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Comments from Social Media Experts (2): Catherine Mong'ina, Jackie Johnstone, and Maud Mensah


As I read more articles from social media experts, a frequent tip I keep coming across is to focus on serving others, rather than simply focusing on your own products or services. “If you focus on only promoting your products,” writes Catherine Mong’ina founder of E-Technology Africa, “your audience will respond for a brief period and after some time will begin to ignore your advertisements.”

Genuinely helping your followers, however, makes them keen to be generous in return, says Mong’ina. And the 80/20 rule can help. This rule means “committing 80% percent of posts on your social channels exclusively to non-promotional information and only 20% on definite promotion of your brand/business.” To me, that seems like a great guideline to keep in mind.

Likewise, Jackie Johnstone at Entrepreneur helpfully writes, "Give, give, give before you ever ask for anything in return. Create and curate great content that helps your customers, [and will] entertain and inspire your audience. At least 75 percent to 80 percent of a businessperson’s social media content should aim to be of service."

Finally, this article at She Leads Africa also suggests that entrepreneurs try not to bombard followers with too much content. “The more you post and engage your audience, the more visible you are,” writes Maud Mensah, CEO of WigClub. "However, you do not want to share [so] much information that it suffocates them and drives them away, and you also don’t want to share so little that they become disinterested. It is important to find the right balance for your brand. As a rule of thumb, we at WigClub post often, but at least twice in a day."

I am grateful to Catherine Mong’ina, Jackie Johnstone, Maud Mensah, and She Leads Africa for these great social media tips. I hope you find them helpful too.

--Chimuka Moore

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