7 Reasons Why Your Social Media Engagement is Down

If your business has experienced a decrease in organic traffic and engagement on social media, you are not alone. Studies have shown that organic reach on Instagram and Facebook is down 29% and 9%, respectively.

Many factors, both inside and outside of your control, could be the cause of this steady decline. As more and more creators and brands compete for a shrinking number of eyes on Facebook and Instagram, social media metrics are bound to decrease for some profiles.

We want to share the tips and tricks that we use in our clients’ social media strategies to increase organic engagement and bring in more leads from social media.

1. You Aren’t on the Correct Platform

Brands have been finding success on Facebook and Instagram for years — and these are still valuable platforms that should be a part of your strategy. That being said, in recent years many other platforms have emerged, many of which enable businesses to find much higher organic engagement, reach new audiences, and diversify their social media strategy.

Namely, networks like YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest let businesses reach new audiences, and make up for some of the lost engagement rates on Meta’s platforms. Not every social media platform will fit your business’s goals. But it is important that brands don’t have all their eggs in one basket.

2. Your Posts Lack Variety

How often have you used the same post template, team photo, or stock image? Although you may be able to get away with this to some extent, eventually your social media assets are due for a refresh.
Continuing to post the same type of content for months on end can get boring and repetitive, especially for your biggest followers on the platform. Crafting some new post designs or taking new team photos can go a long way in keeping your content fresh and engaging!

A great way to keep your social media strategy fresh is to brainstorm and execute new series on your pages. For example, a “Testimonial Tuesday” or “Team Throwback Thursday” can be an engaging way to connect with your followers. It also gives you a strong weekly set of posts to make for a few months until the series eventually comes to a conclusion, and you start new series. These have the added benefit of keeping a strong posting schedule which is super important to consistent engagement!

Some short videos and gifs are another great way to spice up your feed. Fortunately for you, PHOS has an article focused on how to utilize social media video that is a perfect place to get started.

3. You Aren’t Posting at the Correct Times

You may have found yourself googling “When is the best time to post on Facebook?” or “What days should I post on Instagram?” and the correct answer is: it depends! As much as some articles may try to sell you on the best times to post on social media, this varies heavily on your audience, industry, and content.

Are you sharing a thorough article breaking down B2B marketing on LinkedIn? Well, in this case, you likely won’t want to share this on a Saturday afternoon when most people are enjoying watching their favorite college football games.

Is your restaurant running a late-night special? The typical “best time to post” of Wednesday at 9 AM is probably not going to reach your target audience at the right time.

Other than using good reasoning, you should also pay mind to the insight that social media platforms provide you with. You can see which days your traffic spikes and some platforms, like TikTok, Youtube, and LinkedIn, even show you exactly when your followers are using the platform!

4. You Aren’t Using a Call-to-Action (CTA)

Social media is a great tool to increase brand awareness, website traffic, and sales. If you put a lot of effort into making creative, engaging content that is built for your target audience but fails to include a call-to-action, your content is not going to convert nearly as well as it could.

That being said, the cliche, “Find out more” is not going to cut it. Hubspot data suggest that personalized calls to action have a 202% higher conversion rate than non-personalized CTAs.
Additionally, don’t fall into the trap that all CTAs must be directing your audience to your website. Call-to-actions are also a great way to increase engagement on the native social media platform you are posting on, growing your audience and reach.

5. You Are Over-Promoting

Do you link back to your website on every social media post? Is all of the content that you create attempting to sell your audience something? This is one of the biggest mistakes that companies make when developing their social media strategies.

Of course, this is the end goal for all businesses. This is the reason why social media is worth a squeeze in the first place. But not allowing any room for content that focuses on providing your audience with value through advice, education, or just building community is a huge missed opportunity.

When creating a social media strategy, think of what you want to see from the brands you follow. It’s unlikely that a constant stream of promotion and advertising is enticing to very many people. Promoting your brand on social media is a give-and-take. After giving your audience a reason to follow and engage with your posts, you will be able to take a lot more promotional value from your community.

6. You Are Under-Promoting

At first glance, this may seem like the antithesis of the above point, but what we mean by this is to promote your social media accounts on your other marketing channels. We’re sure every business has social media icons tucked away on the footer of their website, but this alone is not enough to get your customers to check out your social media pages. There are plenty of great places you can use to drive traffic to your social media pages.

• An email list
• Outbound links on your blog posts
• Cross-promotion from one platform to another
• A QR code at your brick-and-mortar location

These are just examples of internal marketing channels, not to mention all of the external places you can promote your social media by collaborating with other brands on social, being active on community forums, and influencer marketing.

(Here’s a shameless plug to follow us on social media by checking the icons in our footer! 😊)

7. Talking But Not Listening

This is probably advice that we could all use, even outside the world of increasing social media engagement. But without getting too philosophical, people want to be heard, and your audience on social media isn’t any different.

It is extremely important to pay close attention to the comments and posts people post in regard to your brand. This feedback creates great opportunities to engage 1-on-1 with customers and can give you a strong view of how your community perceives you as a brand.

The best way to get this feedback is when you are ‘talking’ — ask your audience questions! Asking frequent questions is a great way to not only gather data on your audience and customers but also a definite way to receive increased engagement on your posts, which will always have a positive impact on organic reach!

Why Should You Care About Social Media Engagement?

For many business owners, social media can seem like a fickle marketing channel that requires more work than it is worth. This is especially true when you are focused on the day-to-day responsibilities that come with running a business.

But, with 4.62 billion people using social media around the world, we know that businesses not utilizing social media are missing out on a massive opportunity.

For those of you who don’t have time to spend strategizing and executing social media strategies, PHOS Creative is here to help! Social media management is one of our core competencies and we can work with you to not only increase social media engagement but build this into a holistic inbound marketing strategy!