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6 Social Media Mistakes & How to Fix Them

Social media and the small business — it’s such a love-hate relationship.

There are times when you can’t live with each other, but then there are others when you can’t live without each other either.

What’s a business owner to do?

If you’re a small business owner, I’m sure you’ve felt frustrated, overwhelmed and even insanely angry with how social media can be.

Trust me — you aren’t alone.

The good news is that you can go from feeling trapped and behind the eight-ball to being in control and coolly confident about your online communities if you know what NOT to do.

That’s right. Everyone is telling you what you MUST be doing on social media but today, I’m going to tell you that there are six social media no-nos or sins. Avoid these and sauce up your presence, giving it that extra edge without it sapping your energy, time, money or grey cells. And if you’re making these mistakes, I’ll tell you how to fix them.

Sound good? Let’s get started.

1. Jump On a Network Without a Plan

Not having a plan or strategy in place is one of the biggest mistakes a business can make with social media. Businesses that learn about a network and quickly sign up, posting left, right and center are going to have problems.

There’s no thought behind the content and as a result, you end up wasting time, getting no engagement and feeling frustrated.

Fix It: Have a social media strategy in place. Know what your goals are for each network, and have an actionable plan to achieve those goals.

2. Self-Promote All. The. Time.

Have you seen those business Facebook pages where every single post has a link to the business’ own site? Yes, I know. I have too.

This is a surefire way to come across as desperate and clueless. Social media is called social for a reason. You need to build relationships with your community.

Imagine this: You go to a party, and the host hands you a business card and turns you away.

How do you feel? Weirded out? Icky even?

That is how your community feels when they come over to your page or feed only to read, “Buy this … buy that…”

Fix It: Your strategy should map out the types of content you’ll be sharing. Use your knowledge of your audience to create a content calendar that’s engaging as well as result-oriented.

3. Do What Everyone Else is Doing

Want to waste time on social media? Just copy everyone else.

Your voice will get lost in the crowd — no one is going to pause to hear you share a message they’ve heard a thousand times before.

This is a massive sin many small businesses commit because social media can be like that. You see your competitor running Facebook ads and you jump on there. Someone else is holding a contest so you want to do one too.

Fix It: Slow down and go back to the basics. Why do people want to know you? What sets you apart from the rest? Use that to make conversation. Let your voice and your values shine.

4.Find All Content Ideas Online

Smartphones and tablets have made it so easy for us to be connected constantly that we’ve forgotten to look up and around us.

If you spend most of your work time scrolling through feeds to find interesting things to share, you’re wasting your time. Period.

Fix It: Find your content ideas from the real world. An article you actually read. A place you visited. Invite your community into your world as a small business and not only will it save you time, it’ll build your relationship with them as well.

5. Consider Buying Followers for Fast Growth

Oh my! This is a BIG one. It’s not usually talked about but I have got to say it. If you’ve ever looked at a big account and thought, Wow, it’s going to take me ages to get there. Let me just buy a few thousand followers. Let me stop you right now.

Never, ever, ever buy followers or fans to grow your presence overnight.

Not only is it hugely unethical, it can also get your accounts shut down and cause you to lose credibility in front of your customers and clients.

Plus, the accounts you buy are generally fake. So you’ll have a big follower base with zero engagement. Not ideal, right?

Fix It: You should have an idea (hopefully!) of who your customer is. Engage with them in whatever way works best for the network you’re on. Create and share interesting content. Be patient and know your followers will come if you remain consistent.

6. Have a Profile That Isn’t Updated

This is another biggie. If you have a profile that doesn’t have a professional, clear photo or logo on it and a well-crafted description, you need to fix it — stat.

This is what most new followers see first thing when they come to your social media profile. You need to pull them in with your description of what you talk about and who you are.

Fit It: You know it. Go ahead and update those profiles and make them sparkle with personality. Create an editorial calendar, and use social media scheduling tools to help you keep your posts recent and relevant.

So, which one of these six social media sins is your small business guilty of?

(Photo by geralt / CC BY)

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4 Keys to Lasting Productivity

You can do more every day without killing yourself.

Yes, I’ve said it.

You can be a person who accomplishes more each day without having to burn out.

Because if you overwork, you’re bound to exhaust your mind and body — meaning that you’re going to have to take a long break to get back up.

Your productivity momentum will be broken. And more work will pile up after that.

You wouldn’t want that. Nobody does.

As the saying goes, better safe than sorry. So, we’re going to get down to the simplest, most fool-proof steps to get more done every day — for a sustained period of time. This could mean weeks, months or even decades of increased productivity.

Just like how a small shift in the rudder can affect your charted course, one small tweak in the day will bring you to a more productive destination.

Let’s set sail, shall we?

Step 1: Tweak Your Environment

Self-discipline is like a muscle — the more you use it in a day, the less strength you have before recovery. And once you’ve exhausted your self-discipline, you can’t do anything for that day.

So working on external discipline (i.e. the environment) can make your activities a little easier to do. Leo Babauta and Charles Duhigg write about how your environment is crucial to your habit formation.

