With the constant changes and updates, social media can feel overwhelming and time-consuming, a feeling that's made worse when your posts aren't getting enough reach or engagement.

I know how busy you are, balancing family life with work life, and I know that every minute you get to spend on your business is precious, that's why I've compiled a list of tactics I want you to stop using on social media in 2023, and my tips on what you should be doing instead:

Keeping up with trends

Social media is constantly changing, and it's hard for small business owners to keep up. To an extent, you do need to know what trends work best on social media - but what I don't want you to do is waste time on things that might give you a short term boost, but have no long term benefit.

So, here's my advice. I want you to swap stressing about keeping up with trends for creating a social media strategy that works for you, your business and your life.

Once you have a plan, stick to it. Don't become distracted by the shiny new toys that are going to get old and boring very soon.

Hiding your face

Without exception, there is one type of social media post that excels in engagement and reach for both myself and my clients: Selfies. I know, scary thought. So many people cringe when I share this advice!

But it is absolutely key and you are doing yourself a real disservice if you don't share your picture, your story and your personality, because it is that which is going to make you stand out from the crowd and be remembered.

I need you to put on those big girls' pants and start showing your beautiful face much more often on your timeline. Because, when your followers are scrolling through your content, they want to see the woman behind the business, the lady they're keen to work with an support.

So, here's my advice. I want you to swap hiding your face from your timeline for confidently and consistently putting yourself out there for the world to enjoy.

Being scared of Reels

Unless you've been under a rock for the past 12 months, you can't fail to have seen how popular Reels have become. Following the explosion of TikTok in 2020, Instagram adapted quickly, favouring this short video format on their platform and introducing it to Facebook now too.

In 2022, 16 of my top 15 posts on Instagram were Reels. One video I posted in December featuring a simple shot of the sea at Scarborough with a trending audio that consisted of an inspiring quote as recorded a reach of of 7k in just 4 weeks.

I want you to swap being scared of creating Reels for giving them a try and realising how fun they can be!

Creating fresh content all the time

How many hours do you spend creating content for social media every week? It’s a lot, right? As you hopefully know, my goal is to get that right down, so you can focus more precious hours on the things you actually like doing.

One of the best ways you can streamline your content creation is by creating posts that you can use time and again, so you’re not always coming up with fresh ideas. This type of content is known as ‘Evergreen’ and it’s an absolute gamechanger, especially for your Facebook group.

So, I want you to swap spending hours creating brand new content for reusing posts that you know are going to work well.

Staying neutral

When I first started my business, I attended a free course containing advice that really worried me: Not to share any political opinions on social media, in case it put people off buying from you.

I knew (from bad experience) that being argumentative or forceful with your views was not the way to make friends online, but surely shying away from the topics you’re passionate about wasn’t the right way to go either?

Because when I’m getting to know someone on social media, I don’t want them to be holding back on the things they care about just because they’re worried about the response, I want them to be totally open and honest with me.

So, I want you to swap holding back the opinions you're really passionate about for digging down into your beliefs and figuring out how your content can make a difference.

Free 5 Day Challenges

Here's another thing I tried when starting my business, because I'd seen so many business gurus running them with great success: Free 5-Day challenges on Facebook. A really simply concept that brings new people to your audience and boosts engagement too.

I actually launched my business with an event like this, sharing daily tips on how to create a social media strategy that suits your business. The feedback I got was phenomenal and many of the ladies who attended that have gone on to become clients - so it definitely did work.

But last year, I noticed more and more issues becoming apparent with that format for myself, my clients and even some of those gurus I used to so admire:

• They take a lot of time and energy for the host. Creating all that content and going live every day is draining and it takes the focus away from your paid services
• People don't complete the activities. My event in September saw 80 people sign up, around half took part in the first day, a little less on the second and by the third, fourth and fifth day very few people engaged at all
• You don't make any money from it. Even if the plan is to upsell a service, often you are appealing to the wrong people, those who aren't ready to invest in you but are happy to take value from free content
• You don't get results. Because people aren't committed, they don't actually do the work you are suggesting, at least not long enough for them to see any real, lasting change

So, here's my advice, I want you to swap running lengthy, free events for focusing time and energy on services that offer more value for your clients.

Lonely Lives

Live videos in your group or on your pages are a really helpful tool because they are the single best way to help people get to know, love and support you. Your audience will enjoy getting to engage with you directly and in real time.

In 2022, myself and my clients have noticed lower numbers of people attending the videos live, but there are ways to combat this which will make going live much more worthwhile for your valuable time:

• Be consistent
• Look at popular times
• Give good value
• Make it an event
• Post-promote it

Live videos are an important part of your structure, so I want you to swap turning up and not having anyone watching for creating an unmissable event that will bring value and turn followers into clients.

Selling Groups

Facebook knows, from feedback it's users have provided, that we don't want our timelines full of posts trying to get us to spend money, but that we want to use it to chat to others with similar interests.

That's why groups have become so popular in recent years and why many of us find our best reach and engagement usually comes from the posts we publish in our own communities. I know from experience, my group is also where the majority of my clients come from.

The trouble is, too many people are using those groups to promote products and try to sell to their members. They're using direct sales posts, content that is notoriously hard to get engagement from and so no-one is seeing their posts.

So, if you have a group, I want you to swap trying to use it to sell for creating a community of people with similar interests who are excited to hang out together.

Spamming @everyone

Ending my tips on a rant, I cannot tell you how much I hate this new function from Facebook.

You will no doubt have seen that during 2022 they introduced the option to be able to tag all the members of your group in one post. The trouble is, it's being overused far too much and it's diluting the impact your notifications will have on your members.

So, I want you to swap using the highly irritating @everyone tag for selecting the people you know will actually benefit from the post. Because, if you're tagging everyone I know it's not something that is important for me specifically.

I hope my thoughts on social media tactics have not been working in 2022 will stop you wasting your time and energy on the wrong features in 2023. If you'd like more information and advice on each of these tips, please pop over to my website for the full blog .