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Is having an inactive social channel bad for your brand?

Dec 20, 2020
(updated: Dec 5, 2022)
Lesson duration: 5 min

Social Channels Brings Brand Awareness

Think about your social media presence as the storefront to a digital brand: the first place people will peek just to see what you have to offer and if you are ready for business. An active online presence can signal to clients that you are open and excited to do business. Understanding how, when and why to use social media to improve audience engagement is crucial to success for every business.

Every successful digital marketing strategy requires mastering media channels where you can have strong, positive engagement with a wider scope of your client audience. It can be incredibly hard work, but it’s also how a brand extends it’s services and reaches its audiences most quickly. An inactive social channel can have several adverse effects on a scaling business, but there are great ways to rebuild an audience online. 

Do a Social Media Health Check

There are three types of followers: good, inactive and fake profiles. Even if you have a small social media following, it can be challenging to find which profiles are ones that are false, but those can have a huge negative impact on your online brand visibility. 

Fake and inactive followers lower your reach and audience engagement on every site. Find which platforms your brand already has tried, and work with the one that has the highest good and active user engagement: real comments and consistent liking/engagement. Even after a lot of inactivity, utilizing a channel with the most user engagement will maximize the current reach of a brand, and you can find more tools for automated social media auditing here

Credibility is also very important, and a record of social media presence can make or break the value of your brand in the eyes of an online audience. Inconsistent messaging, branding or engagement style can be more harmful than nothing at all. When committing to a social media strategy, choose the top two or three platforms where you already have some real engagement, and focus on making those consistent. 

Provide regular opportunities for meaningful engagement with your target audience, and you’ll find a crowd of fans becoming paying customers

Active Social Media is Scheduled, Timely And Relevant

Active social media allows brands to engage meaningfully with a broad audience. Neglecting questions and comments on inactive sites can seriously damage a reputation. When there’s low engagement on platforms from the business, there’s no reason for customers to attend the page. You’ll lose the positive, active engagement from people who care about what your brand has to offer. Instead, brands can shift to digital contests, giveaways and other forms of positive media can engage these enthusiastic clients. 

Strong social media schedules typically have at least two months of media content planned to produce in advance - but that shouldn’t be a rigid schedule. A successful digital brand is not only self aware, but aware of the world. When it’s appropriate to adjust the tone of a message or the timing of a release, excellent brands make sure that there’s flexibility behind the marketing strategy they produce. An excellent social marketing strategy can go viral - make sure it’s because your audience resonates with your message.

Great Social Media is Customer Centered 

Ultimately, social channels are one of the easiest ways for a brand to connect directly with the people who are interested. Social channels can set a tone of engagement style with an audience, so posting too little or too much can both have negative effects on engagement. Every audience is different, but getting the sweet spot of engagement can be a tricky balance. Social media automation can be an appealing way to reduce some of the work of active social channels, but keeping a human connection to an online brand experience is important. 

Sometimes clients spend the majority of their experience with a brand exclusively on social media, only occasionally accessing direct sites for purchases. Make sure that every social media experience is excellent: polished, on-time and on message so these customers understand what they can expect. 

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