Here is a thought that most social media advice will never acknowledge: a lot of small business owners do not want to do their social media. Not because they are too busy, though that is true too. Not because they do not see the value, though they may have doubts. But because they simply find it tedious, uncomfortable, or just one task too many on an already overwhelming list.
That is a perfectly reasonable position. Running a business is hard. If writing Instagram captions and filming TikTok videos is not something you enjoy, or something you are ever going to prioritise, then no amount of advice about optimal posting times and trending audio is going to help you.
So let us be practical about what your options actually are.
Accept that doing it badly is worse than not doing it at all
The first thing worth acknowledging is that a neglected social media presence can actually do more harm than no presence at all. An Instagram account with twelve posts, the most recent from eighteen months ago, tells a potential customer that the business is either struggling or indifferent. A Facebook page full of unanswered comments and a profile photo that still says it was added in 2019 is not neutral; it is actively off-putting.
If you are not going to maintain social media properly, it is sometimes better to not have the account at all, or at minimum to post a clear message that you are not actively using that channel and direct people somewhere else. That is a more honest signal than an abandoned presence.
Decide which platforms actually matter for your business
One of the reasons social media feels so overwhelming is the sense that you need to be everywhere at once. You do not. Most small businesses only need a consistent presence on one or two platforms to get genuine value from social media. Think about where your customers actually are, where your competitors are active, and where you are most likely to generate an enquiry or a sale.
Dropping from five platforms to two immediately makes the job more manageable, and doing two well is worth infinitely more than doing five badly.
Delegate it internally
If there is someone in your business who is more comfortable with social media than you are, even a part-time employee or an apprentice, it is worth considering whether some of the responsibility can sit with them. Social media does not have to be owned by the person at the top. It just needs to be owned by someone who will actually do it.
If you go this route, be clear about expectations: how many posts per week, which platforms, what kind of content, and who reviews before anything goes live. Vague delegation tends to produce vague results.
Batch it
If you are going to do it yourself, the least painful approach for most people is batching. Instead of trying to post every day, set aside one session per week or per fortnight to plan and create everything in one go. Write all the captions, choose or create all the images, schedule everything through a tool like Buffer or Later, and then forget about it until the next session.
This approach removes the daily decision fatigue that makes social media feel like a constant drain. You do it once, it goes out on its own, and you get your headspace back.
Outsource it completely
If none of the above sounds appealing, the simplest and most effective solution is to hand it to someone else entirely. Managed social media services exist precisely for business owners who know social media matters but have no interest in doing it themselves. You pay a monthly fee, someone else handles everything, and your accounts stay active and professional regardless of how busy or disinclined you are feeling.
This is not a compromise or a last resort. For many small businesses, outsourcing social media is simply the most rational use of resources. Your time has value. If spending it on social media is not the best use of it, then paying someone else to do it well is a sound business decision.
At 99social, plans start from £99 plus VAT per month. You tell us about your business, we handle the rest. No content to create, no captions to write, no platforms to log into. Just a consistent, professional social media presence that runs whether you are thinking about it or not.
Ready to hand it over? Find out more about our affordable social media management and get started today.
For most small businesses, this is why outsourcing to a professional service makes more financial sense than hiring full-time staff. Before making any changes, it helps to identify the signs that your social media is not working the way it should.
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