So many business owners (myself included) have grown to kind of despise social media. We know it's a necessity, but especially for a marketer or someone who offers social media services to others, it’s a challenge to find a balance between enjoying social media and protecting mental health and personal boundaries.
Danielle Burken offers social media services to a wide range of clients, and she has a unique approach that makes it both manageable and fun. This is perfect for us freelancers who excel in marketing for others but get stuck in analysis paralysis when it comes to our own content.
Here’s what she shared with us in the Get Freelancing Community:
Perfectionism is the Enemy of Progress
A common hurdle is the perfectionist mindset: "If it's not perfect, I'm not posting it." All too often, we find ourselves spending way too long on a post to either have it flop, or discard it altogether before it sees the light of day. Some of Danielle’s most successful posts are quick, candid moments like taking a sip of coffee or typing at the desk. These posts, which took minutes to create, performed exceptionally well.
Integrate Both Personal and Business Content
Many business owners fall into the trap of thinking their social media profiles must be all business, all the time. Don’t forget, you ARE your business. People want to know you as a person, not just your business persona. Work-life balance is a myth; instead, it's about integrating both aspects. Share your personal life—your kids, your pets, your hobbies. This helps keep it easy to come up with content and to connect with your audience on a deeper level.
Lighten Up
Social media should be fun. Taking it too seriously drains the joy out of it. Danielle often reminds her team that “we're not saving lives with social media posts.” It’s a fun and important perspective shift that helps to relieve pressure and brings back the fun in creating and engaging with content.
Be authentic
Show up as your true self on all platforms. Don’t confine your quirky or fun side to TikTok while keeping LinkedIn strictly professional. Authenticity means being consistent across all your platforms. Share your personality, whether it's through puns, humor, or unique insights.
Use your Human Design
Think of Human Design as the energetic equivalent of personality tests like the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, or DISC, but without the need for answering questions. It’s based on your innate structure from birth.
There’s a sense of freedom that comes with aligning social media strategies with Human Design. It takes away the bounds of expectations from others while stoking the flame to do what feels both right and comfortable to YOU. (Danielle has a great resource on this here.)
Remember Social Media is Not Your Entire Marketing Strategy
Social media is just one part of a broader marketing strategy. Your website should be the hub of your marketing efforts, with social media, word-of-mouth, networking, and email marketing as the spokes that support it. This perspective helps alleviate the pressure of relying solely on social media to drive your business and allows you to have more fun with it.
Control What You Can
Focusing on what you can control—your mindset and reactions—can go a long way to bring that fun back into social media. Analyze what works and what doesn’t, and learn from those insights.
There’s more from Danielle in the recording from the Making Social Media Fun Again Mastermind here. Come check it out in Get Freelancing: the community built for ag freelancers.
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