Are Social Media Professionals Held To An Impossible Standard?

Recently, I engaged with a prospect who was referred to me by a colleague. In her initial discussion with our business development manager, Tom, she mentioned that our company’s Facebook page didn’t have much engagement. She said it didn’t fill her with much confidence. Ouch!

When Tom relayed this information to me, I was a bit surprised. I didn’t realize we were being judged by level of engagement.

A Social Media Reality Check

Anyone who has a Facebook fan page knows that organic reach is at an all-time low, right? Or maybe not, as I discovered from talking with that prospective client. For the most part, we don’t promote our posts on Facebook. So, like most businesses, our engagement level reflects that (thanks to Facebook’s finicky algorithm!).

A few years ago, someone told me my tweets were “outdated.” When I reviewed my latest Twitter activity, I noticed I had pinned a tweet, from several months ago, at the top of my timeline. I explained to the individual that the most recent tweets appear below the pinned tweet. It never really struck me before that people who don’t actively use Twitter may not be aware of pinned tweets and their purpose as featured announcements, nor that they present before users’ current tweets.