Top Social Media Marketing Challenges: Stories and Tips from 20+ Experts

What does a social media manager do, besides scrolling on their phone all day?

Between juggling a brand’s social media strategy and just about every task related to social media marketing, managers of social media accounts wear a lot of hats and have their hands full at all times.  

So what is the biggest challenge that most social media managers have? Well, that depends on who you’re asking – so we asked over 20 social media experts to share their stories with us, and in this article we’ll be covering the main social media marketing challenges and pain points marketers experience in their day-to-day job.

So, let’s turn on that empathy switch and explore some of the most common social media challenges for marketers:

Content fatigue

One of the important tasks that falls under a social media manager’s responsibility is content creation. Given that video dominates social platforms these days, creating content is not usually limited to copy, but also includes other types of social media content such as videos, infographics, and carousels.

All of these take hours if not days to complete and take up a lot of creative energy. You can imagine that this is a lot to undertake for a single person, and not all that sustainable in the long run.

That’s why a lot of social media managers list content fatigue under their top marketing challenges. Being expected to constantly create original content that’s able to somehow stand out from the sea of content already shared every day is frustrating and puts many social media managers on a path to burnout.

On the other hand, audiences always expect fresh, non-repetitive content on a regular basis, so the pressure to continue to surprise and entertain them is making social media marketers frequently run out of creative bandwidth.

Audiences quickly grow tired of repetitive material, so marketers must continuously innovate to keep their audience interested and engaged. - Alma Pantaloukas, Founder + Lead Strategist @ Ritual Thrive

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Original research and reports - One way to combat content fatigue is to create content based on original research on your customers and user base. Not only does this ensure you never run out of content ideas, but it also helps you offer unmatched value to your audience, therefore outperforming your competitors.

• Incorporate new content pillars for social media – Carry out some research to figure out what new content pillars you could be writing content around. Exploring new topics can help you get out of the creative slump.

• Create company-culture videos instead of following trends - You don’t always need to look to the outside to get ideas for content creation – your own company culture can serve as inspiration. So, instead of adding to the sea of memes that exists on social media, create company-culture videos that help your audience get to know your company values and the human element behind it.

• Collaborate with SMEs (Subject Matter Experts) – Consider reaching out to SMEs in your niche and industry to develop new content in collaboration with them. Not only is this a valuable learning opportunity for you, but it’s also a great way to significantly expand your brand’s reach on social media.

Lack of trust from upper management

When asked what are some challenges to overcome in social media, many marketers point to a lack of trust and support from the executive team.

The challenges faced by social media managers include earning the trust of their executive team and having a voice in decision-making. – Anthony Yepez, Director of Social Media Strategy and Audience Growth at Professional Fighters League

Although the role of social media manager has been around for a while, many are faced with challenges when it comes to earning the trust of the executive team and being taken seriously.

Despite having first-hand experience with managing social media – including strategy, community management, content creation – social media managers are often left out of the decision-making process.

That’s either because the executive team doesn’t trust that the social department can do a good job or they simply don’t understand the social media ROI. And the question of how to account for social media marketing ROI is particularly challenging in itself.

A general lack of understanding within upper management about the tasks and value of social media teams can lead to undervaluation and underinvestment in social media efforts. – Kassandra  Quinn, Social Media Strategist @ ModSquad

The lack of trust from higher-ups leaves social media managers feeling unheard and in some cases, it even makes them lose confidence in their own abilities. Some find themselves in a position to make a business case for social media, which in itself is frustrating and time-consuming.

A big challenge for social media managers is having executive leadership teams who don't understand what we do is valuable, and consistently undermine us. – Adrienne (Mills) Harvey, Adjunct Professor @ Centralia College

Biggest challenges for social media managers: unrealistic expectations for growth set by C-suite or senior executive leadership and the brand stakeholders' mindset of "make it go viral". – Michael Mims, Social Media Manager & Faith Driven Entrepreneur

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Create comprehensive social media dashboards - Numbers never lie, so the best way to show C-level executives the value of social media work is to create custom social media dashboards that cover a wide mix of metrics: engagement, followers growth, competitor analysis, sentiment analysis, reach, impressions, social media ROI.

• Create metrics documentation for the upper management team – Take it one step further and educate upper management on what each metric means and what role it plays in the broader social media performance picture.

