subscribers/consumers in their inboxes with constant updates
8. Buying followers/subscribers/engagement for your account
9. Posting content multiple times a day
10. Your brand or business type is not suitable to be displayed on the platform
As an extension of the “Terms of Use”. Social media sites and online forums have a strict set of rules on what hashtags/keywords can and cannot be used on their platforms.
An experienced marketeer/agency will know exactly what keywords and hashtags are to be used and which ones are to be avoided. We have seen a lot of business/brand owners and amateur marketeers make the mistake of using these banned hashtags/keywords and having their own or their client’s accounts suspended/shadow banned.
Below are a few hashtags that are banned on Instagram/Facebook in 2022:
1. #attractive
2. #books
3. #customers
4. #direct
5. #easter
You can find the complete list by visiting the link below and see if you have been using any of these hashtags. Additionally you can find similar list on the internet to check for banned keywords in 2022.
Source: Banned Instagram Hashtags You Shouldn't Use in 2022 | Insta Followers
(https://www.instafollowers.co/blog/
banned-instagram-hashtags)
We have come across a lot of clients and still do, who think that their business will make revenue or build a community organically only by posting on the social media platforms.
And sadly, we have to say that either they are one of the following:
1. Ignorant towards how social media marketing works and have their own strong thoughts on beating the algorithms
2. Wishful that by some miracle their business/products will go viral overnight (Which we have to say there is a 1/10,000,000 chance of that happening)
3. Outright stingy, and just want the cheapest and most free way of becoming the next big thing
Hopefully you are neither one of the above or any other kind who feels otherwise. Because if you are then you have no clue about the potential of social media marketing and are missing out on some massive opportunities to make your brand/business grow.
Trust us and just start running Ads and boosting your posts for the most minimal budget available, and you will see for yourself the potential it holds. (Thank us later)
A lot of brand/business owners look at their competitor’s social media marketing efforts and think:
“Hmm, this is super easy. I can totally do this by myself!”
Handling your personal social media account is okay and you can do whatever you want with it, but trying to market your brand/business on social media platforms is a completely different ball game.
While learning and acquiring knowledge about social media marketing is something that every business/brand owner must do. Handling your business/brands social media marketing by yourself is a grave mistake!
It is not as simple as just creating content and posting it.
There are multiple facets to social media marketing that one has to finely balance in order to achieve the results they expect. From strategising, designing the right content, identifying the appropriate posting schedule, online reputation management and deciding the correct budget allocation/demographics/target audience for the Ads, this is a full-time profession and there are agencies like Saki Digital just dedicated to doing this full time and have been doing so for years now.
So don’t try to be the jack of all trades and do the marketing by yourself just to save some money or think that you know it all, because you most likely don’t. Just let the marketing experts do what they do best, while you focus on managing and scaling your brand/business.
Because in the end, your marketing efforts are what generate awareness and drive sales.
Considering you have realised that social media marketing for your brand/business isn’t something you can handle by yourself and have decided to let someone professional handle your brand/business’s social media marketing for you.
You have made the best decision you could have!
BUT…
Remember, DO NOT jump on the cheapest offer available out there.
This is your brand/business!
Always do your research and ask the freelancer/agency about how they are going to be strategising and bringing you growth, ask for their portfolio/business deck, have a look at their website.
Even if you have to spend more money to the get right freelancer/agency onboard.
DO IT!
In the end, the freelancer/agency is going to be setting the pace for your brand/business’s digital success.
95% of the time, freelancers/agencies offering services for cheaper than industry standards have no experience/qualifications to add value to your brand/business and will in turn undo all the hard work done by you until now. Not to mention, the money you paid them is never going to come back.
The world moves super-fast today and trends even faster!
Some trends go viral within minutes and fade away within the same day but give enormous amounts of reach and awareness to the brands/businesses who jumped onto them at the right time. That is the reason why you see some brands/businesses making it to the top really quickly while the others continue to struggle for years without any success in sight.
Constantly identifying and tapping the trends that your target audience is following, is one of the keys to being successful with social media marketing.
A lot of brands/businesses worldwide are still stuck in the pre-social media archaic mindset, thinking that following trends that worked for them 5-10 years back are also going to work social media. LOL!
Failing to change and adapt according to the ongoing trends is self-sabotage. It will drive your brand/business into oblivion faster than you thought. And this is true for social media marketing or otherwise.
Still think that we’re talking crap?
Just lookup the internet on why giant companies like Nokia & Blackberry went from commanding the largest market share to zero within a matter of a year or two.
A marketing funnel is essentially the foundation for every marketing activity. Without which you are just taking shots in the dark.
For those of you who don’t know what a marketing funnel is, let us simplify it for you.
Think of it as a funnel that you use to pour liquid into a bottle or a can.
Comparing that to marketing, the liquid is your target customers, the funnel is your marketing strategy and the bottle is your brand. Just like in a real funnel, the opening at the top is the widest so as to catch the most amount of liquid (Target Customers) and eventually it tapers so that it can fill the bottle (Get sales for the brand).
Simply put, there are 4 stages to a marketing funnel. Although some people like to overcomplicate things and have developed 8 and 16 stage funnels. But today we are only going to be talking about the 4 stage funnel which is the simplest and the easiest to follow.
4 Stage MarketingFunnel:
1. Awareness: This is the wide opening of the funnel. Where you create a lot of noise in the market to get recognition and create awareness about your brand/business in order to draw the people towards it.
2. Interest: This is the body of the funnel. Where you create a strong passion and interest about your brand/business in your customer’s mind. This is your chance to prove to them why they should choose your brand over your competitors. Think of this stage as adding the flavouring to the liquid.
3. Consideration: This is the narrow part of the funnel where the liquid starts to flow into the bottle. This is the last step before the potential customer becomes a paying customer. A step where you get the potential customer to make the purchase by giving them incentives like discounts, coupons etc.
4. Advocacy: This is when the liquid is already in the bottle. Now that the potential customer has become a paying customer, it is important to keep them loyal to your brand/business and recommend it to their network. You can compare it to keeping the liquid contained in the bottle.
Now that you know what a marketing funnel is, we’re sure you can connect the dots about where we are heading with this.
A brand/business that skips out on any one of these stages of the social media marketing funnel is essentially creating a blockage in the funnel and due to the blockage, the liquid (Customers) has stopped flowing into the bottle (Brand/business).
We sincerely hope the points mentioned in this article were able to help you or your business/brand make the right decisions when it comes to social media marketing!
