Any social media platform has its struggles. In fact, any business has its struggles. They change and get new audiences. Twitter has been struggling for a bit now, for a variety of reasons. If you think that running a successful social media strategy on Twitter is getting tougher, you’re not imagining it.

1. Difficulty Monetizing Many executives are looking to see ROI ties to social. Facebook has been looking for ways to prove its worth by changing its analytics, pushing Facebook authentication, re-marketing and more. At the same time, they’re monetizing their own platform by pushing businesses to use Facebook ads. Twitter is struggling on both these fronts. While they have increased their analytics capabilities, it doesn’t seem to be proving ROI. Plus, Twitter’s ads have the perception that they’re less likely to lead to sales than ads on other platforms. So, businesses struggle to put time into the platform resulting in lower engagement. It’s a vicious cycle that has ultimately led to Twitter having a difficult time monetizing its own business – which is a vicious cycle of its own.
2. Trolls The audience on Twitter has been changing for some time. Trolls have made the platform prohibitive from same brands and individuals alike. On Twitter, more than almost any other platform, it’s important to have a strategy for dealing with situations that may have escalated in unexpected ways. The truth is, lots of wonderful people are on Twitter but there are users out there who are on Twitter simply to get a rise out of people. Have a plan for dealing with them in advance.
3. Difficult Creating Content For businesses that are used to sitting down and writing a paragraph explaining why you should use their services, creating content for Twitter can be difficult. Simply condensing that message to 140 characters isn’t enough. Content for Twitter needs to be eye catching and clever. Tweets need to be something that your audience want to engage with. Otherwise, you’re just shouting marketing messages into a void. This isn’t an easy content shift for some brands to make and as a result some avoid Twitter all together or phone it in. If you’re interested in getting involved on Twitter, there are some major benefits. Still, you should be prepared to be more creative and agile than just sending out links to your website with generic messaging.
4. Customer Service A number of brands are struggling on Twitter because if your organization is on Twitter and someone poses a customer complaint via tweet, they expect a pretty quick answer. If you’re not prepared to check in at LEAST once a day and have some sort of notifications set up to alert you to potential customer service options, Twitter may not be the place for you. Exemplary customer service is a key part of any Twitter strategy. Twitter users are used to quick updates and that goes double when it comes to customer service inquiries.
5. Trolls Because you can’t get rid of them, they’re worth mentioning twice. They just won’t go away.

Twitter remains an amazing way to engage with customers. The benefits of exercising a campaign that is creative, timely and exudes customer service is priceless. Part of why I love Zappos is because their customer service – on Twitter and everywhere else – is never anything short of phenomenal. It’s a great platform. But in order to be really successful, you need to have a strategy in place when you start out. Otherwise, you’ll feel like Twitter is an uphill battle.