• Prove how social media goals align with business goals - When you’re making the case for the value of social media, speak the language of upper management. Focus on key metrics they care about – traffic, leads, conversions, customer support response time on social media – connecting the dots between your strategy and the overall business plan.

• Collaborate with other teams – Set up workflows with the marketing, product and support teams where you can exchange ideas on how to help the business grow across all channels.

Limited budgets

It’s not unheard of that social media managers go to the trouble of creating multi-channel social media strategies, unique influencer marketing campaigns and paid ads, only to fail to obtain the budget necessary for the content to ever go live.

Budget is typically at the top of my list because most times brands’ goals and the budget needed to meet those goals, don't align. SMM are typically a team of one because of the lack of budget. – Kalli Combs, Social Media Strategist @ Kulur Group

Given the decline of organic reach, brands really need to step up their game to the results they want. Competing against industry giants who spend thousands of dollars on paid advertising makes it tough to succeed on a limited budget.

Budget limitations are one of the most common social media marketing problems and they don’t just affect paid advertising. They are also a main reason why a single individual is a social media manager, social media strategist, videographer, community manager and more  – all at once.

Social media managers often get the bottom of the totem pole, we are expected to perform a very wide range of tasks while not having an allocated budget - Alexus Brittain, Head of Social @ Vista Social

Many teams are way too small for the amount of work that they are assigned, because the executive team doesn’t see the value in hiring more people.

At the end of the day, limited budgets make it almost impossible for social media professionals to do their job right and meet social media goals, which results in a lot of frustration and friction between the social team and upper management.

Social media advertising can be expensive, and getting the necessary resources to run effective campaigns can be a struggle, especially for smaller businesses or startups. – Courtney Larvadain, Account Supervisor, Social Media the JRT agency

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Ask for a one-time budget increase – The best way for upper management to understand the benefits of investing in social media is by showing them that it makes a difference. Ask for a small amount of money in order to do an experiment. Boost a few posts, or get in touch with an influencer to help promote a specific campaign, document the performance of this experiment by tracking social media analytics and doing a thorough campaign analysis, then present the results to the executive team.

• Advocate for the value of outsourcing some social media work - If you’re a team of one and you often find yourself doing the work of several people, consider asking upper management to start outsourcing some tasks related to social media work, such as video editing and creation and design.

• Back your social media results with analytics – Give C-level executives a reason to invest in social media by proving your current results with analytics data. Upper management are interested in tracking followers growth vs their competitors and TAM (total addressable market) in a specific region, as well as reach, impressions and engagement – so make sure your reports cover all these numbers.

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One-person social media team

For many marketers, poor resource allocation is a very difficult challenge to overcome in their day-to-day job. Besides money, executive teams often hesitate to spare any staff or time to help the social media team achieve their goals.

One of the most common results of this poor resource management is that social media managers are a team of one. They are tasked with the work of several people, and what’s worse, they are often denied access to important assets such as social media analytics tools for measuring performance in real time and getting crucial competitive insights.

Therefore, strategizing, performing brand audits, getting valuable social media benchmarks becomes very difficult.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to social media managers is resources, both with financial limitations, staffing and dedicated content creation support. Many large businesses and organizations still see social media as "free" advertising and fail to understand the time investment of social media success in brand building, so managing expectations is always a struggle as well. – Amy Peiffer, Social Media Lead

Small and large companies alike fail to see social media as a priority channel or they simply consider it free advertising, and don’t understand the need to invest any resources into its development.

What’s more, social media managers are expected to hit the ground running, despite the fact that very few resources are often invested in their onboarding and training process. All of this makes poor resource allocation one of the biggest social media pain points.

More often than not we are a team of one. If that’s not the case, we are a very small team, and there simply is not enough time in the day or the week even to make sure all bases are covered. – Alexus Brittain, Head of Social @ Vista Social

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Search for affordable tools – Be on constant lookout for new tools that can help enhance and simplify your work, and choose those that offer the best value for money.

• Explain the need for investment in social media – Once you’ve explored the limitations of social media marketing with no resource investment, it’s time to speak up and explain why some money, time and effort is needed in order to take social media to the next level. Prioritize key tools and resources such as social media analytics and social listening tools, recording equipment (if you’re creating video content) and so on.

