I’m throwing out the social media rule book

I'm throwing out the social media rule book

social media changes I’m changing the way I use social media.

First of all, I LOVE social media. All of my independent career has relied on social media to grow my businesses. I couldn’t live a location independent life and have a location independent business WITHOUT social media!

Okay, so what am I changing then….?

I’m dropping the facts and figures part of social media. You know, the stats that say you have to post tweets at a certain time, and only use LI a certain way and 5 ways to increase your reach on Facebook – that kind of thing. Sure it’s interesting and depending one what type of business you are running, then it’s probably a good idea to be able to maximise your time spent on social media and get the most reach for your content.

I’m not recycling old content anymore. If people want to read it, it’s there, but I want to keep my ‘message’ fresh and in the moment. I used to schedule my older cogent to go out in tweets and updates etc, but no more.

I’ve long since dropped the Blogging Rules. I don’t care how many words a blog post should be, I don’t care if there should be a striking image on the top left hand side, I don’t care about the layout of the posts or how many outgoing links I should put in. All that. Gone. I’m done with following the rules and in fact, since I dropped the rules, and done what I feel like, my readership has increased! Now that may or may not have something to do with following the rules – I’m not even that interested in finding out to be honest. My point is that I love the FREEDOM to blog any old way I chose and it’s not done my readership any harm. But even if my readership had dropped…..I’d still rather make up my own rules.

I’m in two minds about what to do with Facebook. One day I feel like deleting my accounts and other days I don’t mind it. The upshot is, that in the meantime I’ll just post when I remember and feel like it and not feel that I SHOULD have to do things a certain way.

The same with my newsletter and twitter etc. I’ve no set schedule or routine there. If I feel like sending out a newsletter at 1am instead of 8pm (which will get more opens), then that’s what I shall do!

Is this the approach you should take? Maybe!

It depends.

This isn’t the advice I would give bigger businesses and brands about how they could use social media; in those cases the rules and stats and figures are important.

But for me, right now, as a solo entrepreneur, then there’s going to be less following the rule book and more free-styling when it comes to how I use social media.

Have you stopped following the rules? What’s your experience been?

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