Marvin Powell, a Small Business Growth Consultant in Washington DC, posted a question on LinkedIn’s Q&A section, “What are the biggest mistakes that you find small business leaders make when using social media?” Here are a few of the more memorable responses.
“I don’t want to get ten tweets a day hearing about YOU. I want to hear things that are valuable for me and my life . . . and they need to be fast,” said Laura Kowalski, Business Consultant for Business Owners and Senior Executives. “And not too frequent: I don’t want to incessantly hear about your business. It won’t make me think of you more, it’ll just make me annoyed with you. So: short, sweet, pertinent, and valuable to me.”
“They need to talk less and listen more, wrote Jessica Routier, Head of social media and community relations at IAC-EZ. Social media is all about making connections and, just like in the real (rather than virtual) world, people will be more drawn to you if you actually listen to what they’re saying than if you try to force your message upon them.”
“Expecting Social Media to do all the work for them,” added Lisa Cash Hanson, CEO Blueberry Baboon, Author, Small Business Consulting, Motivational Speaker. “You can’t just blast the world with your ideas, products, and services, then sit back and expect everyone to think you’re so wonderful. That is unrealistic.”
“What I see so often is that a business decides to jump into social media because they’re afraid they might be left behind, but then they fail to put a well thought out strategy in place. They end up throwing a bunch of profiles on the internet, trying to market and sell to everyone, and basically failing,” said Spencer Tyler, Co-Founder / Head of Production at CPofA. “If a business would just understand that it is all in the relationship building and that it takes time . . . You wouldn’t suddenly decide that door-to-door sales was the latest approach and go around knocking on people’s doors . . . (at least I hope not)”
“Very simple: the biggest mistake is Lack of a Plan. The biggest ‘what NOT to do’ is to go in bull-in-china-shop mode without knowing what you’re there to do, what your goal is, why you’ve selected the channel, etc.” noted Kristian Chronister, President at Jewelry.com. “I see many businesses getting on social media because ‘everyone else is’ or ‘we just have to’ but without clear purpose or a plan. One wouldn’t open a new store, address a new market, or open a new sales region without extensive planning, goals, organization and thought. And yet, many small businesses (especially sole proprietors) just up and register for Twitter, etc. one night and wade right in. Give it the same planning, investigation, research and forethought you give any other new endeavor for your business, and you’ll reap the commensurate rewards. Treat it casually and you’ll get ‘casual’ results (or worse, reputational/brand damage).”
Source: BusinessInsider.com