Lack of standardized procedures

On any given day, a social media manager’s jobs-to-be-done list can look pretty chaotic. With a wide variety of tasks getting assigned to them, it can get quite difficult to prioritize.

What’s more, they are expected to be hands-on with everything – checking analytics data constantly, responding to DMs, creating and scheduling content and so on – so everything seems to require their attention at all points in time.

That’s where the lack of standardized procedures hits hard and proves to be a very difficult challenge to overcome.

Many agencies do not have procedures in place in order to actually make social media work as a service for their agency. — Michelle Locke, Digital Media Coordinator

Social media managers would benefit from having a well-defined and pre-approved plan for organizing tasks so nothing gets out of hand. They should know what can be delegated or postponed, and where their input is absolutely necessary.

Many lack playbooks and internal processes to navigate difficult external conversations, especially those requiring immediate, legally compliant responses. – Mariya Spektor,  Social Media @ SocialChain

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Schedule regular meetings to discuss priorities – Although it may feel like it at times, not everything that is deemed urgent is actually that urgent. That’s why you need to have frequent check-ins with upper management to figure what are your top priorities and what tasks can be delegated or postponed until further notice.

• Keep a daily/weekly/monthly to-do list of your tasks – Create a list or spreadsheet outlining your recurring tasks to keep yourself accountable and track progress on each one of them. Whenever possible, mention deadlines, bottlenecks or any other dependencies.

Constant pressure to innovate

Building and maintaining an engaged audience requires ongoing effort and innovative strategies. The need to produce a constant stream of fresh and engaging content can be difficult for certain niches. – Summer Browne, Marketing Executive @ Alphatec Engineering

Navigating the ups and downs of social media can feel pretty exciting, particularly for young social media managers at the start of their career. Social media is a highly dynamic field, and there’s always something new to experiment with – a new trend, a new channel, a new approach to social media strategy.

However, after a while, social media marketing challenges start piling up and the constant pressure to innovate starts weighing down on social media professionals, who find it hard to keep coming up with new ways to keep their audiences interested, engaged and ever-growing.

It’s not just about content, though. Continuously chasing trends on social media is the biggest challenge and downright exhausting for some social media managers.

They are constantly pressured to seek new horizons, jump on any new social media trends, expand the brand’s social media presence to every newly-launched platform – although that doesn’t always make sense for the brand from a strategy perspective.

The surge in content creation coupled with the pressure to innovate, often leaves Social Media Managers grappling with inadequate resources, talent, and budget. – Mariya Spektor, Social Media @ SocialChain

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Make data-driven decisions – Rely on constant social media analysis to understand what’s working and what’s not. Market research can reveal crucial competitive intelligence, which you can use to decide whether it’s a good idea to jump on a new trend or platform. When asked, present this data to upper management so they too can understand your strategy.

• Stay true to your brand values – No matter what choices you end up making, make sure they align with your social media branding strategy. What’s more, you can leverage your own company values and culture to produce evergreen behind-the-scenes content for social media.

• Create an ownable format that outperforms the rest – Identify the one content format that performs significantly better than the rest or that people associate your brand with  the most. To give a real-life example, think of Duolingo’s owl mascot TikToks.

Balancing leads/sales and community management

Balancing leads and sales generation and community management is one of the major challenges of social media. It’s true that one of the main goals of social media marketing is to produce leads and sales. However, many social media managers are being tasked with boosting conversions instead of building a brand community and growing brand awareness.

That’s because upper management is not usually concerned with engagement, followers and other such social media metrics. They want to know how these metrics translate to usable leads and ultimately sales for their company.

As a result, marketers are forced to adopt a more salesy approach to social media management which sometimes backfires.

It’s not that social media managers should not be concerned with leads and conversions, it’s that their focus should be on social media reputation management, maximizing the social media ROI, building an active, authentic community, and increasing its visibility across all channels.

Leadership is pushing back on experimental ideas in exchange for more sales-forward posting. This is creatively stunting and doesn’t allow for social media managers to put together a focused-strategy to potentially take the brand to the next level. – Dejaih Smith, Social Media Manager @ Sequence of Social

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Use social media for demand generation  – The trick is to find a sweet spot between a sales-driven approach and building a community based on offering values and having meaningful interactions. Prioritize zero-click content and limit the number of URLs shared per week to 1. Only direct your users to important brand events such as webinars or product launches.

