“Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers”, according to Forrester’s latest research report.

They analyzed primary sales drivers for eCommerce, and concluded that less than 1% of buyers were from social visitors.

There’s a few possible explanations for this.

The first (and most important) is that social aids the buying process indirectly, and is difficult to track — which leads companies (and research firms) to under-appreciate and under-invest.

The second, is that most corporate social media strategies… simply aren’t that good. And their results are mediocre because they’re too tactical, and too focused on micro-decisions.

Here are 3 reasons why your social strategy is failing, and what to do instead.

Fix

So every single status update should bear all the hallmarks of good content.

Research and dig into your prospect’s psychology, use copywriting to intrigue and address their pain points, and monitor your analytics to do more of what people like, and less of what they don’t.

Every status update should be like it’s own advertisement:

• Objective: At the end of the day, you need engagement or click-throughs. But emphasis one at a time, not both. Because if you want to maximize results, then you typically have to make a choice that will hurt the other option.
• Headline:The first goal of your headline is to grab attention. The best way is to touch an emotional nerve, or reference a specific “world-view” they might have.
• Description: The description is where you use copywriting to play on reader’s interests and psychology, and get them to take action.
• Image: Finally, the goal of your image is to produce a desired result. So it doesn’t have to be explicitly tied to what you’re talking about. Instead, make it sure captures attention and will make an emotional connection.

Here’s an example of all those components coming together:

Becoming a social media publisher allows you to set the tone for engagement, and steer the conversation in ways that ultimately benefit you.

Fix #3: Create Campaigns, Not Launches

Whenever a company has a new launch, promotion, or sale coming up, they want to start “marketing” on the opening day.

But by then, you’ve already lost.

Effectively promoting events or launches takes time, and can’t happen overnight.

“If you want to succeed in social media, then think in quarters, not days.” → [Click here to share this quote]

So tying in to use social channels to distribute those messages farther, faster, and more effectively.