Organic social isn’t dead, your strategy just sucks. Here’s how to fix your social media marketing without dancing on TikTok or begging your mom to share your posts.
Let’s be honest. Most of you are just winging it on social.
Posting random stuff. Copying competitors. Praying for likes. Or thinking professionally produced photos and videos is a content strategy. Then you’re left wondering why nothing converts.
If that sounds familiar, don’t worry. You’re not broken. You’re just missing a real strategy.
This post is going to show you how to stop treating social media like a chore, and start using it as a legit marketing channel. One that builds your brand, connects with the right people, and actually drives business results without paying an exorbitant digital ransom (aka social media ads) every week.
Here’s what you’ll walk away with:
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A simple social strategy that doesn’t suck the life out of you
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A clear way to make people want to follow your brand
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How to create content that builds community, not just clout
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And yes, how to get results without throwing large sums of money at ads
If you’ve been stuck in the “post and pray” loop, this is your way out.
Let’s Be Honest. You’re Social Strategy is Probably Just You Blindly Posting
You’re posting because you feel like you should. You’re copying what you think works. You’re watching engagement drop, and wondering if the algorithm hates you personally. It doesn’t.
But your strategy is just shit.
No one gave you a playbook, so you post whatever’s in your camera roll and hope something hits. That’s not a strategy. That’s noise. You don’t need more content. You need a reason behind it.
Let’s start with the one thing that fixes most of this mess.
If You Only Do One Thing, Make People Want to Join Your Brand
Most brands treat social like a digital flyer… Buy Now… 10% off… Look at this new shiny thing-a-ma-jig. Cool, I get it, you do need to occasionally sell. But no one is following your brand because they love being sold to every single post.
If you only fix one thing about your social strategy, then do this: Make users want to join your brand, and not just buy your product.
Red Bull and Monster are great at this. Their feeds are full of action, culture, lifestyle and community. Out of every twenty posts, maybe one or two is middle or bottom funnel. The rest help their audience think, “Yeah, I’m that kind of person.” That’s the name of the game. Let me repeat that for the people in the back – THAT’S THE NAME OF THE GAME.
You don’t need a Red Bull budget. You just need a shift in how you think about content. Instead ask yourself:
- Will this post attract someone like our best customer?
- Or, is this post just another shout into the noise of social media?
People join, and buy from brands they feel a part of. Your job is to give them something worth joining.
Set Goals Before You Post
If your only goal is to “look active on social,” then you’re already lost.
Posting just to look alive is a waste of time. You’re not building momentum, you’re burning calories. And no, “we just want to get our name out there” isn’t a goal either. That’s a cop-out for not having a plan. You need goals that are actually measurable and connected to the rest of your marketing. Something you can point to and say, “That worked” or “That didn’t.”
Here’s what that looks like in real life:
- Goal: Drive traffic to your website
- Create content with links, strong CTAs, and educational value that leads back to a blog, landing page, or product.
- Goal: Build awareness for a new product or service
- Show behind-the-scenes, use storytelling, and focus on benefits and not just features. Remember, a feature is just a characteristic or function. A benefit is how a specific feature improves your users’ life or solves their problems.a
- Goal: Increase engagement
- Ask questions. Use polls. Post something that sounds like a real human said it.
- Goal: Get more leads
- Use lead magnets, gated content, or link-in-bio forms that collect info in exchange for actual value.
Once you have real goals, everything else becomes easier. What you post, where you post it, how you measure it. Strategy starts with “why,” not “what should we post today?” So stop posting just to post. Start posting with a purpose.
Intimately Know Your Audience (Seriously)
This is the part where most brands squint at their content and say things like, “We’re targeting men and women, ages 25 to 45, who live an alt-rock lifestyle and drink oat milk.” Cool. But what do they actually care about? Demographics don’t tell you what people engage with. Behavior does.
You need to know:
- What they scroll past and what makes them stop
- What kind of content they already interact with
- What problems they’re trying to solve that your brand can actually speak to
No, guessing doesn’t count. Here’s how to actually figure it out:
- Look at your top-performing posts. What tone, format, or topic performed best?
- Stalk your competitors’ comment sections. What are people asking about? What are they commenting a lot?
- Use polls or questions to literally ask your audience what they want more of (SHOCKER, I KNOW)
- Dive into analytics. Instagram Insights, Facebook, even your email click data and GA4
Most importantly, speak like your ICP. If your audience says “hell yeah,” don’t write captions that sound like a LinkedIn cover letter. Talk to them the way they talk. What does Gen-Z say instead of something being good, or enjoyable… they say “That slaps!” If Gen-Z is your audience, speak like them, and let’s hope they eventually grow out of it too.
When you stop guessing who you’re talking to, your content starts hitting exactly where it should.
Pick the Right Platforms (Not All of Them)
You don’t need to be everywhere. You’re not Amazon.
One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make is trying to show up on every platform at once. Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, The Artist Formerly Known as Twitter (X or whatever Elon’s calling it today). And then wondering why none of it is working.
Spreading yourself thin guarantees one thing: shit content across all channels. Instead, focus on where most of your audience actually hangs out, and where your content fits.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- Instagram. Great for visuals, lifestyle, culture, behind-the-scenes, and aspirational content. If your product or service looks good, it belongs here.
