Nobody is a greater, more active user, and advocate, of social media as a powerful tool in the marketing toolbox of a small business owner than I am.
But the sheer number of social media platforms available to avail of can lead to enormous time pressure and a type of anxiety which can only be described as a fear of missing out (FOMO).
The fear comes from not availing of all the channels and sites available, and/or wasting time on the wrong sites.
Throw in the need to create the correct type of content for each channel, and this is vital, and soon you can find yourself in a constant, relentless whirlwind of content creation.
Whether you need to write tweets, create long form video for YouTube, short form video for Instagram and Tiktok, images/memes for Instagram, content for Facebook, LinkedIn-it all amounts to a feeling of intense, ever present pressure and missing an opportunity for your business.
And if you are serious about your business and you want to grow it and are naturally ambitious this sort of feeling can leave you feeling anxious and deflated.
The solution, I believe, is to identify the platforms that give you and your business the best return from the time you spend creating content for that platform.
It may be Twitter, it may be YouTube, it may be sites that are text heavy or video heavy, or have some other characteristic.
Regardless, you need to accept that you cannot be all things to all people. You will have to identify and prioritise the best places for your unique business.
Without taking this step, and making some qualitative choices, you run the risk of a downward spiral into a frenzy of activity. Soon you won’t know your arse from your head.