Suppose you find yourself extremely lethargic every day and you wanted to stay active. You then set yourself to run more often in the week. But the last time you ran was during the previous election — you know your inertia is sky-high and you won’t do anything about this.

One simple step you can do is to tweak your environment. Put your running shoes by your bedside before you sleep.

When you wake up, you know that’s the first thing you’re going to do. Even better, you’ve already woken up next to your running attire — dry-fit singlet, shorts, socks, shoes and a water bottle.

Voila! You’ve created powerful cues to remind you what to do.

Principle: Small but crucial changes create external triggers for taking action. Doing this lowers two things:

• Your inertia for getting things done
• Your need to exert your limited willpower

Step 2: Set Tiny Goals

Avoid setting just lofty goals. Like, I want to be a millionaire by 30, I’m going to be the best guitarist in the world, I shall beat Usain Bolt’s 100 meter record by the age of …

I’m going to stop you right there.

Big goals are good to have, to keep you in perspective. Most of us have these big goals to keep our hopes alive — that we are not mere insignificant apes on this planet. The real question is, can you act on that big goal? If not, what should you be doing to realize them?

Let’s say,for the sake of argument, that you want to be the best guitarist. Well, practice makes perfect. And practice means action, so that’s a good thing right? But how do you get about deciding how to practice? What makes a good goal?

If you want to realize your goal, it first has to be:

• Measurable
• Actionable
• Specific

What do I mean?

Instead of saying “I want to practice guitar a lot,” make it measurable or quantifiable (i.e. throw a “realistic” number inside somewhere):

Practice guitar 6 hours a week for the whole of November.”

Sounds decent enough as a goal. But don’t get complacent yet. Now, we have to make it actionable (i.e. you can envision yourself actually doing this):

Practice guitar for two hours on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for the whole of November.”

See, isn’t this better? Two hours may seem reasonable for one practice session. Lastly, you want to make it specific (i.e. you are as clear as you can be on what needs to be achieved or done. “Practice” is still vague):

Keep playing the cycle of fifths for two hours on every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday for the whole of November.”

Now that’s a goal. Of course, you probably need a method to ensure that you take action.

Principle: It’s not enough to want to do it. You’ve got to be able to do something about it.

Step 3: Find An Accountability Buddy

So you’ve heard of this man who hired a woman to slap him whenever he used Facebook.

Well, you don’t need to go to that extreme, nor do you need a physical slap in the face.

But you do need to get someone you can trust to make sure you don’t veer off track. Your accountability buddy can be your spouse, parent, close friend, personal assistant … As long as

both of you have agreed:

• to be brutally honest with each other
• on the consequences of your actions

No lies in the accountability zone. If you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, admit it, face the music and get a good whipping. That’s probably the fastest way we can grow if we’re resistant to action by default.

And the buddy system works particularly because we’re such good liars with ourselves. When you set a punishment system in place and get someone trustworthy to give you the reality check, you are less motivated to screw around all day.

Simple idea, and it happens to work.

Principle: When held responsible to someone else for whatever you do, you are more likely to stick to the commitment that you set in the first place.

Step 4: Work Smarter, Not Harder

Well, this is one of the times where less really is more. And it’s advice that isn’t repeated often enough. You’ve heard of interns who have died from overworking.

While it’s an extreme case (as with most newsworthy content), the point is your own health and well-being are not to be neglected. We aren’t robots, so why are we acting like one?

So, stay true to the human’s way of life.

• Rest when you need to
• Get a massage from a friend
• Go grab a drink from your nearest Starbucks

Just take a chill pill before you get ill. And how often and how long should you take a break?

Let’s say you’re a person with a desk job. Say you’re a programmer who doesn’t know when to stop coding. The Pomodoro technique might be just what you’re looking for. Work for 25 minutes, rest for five, repeat until the fourth cycle and then take a 15 minute break.

We work best under short bursts of time. And working in short bursts may work across a variety of professions too. Give this technique a shot.

Principle: Work at your optimum, and recharge when you need to. Also, rest time is not time wasted.

What You Can Do Today

There you have it. A simple strategy to turn your productivity around in a sustainable, actionable manner.

BUT.

No one is expecting you to implement all the changes at one go. Even Superman couldn’t do that.

For today, just write down:

• One aspect (i.e. one of the categories above) AND
• One particular action that you would like to take. Just one.

That’s it. No more for today. And it is as simple as writing this on a 3×5 cue card, or typing on your Sticky Notes:

Change My Environment: Get Lisa to be Accountability Buddy for six weeks.”

Pause here for 47.3 seconds. Take a moment to think about that one small thing you’d like to change. Oh, and WRITE IT DOWN.

—

Awesome.

You’ve just taken that first baby step to making your life a whole lot more fruitful and engaging. And it’s not as crazy as you once thought.

No big secret here. Once you’ve created a holistic, fool-proof system, it’s much harder to say no to getting things done.

Share your thoughts below, and do include the steps you’re taking to get more accomplished this week!

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