Do you really need social media?

Social media can be a fantastic tool

But it’s still worth assessing how much time you spend there, whether you’re getting the results you want—and if you really need it at all.

Although it’s often free, we pay a steep price for using these apps. If you fall prey to compare and despair, social media can be a toxic place. It feeds your inner critic and imposter syndrome with yet more evidence that everyone else is doing better than you. Their carefully curated feeds and filters fool you into believing that they’re all younger, thinner, prettier, richer, busier, more talented, more successful, more popular, more together. 

Social media is designed to capture your attention

That’s the business model. It’s what is sells to advertisers. Once you enter its bubble, it wants you to stay there as long as possible, giving your precious time and attention to cute animal videos; feeling shock, fear or outrage; arguing with strangers; obsessively making free content to attract the attention of others. 

This is why I use a timer to ensure I do what I set out to do, then leave. I see most social media as a radioactive room I need to pass through as quickly and efficiently as possible. For me, it’s not a space to linger. But it does bring me surprising numbers of new clients and contacts, given how badly I do it. Which is why I still visit, despite my mixed feelings about it.

I’m no expert on this

You only have to look at my numbers to see that! But social media is a subject my clients raise again and again in coaching sessions. It seems we’re either baffled or overwhelmed by it. Or we’re slaves to it, labouring for unpaid hours to build our followings.

If you want to go deeper, and find out more about how to make social media work for you, Josh Spector’s daily newsletter for For The Interested is blessedly brief, helpful and made for creators. His podcast, I Want To Know is also packed full of actionable advice.

If you have other resources that are particularly relevant to creative professionals, I’d love to know about them. Please share in the comments below.

It’s not compulsory 

It’s perfectly possible to build a business or an audience without using social media at all. You can still network, in person or online. Send out letters of introduction to people, companies, publications you want to work with. Give talks and workshops explaining what you do. Share interesting and useful information for your audience or clients via a website. Find galleries or shops to sell what you make. (For more on how to do that, read The Beginner’s Guide To Selling Your Work To Shops.)

For centuries before social media existed, people somehow built businesses that thrived, sold their services or their art. You can, too. If you really hate social media, don’t do it. Find other ways of attracting your tribe, finding people who love what you do.

Use a social scheduler

Instead of being glued to your phone, create content ahead of time and schedule it in. I use Canva to create design templates I can quickly update with new content, and I schedule posts weeks ahead using later.com for Instagram and LinkedIn; Buffer for twitter. (There are lots more; find one that works for you.)

I can create a month of social media posts in an hour or so. Then I just drop into my social channels for 10 minutes a day to reply to comments, and interact with creators I like and follow. (See below.)

Curate your feed carefully

Follow people who are interesting, innovative, inspirational. People who feed your soul or inform you, not controversialists setting out to deliberately provoke, doom-mongers sharing bleak news stories, or tech bros boasting about 4am starts, workouts and cold showers while selling courses that will enable you to effortlessly earn six or seven figures just like them (maybe). 

Focus on just one platform at first

And do it well rather than trying to be everywhere at once. Pick the channel your ideal clients/audience is likely to use, or the one you’re most comfortable in. Research, experiment, and see what you and your audience finds interesting. And make it work for you.

It’s not about the numbers

Remember what you want from this. You work for yourself, not for Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. You are growing a creative business, not growing a following. You want people to act, not just scroll. To sign up for your newsletter, buy your stuff, book your services or enjoy and share what you make. So 250 active fans who respond to every offer you make is much better than 250k followers who don’t engage or buy anything from you. 

Check your LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn is where businesses look for what they need. That includes creatives, and increasing numbers of my clients report getting interesting work offers via LinkedIn. Even if you’re not planning to post on LinkedIn regularly, take an hour or so to create a profile making it clear exactly what you do, what work you’re looking for, and how people can find you. (Hint: Don’t fill in all the fields as asked, and make it read like a CV. Craft something that represents you and your work now rather than reciting your work history.) 

