You are told constantly that social media is an essential part in marketing your business and growing your brand. However, many businesses give it a shot and have no success. This often leads to the question, do social conversations really drive sales?

For a brand like Adobe, social media drove $76.4 million worth of sales. In two days. They report here on their record-breaking Thanksgiving and Black Friday in online sales.

IBM also released a report on their Black Friday success. As noted in this report, social media had a big influence for them as well:

"Facebook referrals drove an average of $109.94 per order compared to $100.24 for Pinterest, a difference of nearly 10 percent. Facebook referrals converted online sales at more than twice the rate of Pinterest."

So why does social media continue to be a struggle for you? Here are 4 possible explanations:

You're on the wrong platform

The belief that you have to create a presence on every social platform is misguided. Think quality over quantity. It's important to know which platforms are more successful for other brands in your industry. Do your research.

You have the wrong audience

Maybe you are on the right platform but aren't reaching the right people? Don't fall into the temptation of buying followers. You may have 5,000 likes but if half of them are fraud, your organic reach will probably be penalized. If "likes" or "followers" are all that matter to you, that's fine. Don't expect to drive sales though.

A couple ways to reach that desired audience is to create a targeted Facebook Ad or join certain Communities on Google+.

You don't analyze your audience

If you do have a relevant audience made up of real people, it's possible that you aren't posting at the right times. It's essential to look into when your followers are most active.

Your content is bad

So you're on the right platform, you've acquired genuine followers, and you create timely posts, but you can't produce poor content! This might be the most difficult and time-consuming step, but it's among the most important. In the ultra-competitive world of social media marketing, your content must be valuable and relevant to your consumers.

Still having trouble? Let us do the work for you! Thoughtwire's social media strategies include finding the right platform(s) for your business, engaging with your audience, creating high-quality content, reporting/analyzing the results, and ultimately growing your brand, driving sales to your business, and putting money in your pockets.