How To Create a Winning Social Media Strategy When You Hate Social Media

Love it or hate it, social media is a part of our lives. If you have a business, social media is a critical tool for getting in touch with your audience. If you already love social media and enjoy creating content and engaging with your customers on different platforms, then great! But you might not be that person. You might find yourself struggling to keep up with the demand for new content. You might feel overwhelmed by all the trends and new features available, or even the apparent pressure to be posting something exciting every hour of the day to keep eyes on your brand.

It’s a lot. And you might wish you didn’t have to use it… but you do. Fortunately or not, it’s a valuable tool in growing your brand or business.

To get that value, these are some steps to get you started on a relatively low-maintenance social media plan. These steps will help you create engaging content that is true to your brand, and create a realistic schedule to keep you regularly engaging with your audience.

Find your people and get to know them

Before starting anything, you need to get to know the people you’re talking to. You know who your target audience is (or you need to). Now, you need to get a sense of how they use social media.

Find your people, and then creep the heck out of them.

Start with the major social media platforms. Identify the search terms and hashtags related to your business and take a look at some of the people who follow your competitors and engage with these same hashtags/terms. Spend some time looking at some of your key audience’s profiles, and pay attention to the kind of content people post about your industry.

Start to get a sense of the kind of content your audience posts themselves and the kind of content they engage with.

What do they post about? What do they care about? What platforms are they using? You might find there aren’t many people talking about your kind of products or services on Twitter, but it’s all over Instagram. Or you might find Twitter is a hotspot for sharing the kind of content you create. You could discover that you don’t need to be on all the major media platforms, and can then focus your social media strategy on the platforms that make the most sense for your audience. Get a sense of who your audience is, and take note of what platforms they’re using and what kind of content they respond to and don’t respond to. Pay attention to what kind of questions they’re asking and the problems they have.

Let this understanding of your audience be your guiding light for content. Think about their problems and how your business solves them. Care about your audience, so they can care about you.

Think about the kinds of questions they might have for you and answer them.

Think about the kinds of things that would make them smile. Use that as a base for content, then start to play around with it.

Play around with your content but stay true to your voice

You don’t have to overthink your social media plan. Go back to that information you have about your audience and the kind of things they want to talk about and let that steer your writing.

From there, feel free to try out different kinds of posts. Try out images and graphics, and play around with your brand colours and the different ways you can incorporate them in your content. Take note of what kind of content performs well — pay attention to which of your platforms and what kind of posts are getting a lot of engagement. Learn what days of the week/times of day your audience seems most active. As you get a sense of which content performs best, start to build on that success and apply it to your larger strategy.

As you experiment, make sure you stay true to your brand’s voice. Don’t feel like your content has to sound like everyone else’s. Someone might be super successful with emoji-heavy content, or using Gen Z, while someone else may find simple wording to be more authentic to them. Stay true to that voice — it’s part of your power.

As time goes on, continue to keep an eye on the community and follow what’s going on. Keep a pulse on the trends and adapt when it feels right based on your audience. Play around. Social media, and social media trends, are always evolving.

Create a schedule that’s reasonable for you

Part of the reason social media can be so overwhelming is it feels like you have to be actively engaged 24/7. Here’s the thing: You don’t. You just have to be consistent and reliable. The timing for how that will work out is up to you.

If you’re someone who doesn’t want to share their life with the world via Instagram Stories or spend their days responding to comments and thinking about images to take and post, then don’t. Show up for a reasonable amount of time that works for you — but be consistent about it.

That can be three posts a week, 20 posts a week or ten a month — create a realistic schedule that gives you the time you need to communicate in a way that works best. Set that schedule, and once you do, make sure you honour it. It’s important you respect your audience’s time — if you set an expectation for new content each month or each week, stick with it. The same applies when responding to comments and messages. If you’re not going to be checking regularly, then make sure your audience knows that and make sure it’s clear how they can reach you quickly.

Remember good things take time

Don’t get discouraged by slow growth. Remember it takes time to build a genuine community. It’s not always a numbers game. A million random followers may look great from a distance but it’s no good if they’re there for the wrong reasons and aren’t actually interested in what you’re selling. It takes time to build a community (large or small) of dedicated followers who actively care about your brand and ultimately buy from your business. That kind of organic growth is achieved by consistently creating content that is true to your brand values and by connecting with your people.

Social media is such a Wild West that it can be completely overwhelming, particularly when you’re trying to grow a business. Remember that at the end of the day, it’s just a tool to get you in front of the right people. It’s one of many communications tools at your disposal and there is no one right way to use it. Try to have fun with it. After all, it’s a way to get to know your audience, a way to talk to them, and a way to meet new people who will love your brand. It’s a way to connect you to your people and it doesn’t have to be anything more than that.