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.

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Top challenges of social media marketing

According to a recent report surveying thousands of marketing professionals, creating engaging content and gaining and maintaining follower count top the list of the biggest social media challenges businesses face. More than one-fifth (22%) of marketers say they’re a current concern.

This is followed by reaching target audiences and finding new ideas for content, which are issues that 21% of businesses have. Creating social media posts that resonate well enough with users to generate leads is also among the top challenges of social media marketing and is faced by 20% of marketers. That said, it should come as no surprise that 81% of marketers outsource content writing to third-party providers. 

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Sixth and seventh on the list of the top social media marketing challenges are keeping up to date with the latest trends and measuring its effectiveness. Just under one in five—or 19%— of brands name them as concerns. The difficulty with ROI measurement highlights just how tough it can be to quantify the success, impact, and effectiveness of a strategy.

Some of these top social media marketing challenges are actually not exclusive to social media marketers. Incidentally, measuring ROI is also among the biggest challenges of influencer marketing faced by businesses.

Tracking the performance of social media content can also sometimes be more complicated than it seems. Performance indicators of a particular post can vary from platform to platform and market to market. This means that posts that are alike in style and tone can end up generating very different results.

Plus, there are currently so many social media networks available to marketers. 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.

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