In today’s marketing world a lot of attention gets paid to vanity metrics such as the number of likes or shares a piece of content receives on social networks. While these metrics should never be the primary metric of marketing success (that slot is reserved for ROI-related metrics), they still have a place at the KPI table.
Social media managers around the world closely monitor each piece of content’s performance and report on these metrics as proof (or lack thereof) of marketing success. Why? Because in the algorithmic-driven world of social media, the more likes, comments and shares a particular post gets the higher the visibility the content and brand can get.
But if you manage any social media properties for a brand, then you know just how hard it is to gain this third-party traction and visibility for some content. If you constantly find yourself begging for likes and engagement then keep reading! Here are three reasons why no one is liking your content, and three ways to fix that!
Three Reasons Why No One Likes Your Content and How to Fix It
1. Your creative isn’t resonating with your audience
This is probably the main reason why a piece of content doesn’t get liked, clicked or shared. It simply isn’t speaking the same language as your audience (sometimes literally – we’re looking at you brands that target Spanish-speaking audiences with English content). Most brands spend a lot of time, energy and money understanding who their customers are, what their personality is, their living situation, their concerns, desires, fears, etc. Why go through all the trouble of finding that out, only to have creative that doesn’t move them one way or another?
The Fix: Identify your top fans (you know—the people who like everything), and embrace their opinions by asking them to review content before posting it to the larger audience. It’s a great way to engage your most active brand loyalists and let them into your brand’s inner circle a little. They’ll likely be excited by being asked to be part of the test group, but you could consider incentivizing their participation in some way. If you’re looking for a system that makes it easy to manage this group, don’t worry, we have you covered!
2. Your creative doesn’t pass the scroll test
This has to do with how visually stimulating or arresting your creative is. The scroll test will tell whether or not people will stop and think about your content for more than the millisecond it takes them to scroll to the next item in their news feed.
The Fix: Some of this will depend on your brand, your product and your audience, of course. But try to experiment with a few things such as using bold colors, catchy headines,larger type (but be careful of Facebook’s 20% text rule if using the same images for ads—check your images here), or imagery that evokes emotion.
3. Use hero pieces judiciously
Hero pieces are the BIG pieces of content that companies or organizations produce, such as a long-form video or a whitepaper. They’re usually costly and time consuming to create, but they also often serve as anchor pieces in larger campaigns. If you’re investing in these types of content, then it’s essential to get them right. After all, who wants to waste perfectly good budget on content that no one sees?
The Fix: Don’t be afraid to get outside counsel. Take your top fans focus group and expand that to include experts in your industry or vertical. Have them give you feedback on the idea or snippets of the hero piece while it’s still in the planning stages, before it is actually produced. Bonus Tip: Ask them if you can quote them in the piece. They’ll benefit from the added exposure, and you’ll add even more credibility. In addition to getting feedback, do some testing to ensure that you’re not inundating your audience with long-form, heavy content. It’s possible that they liked (literally and figuratively) that last video you created, but that they don’t have time or attention span to sit through three more long videos (unless, of course, they’re really, really good). Mix up the content.
While the above are a few solid reasons for why your audience isn’t paying attention to (and liking) your content, they are by no means all of the potential reasons. It’s a good idea to regularly audit all your social media content to make sure it’s performing the way it needs to, and make adjustments as needed.
If you want help understanding why people aren’t liking your content, feel free to reach out and we’ll put you on the path to garnering more likes, more exposure, and ideally more business.
