Every aspect has two dies, the positive and the negative. Thus there are challenges to social network sites too. We are all getting carried away with the hype and hoopla but we need to have a balanced viewpoint. It’s easy for us to be exuberantly callow.

Difficult to Monetize:
Even Google, the mammoth and innovative organisation finds it difficult to monetize. Members aren’t hunting for information like they do on a search, instead they are communicating with each other, and self-expressing. “Marketers say as few as 4 in 10,000 people who see their ads on social networking sites click on them”

High number of players in the arena:
In the case of the many white label social networks (white label means you can rebrand and thus create your own social networking site), there are too many players in the space. Thus as happens in every industry where the players find it difficult to survive, Consolidation happens. Only the fittest will survive the blood bath in the market.

As Marketers Move In, Users Move Out:
Nothing is new, as communities form, marketers will move in, and in some cases make life difficult for the member and in the process, the customer will leave the network. Influencers too may leave ht e network.

Data security:
In many cases, for lack of security, members fake information and there is no way for the network or site to verify the address and the credentials. As a result, targeting marketing efforts at the right audiences becomes difficult.

Metrics not fool proof:
For many marketers who want to deploy a campaign on a social network, access to metrics isn’t always available and even if it is, the credibility and the process of rating is not good. As a result, they have to often visually monitor the interaction on the site, or measure click throughs to their site.

Privacy Concerns:
Social networks sharing too much information with third party widget developers puts members at risk, and visibly makes them uncomfortable.

Strings Attached to Membership: Difficult to Leave.
Leaving Facebook is difficult, there are hooks, saved accounts, and ways to continue to reconnect to the site, even after you’ve left.

Social Network Fatigue?
Some sources suggest that the usage of social networks are slowing down, if not reducing perhaps it’s from the endless tasks that occur, or the shininess has rubbed off.

Successful Networks have hard time scaling
Facebook and Twitter are suffering from scaling issues, as a result, their sites have a great deal of downtime. The complicated applications will only increase in intricacy as more users are added.

Loss in workplace productivity “Social not-working”
Companies, organizations, and individuals are concerned about the time wasted in managing social network profiles, in many cases; companies have banned Facebook from their employees, often using Firewalls. Thus your interaction with the prospective client is stemmed and you have access to them only at home