- Facebook. Still alive, still powerful for local businesses, community-driven brands, and any audience over 30. Don’t sleep on FB-Groups either.
- TikTok. Raw, fast, personality-driven. Great for education, entertainment, and letting people see who’s behind the brand. You don’t need to dance, you just need to show up and be you. Unless you suck at life, then you want to pretend you don’t.
- LinkedIn. Perfect for B2B, service-based businesses, and thought leadership. But please, no generic “Monday motivation” posts.
- Pinterest. Great for evergreen, searchable content… think DIY, recipes, home, fashion, fitness, and anything that benefits from aesthetics and planning.
- YouTube. Long-form gold. Perfect for how-tos, product demos, deep dives, storytelling, and anything you want to show in detail. Just know it’s a commitment. You can’t phone it in with shaky iPhone footage, and poor audio. YouTube is literally the Netflix of social.
- Snapchat. Still has a strong grip on Gen Z, especially in the retail, beauty, and entertainment spaces. Best for raw, in-the-moment content. But if you’re over 30 and not a DJ, maybe sit this one out.
You don’t need five platforms. You need one or two you can actually commit to, and get better at. Get good where your people are. Then, once you’ve mastered that you can expand to the other platforms.
Learn to Create Once, Repurpose Everywhere
If you’re creating every post from scratch, every single time, then you’re doing it wrong and you’re probably exhausted.
You probably don’t need 30 new ideas a month. You likely need 5 good ones with legs. Here’s how that looks:
- Turn a blog post into a LinkedIn carousel
- Pull quotes and make them Instagram graphics
- Chop long-form into short-form video for Shorts, TikTok or Reels
- Record yourself summarizing it and post to Stories
- Take FAQs from the comments and make a follow-up thread or post
- Email it to your list as a “You might’ve missed this” round-up
This isn’t being lazy, this is being efficient in the rapidly moving digital world. Not everyone sees everything you post, so stop acting like it’s a one-and-done deal.
Also, batch your content. If you’re waking up every morning thinking, “What do I post today?” you’re already behind. Spend one or two days a month planning it all out. Schedule it. Adjust as needed. Done.
Tools like Canva, Notion, Buffer, and Later exist for a reason. Use them. Repurposing isn’t cheating. It’s how smart marketers win the attention war without burning out.
Watch Your Competitors & Steal Strategy, Not Posts
You don’t need to copy what your competitors are posting. You need to figure out why it’s working. Stop scrolling their feed with envy and start treating it like recon. Here’s how to spy with intention:
- Look at what consistently gets engagement
- Are people commenting because it’s valuable, funny, relatable? Take notes.
- Check the post structure
- Is it a question? A story? A spicy opinion? What’s pulling people in?
- Study how they use video, carousels, or hooks
- Don’t steal their content, steal the format and apply it to your own message.
- Read the comments
- That’s where your audience is literally telling you what they care about, what’s unclear, and what they want more of.
This isn’t about copying. It’s about learning the patterns of what connects, and then doing it better, your way. If something is working for a competitor, it’s a signal. Adapt it. Elevate it. Make it yours.
Track What Matters
Most people look at likes and call it data. It’s not. Your goal isn’t vanity, it’s impact. Here’s what you should actually be tracking:
- Engagement rate. Are people interacting, commenting, saving, or sharing?
- Reach vs followers. Are you growing beyond your bubble, or just yelling into the same empty room?
- Link clicks or bio actions. Are people taking action after seeing your content?
- DMs or replies. Are you sparking real conversations that lead to leads or sales?
- Top-performing formats. What actually moves the needle: carousels, Reels, memes, spicy rants?
Don’t just track to track, and actually use the data to get better. Let your data inform your next move. Post more of what works, kill what doesn’t, and experiment with intention. Social isn’t a guessing game, it’s a feedback loop. And the brands that win are the ones that actually pay attention.
Final Thoughts: Stop Posting Just to Post
Look, if you’ve read this far and still want to post just to post, then I guess I can’t fix stupid. Most businesses are out here throwing spaghetti at the “social media wall” then wondering why nothing sticks, or why their audience isn’t crawling on the floor to eat lukewarm noodles off the dirty tile.
Here’s the truth:
The algorithm doesn’t hate you, and didn’t get shadow banned. You’re just not giving it anything worth ranking, sharing, or remembering. The brands that win on social don’t post more. They post better. They know who they’re talking to. They make people feel something. They don’t sound like a sales pitch in every caption. And they sure as hell don’t measure success by how fast their mom liked the post.
So if you want to stop wasting time, money, and creative energy, start by doing this:
- Pick one or two platforms and actually commit to making 300 posts in 365 days. If you don’t do that, then I don’t want to hear anything about social media not working for you
- Create content your ideal customer would care about, even if they never buy
- Know what your real goals are
- Track the right shit
- Repeat what works
- Get rid of what sucks
And if that still sounds overwhelming? Cool. That’s what we do. Hit us up. Or don’t. But if you keep winging it, just know… your next follower is probably a bot.
