How to break through the social media exhaustion

Are you exhausted right now? I know I am.

It’s been an exhausting few weeks, well few years really. Peak history if you think about it, the pandemic, home schooling, the Queen passing. Throw in a variety of school holidays, the war in Ukraine, Black Lives Matter, inflation, the energy crisis, running your business. 

The list is loooong.

For those of you running your own business, the pressure to keep promoting, keep marketing, keep going. Gosh it’s a lot. 

Social media is such a clever beast, it’s amazing in so many ways, but it really takes a lot of energy from you too.

Coming up with ideas, planning, being creative, ‘putting yourself out there’ especially if you’re a natural introvert, all these take energy, and that’s on top of actually doing the business you’re promoting. 

I’ve used the past two weeks to have a rest from posting (because I could and no judgement if you couldn’t), get my focus back and re-energise. 

I love my work. I really do. But I also appreciate the amount of time and energy being on social media takes - and I enjoy it. For those of you who don’t enjoy it, it’s even more trying. 

So what have these two weeks taught me - well it’s reminded me that actually it should be fun. 

I had got into such a rut of posting to tick a box rather than to post because I had something to say. The never-ending talk of the algorithm had gotten to me. I focused too much on the schedule and not enough of whether the content was actually useful. 

Rather than posting and Reels and schedules (although I am hugely in favour of schedules if you make them work for you). It should be about using social media to YOUR advantage. Love stories and hate the grid? Work out how you can utilise your stories more. Never want to create a Reel - that’s fine, you don’t have to, but work out how you can utilise your audience to reach new people. Find video exciting and have ideas coming out of your ears, focus on that.  

If you approach it as a chore, another thing to tick off your to-do list, your audience will be able to tell. They’ll sense it from your content. 

If you work to your strengths, creating the content you love, your passion will shine through. Not only that, but it will take you less time too. I used to spend ages writing content and planning because I was really struggling with what to share. Today my content has taken no time because I’ve been inspired. It’s flowed.

The absolute beauty of using social media to market your business is to communicate with your customers and your potential customers. In no other setting can you actually have a two-way dialogue with people who are buying or thinking about buying from you. 

It’s such an opportunity. 

So I’m going back to having fun. 

I’m going to be talking more, and doing everything else less. I’ll let you know how I get on…