6 common social media marketing mistakes made by entrepreneurs

Social media has become a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes with both benefits and pitfalls. Entrepreneurs need to pay closer attention to some mistakes they might be making in order to continue to build their business, brand presence and connect with more customers.

Below are some of the common mistakes made when it comes to social media marketing with some highlights on ways to correct them.

Mistake #1: Not having a social media content calendar

We have all seen some social media posts with a few typos, poor spelling/grammar, and personal opinions on critical issues. As an entrepreneur managing your social media platforms, you might be tempted to wake up and post content as you deem fit. However, it is advisable to develop a content calendar that clearly maps out the posts you plan to publish in a week or a month.

By working on the content calendar, you will have a clear thought process on the type of content you want to churn out. You will also be keen and ensure that the content is of high-quality, engaging and informative and also in line with your business objectives. In addition to that, developing the content calendar will provide you with a great opportunity to review and curate your content prior to publishing it on social media, making sure there are no typos and that your sentences structures are spot on.

Mistake #2: Not exploring all social media platforms and features

Are you selling products on Facebook Marketplace? Are you constantly posting content on stories? Are your products available on Instagram Shop? Are your videos posted on Facebook Watch and Instagram reels? If the answer is yes, you are on the right track. If your answer is no, then you might want to take a look at these amazing features and tap into them. Furthermore, you should also promote your social media pages on email or Whatsapp to grow your audiences.

Mistake #3: Not posting frequently

Sometimes business operations can be quite busy and overwhelming and you might not have the time to post frequently. This can highly impact your engagement with both loyal customers and also new customers. It’s imperative to keep your audience engaged by posting content, at least a minimum of 2-3 times a week depending on your business.

Mistake #4: Not using the content mix approach

When it comes to content, you might be tempted to post about your products and or/services all the time. However, it is advisable to develop a mix of content using the 80/20 rule.

80% of your posts should inform educate and entertain your audience (quotes, testimonials, user generated content, blogs) while only 20% can be content that directly promotes your business, products and/or services (discounts, offers, latest impact etc with a persuasive call-to-action for customers to visit your website or physical location).

Strike a balance between text, videos (Facebook videos garner up to 8 billion views per day), photos and info graphics and see how your reach and engagement improves.

Mistake #5: Failing to engage with your audience

We have the tendency to schedule posts and tap ourselves on the shoulder for the great job done. Focusing too much on self- promotion can cause our audiences to tune out quickly.

As an entrepreneur do you actually take time to review other social media pages, competitor activities online and posts by your followers? Community engagement is a critical component of social media marketing as it helps build trust and credibility.

6 Ways to Leverage Social Media for Your Business

Make sure you identify, join and converse in groups in your niche, check out what your competitors are doing and also comment or retweet posts from your followers.

Remember, social media is not one-sided communication. Engage! Engage! Engage!

“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell 6 friends. If you make customers unhappy pm the internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends”- Jeff Bezos

Mistake #6: Failure to respond to queries and comments

Imagine you are a customer looking for a sofa set on Instragram. You manage to see a great offer and you immediately send a message to the seller. 10 hours later, you have not received any response whatsoever. It can be quite irritating right? Chances are, you will move on to the next company and they might respond immediately and close the deal.

According to Sprout Social Index report, 40% of consumers expect brands to respond within the first hour of reaching out on social media, while 79% expect a response in the first 24 hours.

As an entrepreneur, you must improve your response time. You can consider dedicating some time in your schedule to respond to customer queries, hire social media experts who will be on standby to connect with customers or use chat bots to address frequently asked questions or direct customers to your email or phone when you are unavailable online. Avoid losing customers to your competitors due to poor customer service response time.

Mistake #7: Not monitoring social media metrics

As an entrepreneur, you can gain useful insights from all your social media activities. Not monitoring social media analytics is a big mistake that can affect your success. Sure, at the moment, you might be monitoring followers, likes, comments and shares, however, we recommend you to take a step further.

To start off, you can go to your page insights and review useful metrics on the best performing content, the time when your customers are most active online, the gender and age breakdown, location of your customers, the types of followers on your page etc. Hootsuite and Sprout social are useful tools to help you track all your social media metrics.

The insights from evaluating the metrics will help you understand your audiences and develop a better social media plan in future. Additionally, it is always best to link social media efforts to conversions (i.e check increase in website traffic, inquiries and sales).

The takeaway

When it comes to marketing on social media, some of the mistakes mentioned above can easily be identified and corrected. Do what you can and do it exceptionally well.

If you are still unsure about how to go about this, then it might be time to hire an expert with a clear understanding of social media to support your business growth. Platforms such as Ajobintime have skilled social media professionals who will work hand-in-hand with you to grow your brand and build your presence on social media for better sales results and ROI- which is what we all want.

We would love to hear your thoughts on some of the mistakes you have made and how you handled them. You can also share your comments and suggestions on [email protected]

Blog written by Grace Oduor, Marketing and Communications Consultant