When To Quit Social Media For Your Business
When To Quit Social Media For Your Business
Signs you need to say goodbye and shut it down.
The social media channels of businesses are either a salesmaking machine, or they’re a complete drag to run. The draggers eat up time and effort (and sometimes money) without any leads or sales to show for it. Your social media channels are a drag on your business if:
You post consistently, but don’t get any love back (no comments, no DMs, nada from your target audience).
There are no sales that come from it.
None of your customers point to your social media as a reason why they bought from you.
If you paid $2,000 every month for a vendor booth to sell your products, but it didn’t bring in any sales for you, would you keep eating that cost and try to sell at that booth 6, 12 months from now? Hell to the no.
You should feel the same about your social if crickets are the dominant response from your efforts. Just because we can’t touch and see time, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a direct conversion into dollars.
If you pay yourself $50/hour for your professional time, all that time you spend to keep your business’ social media running is $50 you light on fire every hour.
If your current social media strategy didn’t work the first 6 months, it’s not going to change if you continue on for another 6 months.
You won’t miss any big opportunities. You won’t lose any sales. You can’t lose opportunities or sales you weren’t winning in the first place.
It’s difficult to hit eject from social media even when it’s clear that it’s a time and money suck. Having an online presence is the brick-and-mortar equivalent of having an “Open” sign on your business’ online storefront.
This is where a lot of shoppers come to check on your pulse before purchasing. So how do you wean off social media while still playing by the rules of how customers usually find and engage with brands nowadays?
Control the flow of your traffic. Instead of having your customers guess whether you’re on TikTok or not, prominently showcase where your brand is hanging out and lead them to where you are. Even if it means leading them to a platform or a place on your website that’s a bit untraditional. Make it clear on your website where your customers can get the most recent and up-to-date happenings about your brand.
Stake your flag where you’re strongest, and blow it out of the water. You may be completely clueless about content creation for Instagram, but a complete genius when it comes to email, or you may prefer cultivating your audience in a Whatsapp group chat. Whatever your platform of choice is, dig in your heels and go all-in on making it the best it can be. Show up consistently, do it well, and the audience will come. If your brand’s presence and engagement are strongest in this chosen arena, it won’t matter where it is — if it’s popping and people are loving it, the crowd will follow.
Clean up your social. If neither #1 or #2 resonate with you, and you are keen to still make social media work for you, get serious about sweeping up the mess in your social channels. Look for help around conversion-focused audience-building on social media and focus in on creating a sales plan around your social media efforts (my online course Sales Mastery is a great resource on monetizing your social efforts).
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