However, some business owners/entrepreneurs don’t see this vast, virtual field of opportunity before them the way I see it. Instead of looking at this “downtime” as an opportunity, they’ve flatlined their social media marketing efforts completely. Here’s why that’s not the best idea and why it’s not too late to get your social media channels in gear for the long haul!
Before we get too deep here, let me ask you a question…
Have you ever had to start a fire the old fashion way? Stay with me. I promise I’m going somewhere good with this. If you’ve ever been a Girl Scout, Cub Scout, or been on a camping trip or two, you’ve probably attempted to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together.
If you’ve ever done this or watched Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away, you know that getting a fire started is the most challenging part, but once it’s kindled, maintaining it is the easy part. You can throw on a log here and there, and over time, the fire grows into something much bigger, thanks to your consistent efforts. But let’s say you get comfortable. You get the fire started, and after a couple of hours of maintenance, you stop. Before you know it, the fire is entirely out, and you’re back at square one.
Now, I want you to think of your social media marketing efforts the same way. Building up momentum for your brand online can be one of the hardest things to do at first, but once you get it going, your audience steadily grows if you continue to show up consistently. But if you decide to stop, next thing you know, the momentum you’ve created for your brand has died down. You’ve stopped showing up, so everyone else has stopped too. And it’s not that you’re not exceptional and that they don’t love you. But think about it this way: the Internet is a vast space, and there are so many things vying for our attention. Therefore, if you’re not staying top of mind, your audience’s attention will eventually be diverted to others who are showing up and showing their face on the interwebs.
So, what should you do?
It’s simple — you have to keep going, which at times, depending on what business and life is dishing can be a bit of a challenge. But instead of grabbing your pail of water and ousting your social media fire completely, turn the heat down, keep the coals burning without the roaring blaze. Why? Because it’s helluva lot easier to add more wood to the pile rather than rubbing those two sticks together again…*shudders*… don’t do that to yourself or your business, mmk? Pinky promise?
Let’s say your audience has grown accustomed to you showing up five times a week on Instagram with 10 Stories daily, but you’re not able to maintain that. It’s all good. So instead of five times, you show up three, and instead of 10 Stories per day, you knock it down to five. That’s perfect, and it’s much better than nothing at all. However, I will add the caveat that measuring your KPIs during this “downgrade” will be important to peek at monthly because it may turn out that this new cadence is still crushing your goals.
The bottom line?
I grant you permission to not do all the things. However, don’t just disappear off the face of the social media universe and extinguish your fire altogether. Come up with a solid strategy to keep yourself present online, maintain the audience you have, and let the new people who find you along the way know, you’re open for business. If you’re having trouble trying to figure out how to keep the flames burning, check out the Oh Snap! Fan Firestarter Framework™️. It’s our 5-step signature process we use to catapult our clients’ social media platforms to the next level. Let’s feed your fan fire! You bring the heat, we’ll bring the matches.