Why your social strategy isn’t working (and how to fix it fast)

Signs your current approach is underperforming

When used strategically, social media is a powerful marketing tool that can boost brand visibility, attract new customers, and drive sales. But in today’s crowded digital landscape, cutting through the noise takes more than just being present, it requires a thoughtful, well-executed strategy.

If you are seeing a decline in engagement, your likes, shares comments have plateaued despite regular posting, or you are not seeing any tangible benefit to the amount of work that goes into creating a social media post each month - then it is likely that your posts are not sparking any meaningful conversation or interaction.

You are not alone however, the average engagement rate across all industries on Instagram are not under 1%*. We are all bombarded with notifications, updates and social media messages daily, so it feels like the job to make social media a tangible contributor to our marketing efforts is a lot harder.

If your follower growth has stalled or declined, your content may not be resonating with your target audience. If you are seeing strong reach without resulting in web traffic, leads, or sales, this could indicate an imbalance in post types. Perhaps too many CTAs are causing fatigue within your audience, or a broader issue is occurring within your online customer journey.

Producing any consistent social media content requires time, money and dedicated staff which heightens the pressure for it to deliver. A clear path to ROI is essential with clear KPIs aligned to overall business goals. Your reason for investing in social media can't be because everyone else is doing it. If you don’t approach it with a clear goal and ROI in mind, social will always remain an expensive cost and not a benefit to your businesses marketing effort.

Common blind spots in in-house teams

Social media requires an array of skill sets to produce high performing posts. You need a strategic mind to understand your approach to platforms, posting frequency, channel selection, influencers and community management approach. Then the production of the content pulls on copy skills, designers and video or animation, whilst being mindful of your brand, the industry you operate in and your target audience. Your inhouse team has to wear many hats. The demand for posts to feed the platforms can turn the creation of content into a production line. Less creativity and more speed driving the department. Teams can become desensitised to what’s exciting or valuable to the customer and prioritise volume over quality. What we see a lot is you are often creating content for yourselves, not your audience.

Strategies are often based on what’s always been done or gut instinct and not data driven. There is no audience testing or data led refinement.

Another issue we come across is based around internal politics and content approval delays. Often there are multiple stakeholders in the process which in turn dilutes the message or slows down timely publishing. This is a symptom of an unclear strategy as not everyone is on the right page. Posts in the past have not performed well so there is a reticence to approval posts out of the comfort zone.

Investment in tools that are meant to fix issues, give you more insight or streamline the process can open up new issues rather than solve them. Teams can track vanity metrics without acting on insights, so what is presented to you can all look promising, but the real world business impact is still lacking. Inconsistent reporting makes it hard to spot trends or optimise performance.

The role of an external audit in course correction

An outsider can ask ‘why?’ without internal baggage and the objective perspective makes it easier to spot what’s missing, broken or under leveraged. An outsider is also able to cut through brand bias and focus on what will move the needle for your audience.

An external auditor is able to put your metrics into context, what is good engagement for your industry? How are you performing against your competitors, where are the gaps and opportunities? We reveal how your tone, frequency, and formats compare to others winning in your space.

It will uncover fresh content and engagement opportunities and a deep dive into your audience behaviour will uncover messaging angles to produce content that resonates.

A seasoned audit partner brings insight from multiple sectors and brands. We have seen what works and what doesn’t across different algorithms, audience types, and platforms, so our recommendations are precise and impactfulWe also leverage advanced tools to dig into follower behaviour, post performance, and sentiment trends. We can translate raw metrics into meaningful recommendations that drive results. We bring access to premium social listening, analytics, and competitor tracking tools which in turn saves your team time and effort while surfacing insights you wouldn’t find through native platform analytics alone.

Finally the audit delivers a roadmap, not just a review. A great audit doesn’t just highlight problems, it maps the fixes with practical next steps ordered by priority and impact. Did you know that companies that regularly audit their digital strategy are 2x more likely to report strong ROI on content marketing.  (Smart Insights, 2023 Digital Strategy Report).