Burned out on social media? 4 steps I took to create a more aligned marketing strategy
As a business owner, I’ve always had a complicated relationship with social media. I can see how it’s been an incredible place to connect with creative people around the world as I’ve built my brand, but it’s also been a source of anxiety, overwhelm, and burnout for me as a quiet and introverted human.
And from talking to other business owners, I know I’m not alone.
Over the years, I’ve tried batching content months in advance, hiring a VA to create graphics and schedule posts, and reducing the number of times I was posting per week. No matter what I did, it seemed like social media would always be a necessary evil I would just have to deal with if I wanted to make it as a copywriter.
But lately, my social media relationship has started to look completely different.
Writing content feels easy and enjoyable. I can post without stressing about it. And it finally feels like it takes up an appropriate amount of space in my mind and my schedule.
So, what changed? How I did I shift my relationship with social media and finally find a more aligned way to market my business?
Here's how it started, how it's going, and how you can try it for yourself.
1. Checking in
My social media shift began about a year ago when I pulled up my CRM and took a look at the data to see where my copywriting clients were coming from.
I knew my referrals were my main lead source, followed by SEO and Instagram. But what surprised me was that even though Instagram accounted for a small percentage of my leads, those leads rarely converted into clients.
For example, in 2021, when I posted high-quality content multiple times every week and even scheduled three months of content to drip out through my maternity leave, only 10% of my revenue came from Instagram.
I realized that even though Instagram made up a tiny percentage of my sales, I was still spending the bulk of my marketing time and energy there. And out of all my marketing channels, it was the one I enjoyed the least.
I started to wonder: do I want to spend my days churning out social media content that I hate? What if I could invest that time into nurturing relationships with my clients and fellow creatives, and maybe generate more referrals in the process?
2. Stepping back
A few months later, I was still feeling the social media burnout — only now I knew that it wasn’t leading to the right leads and clients.
And then one week, I simply didn’t post anything to my Instagram feed. Another week went by, and then another, and eventually I released myself from the pressure of posting altogether. I didn’t love that my last post was just sitting there without any closure, but it was freeing to take a step back.
One of the best things I realized during this break was that no one cared whether I was posting or not. A few friends mentioned that they hadn’t seen my posts in a while, but for the most part, most of us are so caught up in our content creation or distracted by the other posts in our feed that we don’t notice when someone goes quiet. Maybe that sounds depressing, but as a chronic people-pleaser, this was a helpful realization for me. No one is waiting for your next post — just do what’s best for you.
Stepping back from the constant content cycle gave me a new, more objective perspective so that I could start unpacking how I might want to show up in the future without the pressure of what anyone else would expect.
I ended up taking almost eight months off from posting anything on social media. And as it turns out, my business grew during that time because I was more focused on reconnecting with past clients and building my retainer program. I was able to spend less time stressing over what to post and more time supporting some of my favorite business owners with their copy.
3. Tuning in
With a new perspective from my months away from social media, I realized that I’d been relying on coaches and experts to tell me what kind of content I should be posting online, instead of paying attention to what I enjoyed seeing in my feed.
Because even though I often find social media to be an overwhelming, noisy place, there are also a handful of people whose content I genuinely enjoy following — people like @heretodayphoto, @copelandandco, @greentie.studio, and @oliviaherrickdesign.
These creative business owners primarily post their work or personal projects in their feeds and tell stories or share encouragement in their captions. They rarely (if ever) give a hard sales pitch or chase trends like video — and yet they have loyal followers and their businesses are thriving. Their posts make me feel calm, connected, and inspired because they’re not telling me what I should be doing or pushing their latest product — they’re simply giving me a glimpse of the incredible work they’re doing behind the scenes.
When I considered why these are the accounts I love following the most, it was easy to see why my old content strategy had felt so out of alignment. I was trying to share advice, deliver value, and sell in every post, and simply it wasn’t true to me or my business. Behind the scenes, my work was all about serving my clients, but on social media, it was all about me.
So I started to wonder if I could follow in the footsteps of these business owners I admire* by sharing bits and pieces of the copy I’ve written for my clients over the years. And for the first time, I felt excited about creating social media content.
*One important note: when looking for inspiration, I intentionally stayed away from looking at other copywriters’ feeds. I didn’t want to copy my peers; I wanted to find a new approach to social media that felt good to me, even if it looked different from what everyone else in my industry was doing.
4. Moving forward
When I set out to rebuild my social media marketing plan from scratch, I considered several options:
Not coming back to social media at all, and even deleting my account
Hiring out content creation so I wouldn’t have to worry about doing it myself (one of my clients recently launched this incredible service)
Simplifying to a 9-grid Instagram feed that I wouldn’t need to constantly maintain (I’m a huge fan of this approach from my friend Kristen, and may go this route myself one day)
Coming back to social media, but doing it my way.
I knew I could be happy with any of these paths, but for now, I decided to try coming back to social media with a new, true-to-me approach.
So I started going back through my clients’ websites and taking screenshots of the copy we’d created together. I created a Canva template for my new graphics, keeping it as simple as possible while staying on-brand.
I decided that to stay consistent, I would start every week by writing two weeks of captions — and that I would write them directly in my social media scheduler to keep things extra simple. This would allow me to build the practice into my weekly routine without turning it into a massive (and daunting) batching session. I could write four captions at a time, schedule them, then move on with my week.
I would also schedule the same posts on LinkedIn, to experiment with a platform where my content could have a longer lifespan and reach a different audience.
And last but not least, I incorporated strict social media boundaries to keep myself from obsessing over engagement or comparing myself to my peers. I decided to delete Instagram from my phone every weekend and mainly respond to comments and DMs from my desktop during work hours.
How it’s going
I’ll be the first to tell you that my new approach isn’t going viral anytime soon. I’m not making Reels or doing anything else the algorithm wants me to do. But my posts are receiving about the same amount of engagement that they did before taking an eight-month break and launching this new method. And since I know that Instagram isn’t where my sales come from, I’m not worried about how my posts are performing.
The biggest difference is that for the first time in years — or maybe ever — I’m enjoying the content creation process, and I feel happy when I look at my Instagram feed. I genuinely like spending my time reflecting on past projects and the wonderful people I’ve worked with, and I know that going back to review my work will inevitably make me a better writer. It feels easy, energizing, and more aligned than ever.
There’s also an unintended bonus that about half of the time, my clients end up sharing my posts about them in their Stories and telling their followers about what it was like to work with me. So in a way, this new approach could naturally lead to more referrals, which we know is my number one source of work!
In the future, I may try out a 9-grid feed as I mentioned, but for now, it feels so good to finally be in the flow with my content — and I’m sure that anyone who reads my posts can tell that there’s a different energy behind them.
Creating a more aligned marketing strategy
I never thought I could have fun writing social media content and then post it without second-guessing myself or worrying about the results. So if you’re looking to shift your relationship with social media, I hope it’s encouraging to know that it’s possible, even if it doesn’t happen overnight.
To create your aligned marketing method, I recommend first looking at your data to find out where your leads and sales are coming from and where you need to focus. Consider taking a break from social media if you need it. Then, tune in to your unique taste to figure out what you love seeing online, what you hate, and what it means to show up in a way that feels good to you — even if it looks different from what everyone else in your industry is doing.
And if you feel like your words are what’s holding you back on social media, I’d love to help you create interview-inspired messaging that attracts your most aligned clients without the guesswork. Contact me to get started with a free call.