• Take feedback from your community – Set up a feedback loop by asking your community about their needs, preferences, and experiences. This will likely contribute to brand loyalty, and it helps you and your sales team refine the sales strategy to match the needs of your present and future clients.

• Create a closed social media community – To bring your community closer, the best course of action is to create a safe space where they can share insights, network and learn new tactics. This is also an opportunity for you to share behind-the-scene content that will definitely humanize your brand.

Pressure to deliver fast results (aka “make it viral”)

In their day to day job, social media managers have to deal with a lot of interference from the executive team or from clients.

This type of interference doesn’t just lead to micromanagement, it can also create unrealistic expectations when it comes to social media performance. Not knowing the inner workings of platform algorithms, many expect social media managers to simply produce one viral post after another.

Social media is a fast-paced environment, and what worked yesterday might not work tomorrow. Keeping up with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices is essential, but it can also be exhausting. – Courtney Larvadain, Account Supervisor

The pressure to deliver fast results is a major headache for marketers, who know that virality is a game of chance, and that good results take time. Constantly building brand awareness, engaging with the community, sharing valuable content are what ultimately create social media success stories, not a series of viral TikToks.

So, if you were to ask any social media manager, “what is the biggest challenge that most social media managers have?”, their answer would most likely be unrealistic expectations and the lack of understanding when it comes to virality vs a steady, committed approach to a slow-paced, product-led growth.

Social teams cannot just "make things go viral," but there are still a lot of benefits to what we do as a marketing channel. – Sophie Hay, Founder of Twin Palm Social

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Insist on the value of quality over quantity – Most people in upper management argue that a higher output of social media posts will keep their brand at the top of people’s minds. However, a steady flow of low-quality, repetitive posts will not do your business any good. Viral posts might increase your visibility and social media engagement, but these changes are usually short-lived and usually don’t impact the overall standing of your brand online.

• Leverage social listening to find out what people really want – The trick to creating great (and potentially viral) content is discovering what people want and what they absolutely hate. You can do that with social listening. As you uncover more and more insights about your audience’s preferences, keep refining your content to meet their demands. Even if you don’t achieve virality, you still maximize the odds of increasing social media reach and engagement rates.

Frequent algorithm changes

One of the most talked about challenges of social media marketing is how often algorithms change and how difficult it is to keep up with all the frequent updates.

The biggest challenge is changing with the constant algorithm changes – Atim Mercy, Communications and Content Strategist

Frequent changes to social media network algorithms have a direct impact on content performance and social media managers are left picking up the pieces, as it were, having to constantly adjust their strategies to match what the new algorithms demand.

Social media platforms are constantly updating their algorithms, which can significantly impact organic reach and engagement. It means we have to constantly adapt our strategies to ensure our content remains visible to our audience. – Courtney Larvadain, Account Supervisor

Due to this rollercoaster of algorithm changes, marketers are forced to keep learning and unlearning what they know about social media channels, which hinders their ability to create solid strategies that help brands grow.

Algorithm changes are like unpredictable weather, suddenly shifting and requiring quick adjustments to keep things on track. – Raluca Toma, Partnerships Manager at SocialBee

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Rely heavily on social media measurement insights – In the face of constant change, your most reliable ally is data. Check your brand’s performance and that of your competitor for sudden spikes or drops to identify changes in the algorithm even before they’re officially announced.

• Stay informed – Set up multiple sources of information about algorithm changes and start implementing changes in your strategy based on the news that you receive. Follow official channels and join relevant communities to be among the first to find out what’s new on a particular social media channel.

Crisis management and legal compliance issues

One of the digital marketing challenges not many social media managers are prepared for is how to deal with crises and legal compliance issues. It’s understandable - legal issues are one of the least pretty aspects of social media marketing and nobody wants to address them unless they really have to.

However, crises occur and social media managers are usually the first line of the defense. They are the ones on the receiving end of hateful DMs, or even lawsuit threats in extreme cases. They are the ones who have to come up with a diplomatic, legal team-approved response in order to put out fires that would otherwise damage the brand’s reputation.

The lack of standardized procedures is one of the biggest marketing pain points, and it is particularly dangerous when it comes to legal situations that require instant action.

