You’ve been hard at work all day on your startup;
chatting with investors and developing a marketing campaign. You
finally have a couple minutes to yourself and decide to log in into your
social media outlets to post a status about your shiny new venture.
Next thing you know, you’re completing BuzzFeed quizzes and cursing
silently at your friends who just got back from vacation in Hawaii. Does
this distraction validate all the naysayers who claim that
entrepreneurs shouldn’t be on social media?
Absolutely not.
While it’s easy to get distracted or even depressed while browsing through a news feed, social media is an incredible resource for entrepreneurs. For example, researchers from EBS and St. Gallen University found
in 2012 that entrepreneurs spend anywhere between 64 percent to 82
percent of their time communicating every day. And what better way to
communicate nowadays than through social platforms?
The problem then isn’t the game, it’s the player. From
investing time in the wrong platforms to oversharing, there are many
mistakes you can make when it comes to your social presence. To help,
I’ve outlined five things every entrepreneur should stop doing on social
media.
1. Focusing on Your Past Accomplishments
We know that you’re proud of your past accomplishments, but you
don’t have to share every single feat with all of your peers throughout
all of your social media outlets. While you may be excited about your
achievements -- whether it’s that perfect GPA, that time you climbed
Mount Kilimanjaro for charity, or the five previous startups you
successfully launched -- things are always better in moderation.
Instead of trying to constantly validate yourself, focus on the
present and remember why you are on social media. Devote your time to
mapping out a social media campaign for your current project so that it
will lead you to future success.
2. Being Negative
To be brutally honest, no one wants to hear you complain. We
all have those days, we all get sick,we all get frustrated and angry
with something or someone. In other words, we all have problems and we
don’t need our newsfeeds filled with negativity. That’s not saying that
your nearest and dearest don’t care, it’s just that negative posts
aren’t effective. In fact, studies have found that positive posts on Facebook are more influential and contagious -- which is what you want on social media.
On that note, you also shouldn’t share articles that bash your
competition or are overly political. By doing so, you’re automatically
eliminating a good portion of your followers as most people don’t want
to read political rhetoric or anything that opposes a brand for which
they may also feel loyalty.
3. Too Much Talking, Not Enough Listening
It’s widely accepted that social media is a conversation; the
whole point of being on social media is engaging with other people.
Unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs are only on social media to talk
rather than listen. Instead of just pushing your business, take a couple
of minutes every day to find out what’s going on with your followers
and engage them. For example, if someone just got a promotion,
acknowledge that major accomplishment. This shows that there is a real
person behind your account who actually cares about the people who are
supporting their up-and-coming business.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t be promoting your business
at all. It’s just shouldn’t be all of the time. As a general rule, make
sure that four out of every five communications on social media are
non-sales or business posts. That doesn’t mean that your posts can’t be
relevant to your field. They should just be content your followers can
enjoy and engage with, like an infographic, video or list.
4. Not Taking Advantage of Tools
Did you know that there are a lot of great tools available that
can optimize your social media accounts? If you did, why aren’t you
using them?
For example, there are free, or reasonably priced, tools that
can perform analytics. This is important because it can inform you which
posts have gotten the most feedback, as well as show feedback from your
followers. This can be a great way to test ideas without investing a
lot of resources into research. While social media may not be the best
way to perform high-level market research, it’s a start and can give you
some insight into the wants and needs of your customers.
Furthermore, there are tools that can schedule posts, create
graphs and track your growth. These are all important, readily available
tools. Since there are so many options out there, we suggest that you
check out these eight options.
5. Promoting Multiple Things At Once
While I understand that there are literally a million things running through your mind (since “adults with ADHD are 300 percent more likely to be entrepreneurs”)
you shouldn’t promote more than one business at a time. People will get
confused. Instead, put all of your energy into the product or service
that is ready to go. Once that’s been identified, plan and market only
that product or service.
Although ADHD can be an awesome trait for an entrepreneur to
have, it doesn’t exactly translate well on social media. So focus on
just one venture in order to be clear and not confuse the market.