Don’t be afraid to be super-specific, This makes it much more likely you’ll be found by people who are aligned with you, and looking for exactly what you do. 

Make sure your profiles contain a call to action

In your profile and your pinned post, tell people what you do, clearly and succinctly. And let them know what you want them to do. Direct them to your newsletter, your shop, your website. Let them know how you can help them, what value you can offer them. It’s worth continually tweaking and testing this until it feels right and authentic to you, and attracts your ideal clients, your audience, your tribe.

Create a clear brand identity

If you can’t afford a designer, choose two fonts and three colours, and use them in all your visuals. Create formats you can repeat, to make it easy. Most of all, think about why someone should follow you. What’s the value for them? How can you serve them, entertain them, inform them?

Some posts to try

• Share interesting or inspiring things you’ve read/seen/heard
• Share the tools you use
• Show your process
• Praise others
• Show new work
• Recall old work
• Share stories about the work (including what went wrong, and how you saved it)
• Post testimonials from happy buyers or satisfied clients
• Share press coverage, podcasts you’ve guested on. When it first comes out, but also later on. It’s not bragging. It’s establishing reputation.
• Answer questions by creating shareable content

Stay relevant and on-brand

No one cares what you had for breakfast unless you’re a food blogger or chef. People only need to know your opinions on news or politics if it’s part of what you do. An occasional picture of your dog asleep in your studio while you work is sweet. Endless pictures of your pets will get you likes, but it won’t sell your art, or your music. 

Recycle and repeat 

Everything relevant is content. And no one cares if you repeat the good stuff. Chop a blog post into tweets. Turn a successful twitter thread into a blog post. Record yourself reading that blog post, and you might have a podcast. And video for YouTube, TikTok or Instagram Reels. 

When you make content that works, repeat it every 3-4 months. This isn’t about reinventing the wheel, every time. It’s about creating good and interesting content that serves your audience. Then rotating it, improving it, updating it when needed. 

Look after your assets

Think of a reason to highlight every substantial project you’ve ever made, at least once a year. Remind people that they can still buy prints, books, watch something you worked on. Your past work should still bring you an income, or at least act as a shop window, a way of showing your skills and range.

Let go of perfectionism

You don’t need a perfectly balanced Instagram grid. If there’s a typo in your post, it’s no big deal. If something doesn’t work, simply delete it. 

Most of social media is throwaway, forgotten as soon as you scroll past it. You’re not painting the Sistene Chapel here. Do it, and move on. 

Scale when necessary

I’ve coached several rising music stars who have turned social media into a 24/7 job. They barely sleep because they feel compelled to respond to every comment personally, whatever time it arrives, as well as creating an endless stream of new content for their hungry feeds. 

This is neither healthy nor a good use of time. (And I wish more music labels would understand this, instead of adding to the pressure.) There comes a point when you need to scale, and stop responding to every comment. 

Consider making a monthly video in which you answer a few popular or interesting questions instead of answering each one individually. Nick Cave responds to fan questions in his brilliant newsletter, The Red Hand Files, which now reaches a readership far beyond his fan base. 

Don’t rely on it

With social media, you are building on land you don’t own or control. From MySpace to Clubhouse, there are countless new trends and channels that have gone from piping hot to ice cold.

Algorithms change. New features arrive. Your account is randomly frozen. A forum you once loved gets taken over by haters. A retail channel suddenly changes its terms and conditions. A billionaire buys your favourite channel and takes a wrecking ball to it. 

So use social media if you want to.

But don’t depend on it. Build your own digital real estate, on a domain you own and control. Have a website to serve as a hub for everything you create, grow a mailing list of your own and don’t relinquish control of it to anyone.

Then you’ll always have that as a base, and a direct way of communicating with your biggest fans when you want to make offers, get early sales—or if your your label, manager, publisher, gallery or any other kind of gatekeeper drops you.

• After writing this post, I did a 90-day twitter experiment, going all-in on the platform to see how it worked for me. You can read the results of that here.