Your Business Doesn’t Have to Be on Social Media (Seriously.)
I know, I know… blasphemy, right? Hear me out.
Yes, you should go through all the social platforms and reserve your business’s username, trying to keep them consistent across platforms. At the very least, this ensures no one else snaps it up. If you’re feeling particularly motivated, post once with details users actually need to get in touch with you, so that if someone finds you on that platform, they know a) you’re not active there and b) how to actually get more information.
Yes, you should be aware of what’s happening on the internet in a broad sense to keep tabs on what audiences are using what platforms and whether it makes sense for you to engage there, too.
BUT! (This is where I start holding your hand):
If your target/ideal customers/users/clients aren’t on a particular platform,
If any platform (or all of them) drains you of energy, time, patience, or humanity,
If you find yourself engaging in productive procrastination—you know, scrolling socials “for business purposes” instead of completing the tasks you know you’re supposed to be doing but don’t really wannaaaa (kind of what I’m doing now, if I’m being honest with you), or
If the thought of managing another thing fills you with dread,
You don’t have to do it.
Caveat
Granted, there are definitely businesses and organizations that benefit from a social media presence; many do, and for some, it is unavoidable (sorry!). But anyone who’s telling you YoU HaVe tO pOsT EvErY DaY as a blanket statement is full of it. Marketing your business is more than just posting on Instagram and watching the customers roll in—anyone who’s started a social media presence can attest to this. Social media helps engage with potential customers, answer FAQs, showcase your products, stand out from competitors, and reinforce that you’re an active business.
A Tangent About Tools
A concept called “the law of the instrument,” commonly attributed to psychologist Abraham Maslow, goes something like, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Social media is a tool. It shouldn’t be the only tool in your marketing tool kit, and likely isn’t, when you take a minute to step back and look at the whole picture. Chances are, you’re already employing other tools to attract new clientele and boost revenue: attending in-person networking events, sending a regular email newsletter, sponsoring local events and groups, customer reward programs, improving signage, building a robust website, and more. These are your pliers (needle-nose, slip-joint), screwdrivers (flat and Phillips), wrenches (metric and imperial, hex and monkey [thanks, Foo Fighters]), box cutters, straight edges, can openers, etc. You see where I’m going with this. Sure, social can be your hammer, but you’ve got plenty of other options to use for building your business.
Walking the Walk
Fully letting go of the expectation to show up online is a LOT. I get it. I resisted myself for a long time, feeling guilty and behind that I wasn’t sharing thought-leadership-type stuff on LinkedIn, that I wasn’t posting behind-the-scenes photos and videos to Instagram, that I wasn’t consistently cruising the local community groups and networking groups on Facebook. (Also, not even attempting TikTok because I know myself well enough that I would lose hours of my life and forget to pick my kids up from school or something.) But when I really thought about it, showing up on social in those ways didn’t feel right to me, not in the ways that monthly networking breakfasts, checking in with a former colleague, or sponsoring local business-centric events feel right to me. I spend way too much of my time online as it is, between actual client work and my own social media habits, so adding to that time isn’t appealing to me in the slightest. When I consider where my new work comes in from, it’s not social media; it’s those offline, one-to-one connections. Having the data to back up my gut feeling made it easier to step away—I put up a post a while ago saying “I’m not here on whatever platform this is, but you can email me anytime or check out my website,” and haven’t looked back (mostly).
Stepping back
If you’ve come to the determination that you can focus your precious, limited time on activities that move the needle more than social media, great. If you see that it’s not doing as much as you’d hoped and other efforts are more effective, but aren’t quite ready to go dark, also great!
Okay, but what’s next after that? Rather than stressing about posting every day, can you drop down to three times a week? Can you try scheduling posts ahead when you’re hit with a wave of inspiration, then not worry about it for a couple of weeks? Can you consider handing off these responsibilities to someone else, with clear guidelines and review before posts go live? What type of “evergreen” content can you build to have running on autopilot—store hours, Q&As, sign up for emails, etc.—content that reinforces what your business is all about but isn’t dated so it can go live anytime?
To quote Mary Oliver, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” For my fellow business owners, I hope “release the chokehold social media has on my mental capacity” is at least part of the answer.
