The 6 Social Media Mistakes Startup Founders Make

According to TechCrunch, the average startup founder goes through three funding rounds before getting to Series A funding. So suffice it to say, founders of startups as a group have reasonable competency when it comes to successfully pitching investors.

But you know what founders aren’t usually all that good at?

Using social media to strategically grow their business!

In this post, you’ll learn about six of the most common social media mistakes that startup founders make -- and more importantly, what you can do to course-correct with your own social strategy and ongoing growth plan.

1. Set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timebound) so you know what you're trying to measure and accomplish with your social media investments.
2. Create buyer personas so that you know who you're trying to attract and why people should pay attention to your social media posts.
3. Narrow down which social media channels you'll focus on based on what you learn in your buyer persona research (so you don't spread yourself too thin).
4. Create helpful, educational content that positions your small business as the go-to experts in your space and thought leaders.
5. Build some gated content (behind landing pages) with lead nurturing sequences to accelerate subscribers and leads into marketing/sales qualified leads and sales opportunities.
6. Invest very selectively in paid social media to accelerate your time to value (driving hyper-targeted paid social traffic to your gated content behind lead generating landing pages.

Entrepreneur Magazine found that “startup owners can spend around 40% of their working hours on tasks that do not generate income such as hiring, HR tasks, and payroll.”

Ironically, your next and best client may be waiting to find you, via your amazing content, on social media. Make sure you put at least some of that 60% to good use, consistently, in attracting and engaging with more of the right potential clients for your startup.

What’s the biggest social media mistake that you see founders of startups making? Let me know in the comments.