When things go south (and they sometimes do), a social media manager needs to handle crises with poise. They must manage negative feedback, PR issues, and any social media mishaps, turning potential disasters into opportunities for growth. – Vanjela (Nela) Bellovoda , Social Media Strategist

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Create a fast-line communication group with the upper management and legal – Legal crises need urgent action, so your best course of action is to essentially have upper management and the legal team on speed dial. Whether that means setting up a Whatsapp group or some other instant chat communication workflow, at the end of the day, this will help you speed up legal approval and get quick feedback on pressing matters.

• Ask for training on how to handle legal issues – If this type of training is not part of your onboarding process, consider asking upper management to offer training on crises management and legal procedures. Ideally, if your company has a legal team, ask them to advise you on legal situations and set up a response flowchart for you to follow whenever a crisis arises.

• Be calm, clear and kind – When dealing with people who are upset, it’s important to show calmness and understanding so as not to escalate the conflict any further. If you think replying to an angry DM with the same tone will make them change their mind, you’re wrong.

Poor communication between departments

If you were to ask anyone outside the social media world, “which of the following is a challenge associated with the use of social media marketing?” and give them a couple options, the one answer they would probably never go for is: poor communication between departments.

That’s because not many people realize the impact poor communication has on a social media manager’s workflow and state of mind. Effective collaboration is crucial in any company, big or small. When departments fail to communicate properly, it leads to mishaps and misunderstandings.

Marketers often find themselves in situations where they need to coordinate with the development team, sales department, legal, upper management etc. If any one of these people is unclear as to what their own responsibilities are, or they keep deprioritizing the social media manager’s request in favor of other tasks, then progress stalls.

Having to work around a website bug, or a confusing legal situation, is tedious and exhausting for anyone working in social media.

It all comes down to a lack of the right support, inside and outside an organization. While most social media managers have earned (through experience) a degree in scrappiness, we need support to properly do our job. – Ashley Foster, Senior Social Media Manager

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Be proactive – Whenever you receive a new task, first evaluate it to see if you'll need any assistance completing it. If so, reach out to the other teams for their help or input before starting.

• Use collaborative tools for instant communication – In other words, make it easy for people to talk to you. Team members might be more likely to respond to a quick chat to help with your issue than engage in a 2-hour meeting when a problem has already escalated.

Constant need to be online

Social media management often feels like a full time job. Not a 40 hours per week job, mind you, more like 24/7. Because a good portion of all social media tasks can be done on a mobile phone, it’s sometimes difficult for marketers to switch off at the end of the work day.

A challenge is the conception of social media always being "on", so you feel like you can never get a full break. – Mitra Mehvar, Social Media Manager at Buffer

The constant need to be online is one of social media’s biggest challenges to overcome. That doesn’t only result in a very poor work-life balance, it can also affect people’s mental health and eventually lead to burnout.

It’s particularly challenging for social media professionals at the start of their careers to take breaks when they need to because they’re eager to perform well and prove their worth.

One of the biggest demands of social is to constantly search for the latest creative and social trends – Michael Mims, Social Media Manager & Faith Driven Entrepreneur

Tips to overcome this challenge:

• Limit your social media usage – It’s difficult to put a hard stop to social media usage because in many usage, it’s extremely convenient to keep working wherever you are: on the bus during your commute, at home during the weekend. However, for the sake of your mental health, you should implement breaks and separate personal social media browsing from work-related social media browsing.

• Set clear boundaries – Limit notifications to only be delivered between certain hours and leverage scheduling tools to eliminate the need to post manually outside of work hours. Once in a while, consider undergoing a digital detox for a couple of days – during the weekend or on vacation – and take this opportunity to disconnect from all devices and immerse yourself exclusively in offline activities.

Final thoughts

Navigating the many challenges of marketing and social media is not easy for social media managers. They need to arm themselves with as much patience, understanding and knowledge as they possibly can to maximize their chances of succeeding in this field.

When asked what are the challenges of social media marketing, many social media managers point to a severe lack of resources, poor communication and content fatigue, among others. They feel like these challenges in digital marketing often stunt their progress and don’t allow them to progress in their career as fast as they would like to.

That’s not to say that social media is known only for its challenges. It’s competitive and at times chaotic, sure, but it’s also riddled with opportunities for growth.

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