“Why is my social media engagement declining?” We have all been there. You work so hard to create quality content that engages your audience, but when crunching the numbers you see that your engagement has declined. The only way to remedy the effect is to understand the cause. Let’s explore some causes of why social media engagement declines.
Compare Apples to Apples
Before panic and frustration set in, make sure you are comparing apples to apples and not apples to oranges. In other words, make sure you are comparing a comparable month to another. For example, instead of comparing November’s data (where typical Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales lead more traffic online) to October’s data (no big sales) perhaps you should compare this November to the previous year’s November to get an accurate picture of your health.
The same applies when comparing quarterly statistics. If you compare April, May, and June stats to June, July, and August stats, you may find declines in the summer months. This is due to your audience spending more time outside away from their phones on vacation or other outdoor activities. Consider any holidays that may have happened that could drive engagement up or down when analyzing your statistics.
Also, consider the number of posts shared in the months you are comparing. If April was a great month with lots of content shared and then in May you did not post as much because you were busy, the numbers of course will decline. Consistency is a huge driver of social media engagement.
Consider Outliers
Did you have a post perform particularly well last month? Was something shared a lot thus increasing impressions? Did you have a post where your audience was extra chatty in the comments? Did another page share your post that does not usually share it? All of these things can cause an uptick in engagement. This is great but when the same event does not happen the next month and you are comparing numbers, it can look like a sharp decline.
Another factor to consider is paid advertising and/or special events. Did you add money in previous months to sponsor or boost posts that you are no longer doing? Adding as little as $5 to $10 to an ad budget on social media can increase the number of impressions and engagement tremendously. When cutting back on the budget you are likely to see declines in your numbers.
Special events can cause a similar effect. If a previous month had a special product release, promotion, or campaign that gained traction, you will see higher engagement. When you are back to business as usual the next month, you may not see the same numbers.
Consider the Calendar
What is going on outside of the social media world? During special holidays you may find engagement declines depending on the nature of your business. People are focused more on holiday time happening in their homes rather than scrolling social media.
In the months leading up to our Presidential election, news feeds were filled with many hot debates. Many people chose to step away from social media which means they were not around to see your content either. Was there a similar event happening that could have pulled your audience’s attention?
Along with the summer decline we mentioned earlier we also saw what we called “digital fatigue” with some of our clients. When we were first asked to shelter in place, social media use skyrocketed. A few months into the shutdown however, everyone seemed to grow tired of the endless scrolling and we saw declines in engagement. I think it is safe to say we all have felt digital fatigue at some point during the pandemic.
Consider the Content
When looking over the health of your social media performance it is beneficial to look at what types of content have performed best with your audience. Do your stats go up when you share a blog post? An image with a long caption? A video? A live? What about including hashtags? Each audience is unique and it is important to see what types of posts they respond well to and repeat those types. Don’t go overboard with this or you will see they may grow tired of the same content but be sure to know what is working well with your marketing and what gets scrolled past quickly.
Consider Some Help
It is hard work running social media for your business. Have you considered using a social media management tool? Dogwood recently released our own management platform, Sycamore Social. It easily allows you to create and schedule your content across 6 platforms with just a few clicks. You can create a library of content that can be re-shared quickly and easily in the future.
Sycamore Social also allows you to easily compare social media data through its reporting tool. You can see which types of posts performed the best and which days your audience is most likely to engage- all platform report data is in one place. Have a question? Run into a problem? You can get help from our actual staff in the office quickly and easily and no, the price is not astronomical either!
If a tool like Sycamore Social is not enough for you, we offer complete social media management from Dogwood. We work with you to get a feel for what kind of content you like to share then take it from there. We work with your needs sharing one post a week to multiple posts a day on each platform. We monitor comments and questions and provide reporting each month so you know exactly what is happening with your social presence.
Let us help take one thing off your business to-do list with your social media. Let’s start a conversation and see how we can help fulfill your social media needs.
