We’ve recently discussed how you need to adapt marketing strategies to work for you and your business. Let me give you an example of how I adapt my own marketing advice to work for me.
I’ve said before to focus your social media efforts on one or two platforms based on your target market, and to tailor your strategies to each specific platform since they all have their own best practices. This kind of laser focus on a small number of platforms can ease the stress for people who have other priorities, like say running all aspects of their business.
For me, my priority is the marketing, so my personal strategy looks a little different than my own advice: I focus primarily on Instagram, Pinterest and Threads, but I also use LinkedIn, Bluesky and Substack (I treat Substack notes like a social media platform). Currently, I keep Facebook solely personal, though I do plan to branch out into it eventually.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Wow! That’s a lot of platforms,” and you’d be right. It absolutely is. But I don’t put as much work into every platform as I should, and that’s ok. Back when I started on Substack, I was only really focusing on Instagram and Pinterest (while keeping my Threads strategy as a kind of feral non-strategy). I quickly realized though the importance of Substack notes and needed to figure out a workable way to create one daily without driving myself crazy.
So, I decided to repurpose all of my Instagram image posts and reels into text-only posts for Substack notes. Since I’d already taken the time to write down these now text-only posts, I figured why not toss these onto some other platforms. I now post the same thing daily (well make that weekday-ly) on Substack notes, LinkedIn, Threads and Bluesky. I can schedule everything out ahead of time on LinkedIn, Threads and Bluesky so it’s minimal work to add in the extra visibility.
To recap, I spend most of my time and effort doing my best to follow the best practices for Instagram and Pinterest. For Threads, it’s a bit of a mix between a personal outlet and a way to bring the focus back to marketing—which actually works fairly well for its particular best practices. I am working on learning the best practices for Substack notes. And I am throwing caution to the wind and just posting to post something on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
This method currently works for me, but it won’t work for everyone (and likely won’t work for me forever). While having more eyes on your content sounds like it’s always a good thing, if those eyes aren’t in your target audience, then it’s probably just wasted effort. That being said, sometimes the only way to know if your target audience is on a specific social media platform is to get out there and try that platform.
In fact, I was actually going to avoid Instagram altogether until I started actually using it (simply because I had to have an account in order to use Threads) and I discovered that my target audience had been there waiting for me all along. (Who knew? Not me.) This is all to say that your own social media strategy doesn’t have to follow any of the suggestions or rules that anyone else says it does.
If a strategy is working for you, then KEEP DOING IT. In fact, do more of it—as long as you have the time and energy to devote to it, that is. If you’re doing everything all on your own, then don’t forget to take into consideration your own limits. A social media marketing strategy isn’t worth it if all it does is suck the lifeforce out of you so that you have no energy to put into the actual areas of your work that you enjoy. Focus on yourself and your business first, and let the marketing flow from there.
All the best,
Ryanne Zender
Disclaimer: While marketing is based in part on statistics and psychology, it is not an exact science. Every business and market are unique. What may work for one business, will not necessarily work for another. There are no guarantees in marketing, and this post is for informational and educational purposes only and does not replace professional advice. You can check out the full list of disclaimers and disclosures here.
