Social media marketing as we all know is not new to Nigeria. There are a lot of big players who are making the most of the various social platforms, and they are making it big
You may have thought of taking your business to the social train or have already taken a seat in it but can’t seem to settle in due to unsuccessful social media campaigns.
You might have you asked questions like?
- What makes some businesses fail on social media?
- Why are some Facebook and Twitter pages not as popular as some others?
- What are my competitors doing better with their social media marketing?
- How can I make the most of social media for my business?
The answer to these questions is in a couple of mistakes made over time. Everybody makes mistakes, but make too many of them and you will see your follower count drop as well as your sales stream.
The first step to correcting mistakes is being aware of them; then you will be able to avoid them.
So, here are the top 8 social media mistakes Nigerian businesses make on and how you can correct them:
1. Having no website
The first is having no website. It is not uncommon to see many Nigerian businesses reside solely on social media and rely on them beyond the point to which I would advise.
I hope you know that Facebook is a just another website, and any house you build on a land that isn’t yours can be taken away from you…
It doesn’t matter how hard you can fight, The land is not yours and that’s all that matters.
You might get compensated if you are in the right, but you don’t get to keep the house or land. Make Social media your tool, don’t build on it, rather use it as a channel to build on your site
Get a website…
- It will speak well for your brand.
- Showcase you as a professional and
- It becomes your land.
You might be wondering what if I don’t have the funds needed to run a website now, does that mean I shouldn’t use social media for my business?
My answer is no, but what follows my answer however is, make a budget for it.
2. No social media strategy
A Lot of businesses go into social media without strategizing on how they’d go about succeeding in it. After a period of time, they become just one of those businesses online giving away the chance to becoming an authority in their chosen field.
Out of all the social media mistakes Nigerian businesses make, this has the most devastating effect because a lack of a well thought out and organized strategy is sure to lead to poor results.
What’s a social media strategy?
This is a plan that encompasses everything you would do to build your presence. It should include terms such as:
- Goals. This should obey the SMART way of goal writing.
- Target audience.
- Tactics. Includes the “Hows” and ways to attain the set goals. Depending on the goals you have set, You should come up with ways to reach them. eg. You set a goal To have 5000 followers on twitter in the next five months. Your tactics must be to get 1000 followers in a month, and it can include:
- How many tweets per week and per day.
- Who you need to follow to get noticed.
- What tweets you will boost.
- KPI (Key Performance Indicator). This refers to checks you would use to determine the success of your strategy and tactics. Since I wanted 5000 twitter followers in five months. The KPI should help me measure how far I have gone in attaining the goal. This helps you re-strategize when things are not working.
- Budget. Always have a budget for your social media effort, and make sure to stick with it. Going outside your budget can be detrimental for you
It is worthy for you to know that a strategy is never perfect, so there will always be a need for reviews and re-strategizing. But the truth remains to have a strategy gives you an edge by a very large margin
3. No well-defined Buyer Personas
Most Nigerian businesses don’t have a buyer persona. Some don’t even know what it is and why it is important, hence they dive into social media and fail woefully.
A buyer persona is a representation of your ideal buyer, It contains their demographics, motivations, goal, challenges….
At this point you might be wondering, Is this necessary. well, If you are, then I will like you to read this very short blog post on buyer personas.
A buyer persona helps you know the challenges and problems of your customers, their goals, and their expectations. If you can get your hands on all those and can solve them. Your customers will pay you and keep paying you.
![Buyer persona profiles by ernohannink Top Social Media Mistakes Nigerian Businesses make](https://i0.wp.com/legalboostreels.com/TSB/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/4030975099_dc19f03eab_Buyer-persona.jpg?resize=395%2C297&ssl=1)
Photo by ernohannink
Having a buyer persona or personas as the case maybe helps you to:
- Spend money on specifics
- Create targeted messages
- Gives you credibility since you are solving a problem your customers are facing.
4. No commitment.
This is another major mistake most Nigerian businesses make in using social media. The social media unit of many businesses (if there is any in the first place) most times is not seen as part of the business leading to poor social media presence and poor results.
If you would have a social presence, then be committed to having it well. To understand the importance of social media to your business, Click here. It should enlighten you on why you should take social media for your business seriously.
If you are running your business and also managing its social media accounts, you are doing too much and you will not be able to allocate the needed time for its growth. Do not underestimate the work involved in social media managing.
Hire a professional to do the work for you, or outsource it an another agency that specializes in that.
5. Inconsistent Branding.
Branding is a concept that shouldn’t be alien to your business and It shouldn’t only be seen as needed online. Honestly, you actually are to carry your offline brand to the online world and do it consistently
In doing this, most Nigerian businesses do it wrong and are finding it hard to succeed.
You might be wondering how to consistently maintain your brand.
- First is through your visuals. Your profile picture speaks a lot about you and having multiple profile pictures on different social media platforms is bad for your brand. however, You can play around with your cover picture, but make sure you take note of size and fittings for each platform.
- Have a consistent about page round all your social media platforms
- A consistent voice or tone. Make sure your brand’s personality and culture are reflected in your social media posts. You have to develop a social media voice. It is the way your brand communicates in its Tweets, Facebook posts, and IG pictures.
If you follow the EFCC twitter page, you would have noticed a consistently funny and sarcastic voice tone used by its handler, that consistency has helped the brand and has increased its followers by a large margin. The downside to this is EFCC is not a business venture.
Now imagine if it were…
6. Not Tracking Analytics
Another big mistake is some businesses keep creating contents but do not carry out regular analytics review on the success of the contents created and an overall return of investment used.
This shouldn’t be so, it is important that you carry out regular social media analytics in other ascertain your progress.
An example of what you show analyze are:
- Fans reactions to your posts, understand the drop, increase or stagnancy in their engagement.
- Are the customers happy? What do their communications tell you about what they think of your product?
- How successful are your campaigns?
- How much traffic am I getting from each social media platform?
- Analyzing interactions and sales with customers can help you understand your them, what they want and will pay for.
Check out the result of the analytics in the image below.
![Tweets Impressions analysis in Twitter Analytics by thewikiman Top Social Media Mistakes Nigerian Businesses make](https://i0.wp.com/legalboostreels.com/TSB/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/14884955408_f19bfa3b50_b_twitter-analytics.jpg?resize=878%2C458&ssl=1)
Photo by thewikiman
When you don’t analyze you,
- Don’t know how far into your goal you have gone.
- Don’t check how successful your strategy is.
- Waste time and money
Make analytics review a part of your tactics, on how frequently you will do it.
7. Automating everything
This is a big turn-off for many customers, automated messages here, automated emails there. People like to communicate with others… Minimize automation, and you’ll see greater results.
Humans love to socialize with one another, and not with robots. If you must succeed in social media, you cannot but keep the human in the process, especially in areas that have to do with engagements.
Find a way to minimize automation, and you’ll see greater results.
8. Trying to be everywhere.
Finally. when talking about social media mistakes Nigerian businesses make, this is always a part of it. Marketing in all social media platforms is not equal to success.
On the other hand, it is equal to burnouts.
You can’t be on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.
Why you may ask…
This is because of your target audience and customers. Where they socialize online is where you should too
This brings us back to creating a buyer persona and when you have one, you have at your hands a gold mine.
You know the spot where your buyers gather and can join in their conversations.
It is advisable to be on 2 or 3 social media platforms so that efficiency can be maximum
Discover How To Run a Successful Facebook Ad Campaign In Nigeria.
Photo by Vintuitive