As an entrepreneur and a previous data analytics and marketing maven, I tend to pay close attention to social media posts from other small business owners I follow online.

This post is by no means meant to criticize. My intent is to share some of the lessons I’ve learned from my education and experience and hope that it helps someone else.

These are the 5 most common mistakes I see entrepreneurs make with their online marketing:

1. You constantly post about your products and services.  While this is definitely okay to do, it’s important to look back and see where you also added value or entertained your followers. For example, people usually go on Facebook to be entertained and don’t necessarily like being sold to. I know, I am in network marketing (even though I still am involved, I’m not as active in that business anymore because I chose to focus on other areas of my brand) and was taught to post several times a day about my business. Eek! I look back now and I cringe a little bit. Although I was successful for the first 6 months or so, that technique was draining and it eventually led to me feeling burned out. My advise is that even if you have a page or group that is exclusively for your business, it’s important to deliver value. Have a few posts where you educate or entertain and then have one with a call to action.
2. You are not on social media. Almost everyone can benefit from a social media account, whether you sell a product or you provide a service. Your potential customers will try to search for you online and it makes it harder to stay ahead of your competition if you are nowhere to be found. You need to be where your people hang out so make sure that you are on the pages that are most relevant to your business and niche.
3. You don’t engage with your followers. Perhaps you have a social media page but you never comment or like on your followers pages, or you never reply back to  comments people leave on your posts. Not only is it important to interact with people who interact with you so that they can trust you and want to do business with you, but the more interaction your posts get, the better the Facebook algorithm will like what you share and it will show it to more people. And make sure you’re not just responding with one-word answers!
4. Your visual content is not very attractive. I’m not saying you need to use filters for everything, although depending on your type of business and what you share, that may help. On a platform such as Instagram where people go to see pretty pictures, it’s important to make sure you’re sharing good looking, high resolution images. You can also occasionally use stock photos from sites such as Unsplash or Ivory Mix.
5. You have no clear marketing plan and don’t understand the analytics. It’s important to have a content calendar, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to be perfect. Sometimes it’s about trying different things and figuring out what works and what doesn’t. It’s also important to understand your metrics and know who is following you on which platforms so that you can use that information to better target your advertising.

Which mistakes do you find yourself making with your business? Pick one and try to improve on it over the next month.

Understanding the analytics and metrics is time consuming, but it can be time well-spent or you can always delegate that work to someone else so that you can focus on running your business.

Feel free to reach out if you have any qestions on the items listed above!

Have a great day!

Julia