It might seem strange that a digital marketing specialist is telling you to stop focusing on social media. Or does it?

Social media has infiltrated our life, both personally and professionally. We have been trained by social media channels to the point of addiction. And much of it is driven by ego and vanity.

You know you get a thrill when you get lots of likes or positive feedback about a post.

We all do.

But ….

That is not the reason to focus so much time and attention on it, especially if it is not yielding tangible results.

I get emails notifications in my Inbox every day for business owners looking for social media specialists to help them.

Woohoo – I should be happy right?

The reason this is disturbing (and I am not happy) is that these business owners consider social media the holy grail. They think by posting some sales content, it will magically bring sales in the door.

That is not the case. It is unrealistic and the expectations of businesses are often severely warped.

Social media is ONE channel – it is part of your overall marketing puzzle. You should be using multiple ‘owned’ channels too.

So, here are 9 reasons why you need to stop focusing on social media

• You don’t own it – you only rent your social media channels and you have no control over the changing algorithms or rules
• Organic is dead – well almost. It is very hard to get traction on an organic post unless it is highly engaging to your audience yet so many people get disappointed when they only see 2 likes.
• Pay to play – if you want to reach more people then you have to pay – boosting and ad campaigns are the new norm
• Too many are focused on cold instead of warm prospects – cold prospects are total strangers and warm prospects know you already so focusing on cold makes little sense as a starting point
• You are flying blind – most businesses don’t understand the constantly changing rules of social and you just post and pray it works
• You are overpromoting – your Sales posts are NOT working and in fact they are turning off your audience. Educate and add value 80% of the time
• Let me Entertain you – this is one reason why Tik Tok is overtaking Facebook in the US – it is entertaining. We need more of that on all social channels.
• Focus on vanity metrics – likes or number of followers don’t pay the bills. Building relationships, growing communities and educating will turn into leads.
• ROI on time spent – how much time do you spend on creating content, posting, commenting and what does that translate to in your hourly rate. Often the numbers don’t add up. 

I am not saying don’t use social media. It is a great tool to build your brand, be visible and drive traffic to your website and product pages. BUT the caveat here is to not put 80-100% of the time and focus into as a marketing channel. Be realistic in your expectations and focus on your owned channels that you do have 100% control over. Think of social media like just another player on the team, not the quarterback.