Perhaps you’ve recently launched your own business, want to revitalise your existing business, or have decided that for whatever reason you need to become active on social media to build your network. You know you need to do it – social media as a marketing strand is valuable to almost every business, and can certainly help progress individual careers as well.
But if your social media activity to date has been mainly passive, just reading and possibly a bit of liking, or indeed if it’s been non-existent, getting started can feel like an enormous hurdle, just making those first few posts may seem a big deal and very scary.
It’s true that it can feel really intimidating to think of putting yourself out there. After all, the entire world could (in theory) see it! None of us like to get things ‘wrong’, or ‘fail’. Of course not. And perhaps you’ve seen negative reactions to things on social media, with ‘pile-ons’ and even bullying. That’s a scary thought.
But it can be ever so easy to find yourself falling into the trap of avoidance of something you’re worried about. You might be putting it off in the guise of finding out more, learning more, before you actually do it. Or you might convince yourself that it’s not a good time of day. Or you haven’t adequately prepared something to talk about.
Nothing wrong with getting advice or researching, but if you reflect honestly and think possibly you’re making yourself ‘busy’ doing other things and researching rather than posting, perhaps it’s time to jump in.
It’s the best way of getting started, and the more you do it, the easier it becomes. And honing what you are doing is easier if you combine research with practical experience – observing what gets a reaction and what doesn’t, what times and days to post. You can experiment.
So don’t overthink. Don’t worry too much about what you post to start with. Unless you’ve got thousands of followers, which if you’re just starting on social media, let’s face it, you won’t, the chances are not that many people will see it anyway, if that helps.
Jump in, be yourself, get started, say something. Just something. And once you’ve got over that hurdle of getting started, it will become easier, you’ll be less paralysed by worrying about what reaction you’ll get, and it’ll improve, and you’ll start to see results. You can then start experimenting with what works best, using images, trying out different times of day, varying the subjects, and even doing some videos. Just having jumped in and started will build your confidence so that it eventually becomes a normal part of your day rather than a Big Deal!
If you’re interested in talking to us about becoming a partner with face2faceHR with bags of support, do get in touch.