But, I don't like social media

Social media. Love it or loathe it, it’s kinda a must-have for business these days. But what if the thought of showing up online makes you cringe? If posting feels forced, salesy, or just plain exhausting, you’re not alone. The good news? You can make social media work for you without feeling gross about it.

Ditch the ‘ick’ and start showing up in a way that feels good.

Step 1: Curate Your Feed Like a Pro
If scrolling social media makes you roll your eyes more than it sparks inspiration, it’s time for a clean-up. Unfollow accounts that drain you. Mute the noise. Train the magical algorithm to bring you content that actually makes you smile, think, or create.

Your social feed should feel like a place you want to hang out, not a chaotic mess of ‘buy this now!’ posts and unedited AI-generated nonsense.

Step 2: Notice What Grabs Your Attention
What makes you stop scrolling? A relatable story? A joke? A behind-the-scenes peek at someone’s life?

Chances are, the content you enjoy most is real, engaging, and human. And guess what? That’s exactly what your audience wants from you, too. Use that insight to guide what you post—think less “marketing” and more “conversation.”

Step 3: Show Up as You
Your business isn't just about what you sell—it's about who you are. People want to connect with real humans, not faceless brands. 

So, stop overthinking. Ditch the perfectly polished, corporate-sounding captions. Share your thoughts, your experiences, your wins (and even your flops). The right people will love it—and they’ll love working with you because of it.

Social media doesn’t have to feel icky. When you show up as yourself, tell your stories, and connect in a way that feels natural, you’ll attract people who get you. And if someone doesn’t? They can scroll right on by.

A HUGE thank you for listening to No Grey Suits. I really do appreciate you spending some time with me, and hope you got some shiny nuggets of gold, or at least silver out of it.

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Transcript

Microphone (2- Yeti Orb) & ????????? C930c: 0:00

how to get yourself and your business out there on social media when you don't like it that much.

Speaker: 0:10

Hello and welcome to No Grey Suits, the podcast. I'm your host, Anastasia, and this is a place for people who have escaped corporate to do their own thing, where we'll talk marketing, videos, social media, business, and chat with other business owners about their journeys. It's a bit random, sometimes super practical, sometimes plain old entertainment.

Microphone (2- Yeti Orb) & ????????? C930c: 0:34

Okay, can't count how many times people have said to me, I don't like doing social media for my business. Even more is I don't like doing video for social media or I don't like my face being seen on social media, can't I just use my brand? A couple of things to unpack there. The first thing I want to say about social media is, one, you've got to work on why you don't like it. If you don't like it because it's salesy, it's icky, it's full of crap, Fake people. It's full of fake stuff. AI has made that even worse. I get it. I do. Some days I can scroll and I just cringe. It feels ick. First thing I'm going to say to you is curate your own feed to start with. to start feeling more comfortable with social media. So whatever channel that is, whether it's LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, I'll say TikTok even though I'm not a huge fan of it, curate your feed. How do you do that? Intentionally go through and delete or remove things, people, pages, groups, whatever it might be that makes you feel bad about you, that gives you the ick, or that now pushes out content that you just don't enjoy. If it doesn't make you smile and there's no reason, and I mean good reason, for you to be following it, liking it, seeing it in your feed, get rid of it. This is the beginning of you teaching that algorithm, yes, the mystical, magical algorithm. what you do and don't like. And meta, for one, has been putting a lot of emphasis lately on trying to pick and choose content based on what users actually like and interact with. So make sure that you're only interacting with stuff that you do like and that you do want to see. If somebody is, you're wanting to keep an eye on them because they're in your industry or something like that, but they give you the ick, create another profile. For Instagram anyway. A little bit harder to do on Facebook. but don't have it coming through your feed constantly. If something makes you feel bad, get rid of it. You need to start to, not necessarily, I'm not going to say to you, you need to love social media. But you need to start to Not hate it, because that's going to show in the content that you produce and that you put out. We're going to see the resistance. We're going to see that you feel that you're being ick. Because all you know about social media is the ick. So, firstly you're going to do the clean out. You're going to clean out your follows. You're going to clean out your likes. You're going to clean out anything. If stuff, if ads start popping up, tell them it's not for me. Uh, in meta or in Facebook, you can usually, I think it's click the three dots on something and say, no, I don't like it. And it'll ask you, why don't you like it? Is it offensive? Is this, is it that a lot of the time you can just say, it's just not for me. It learns. We know it learns. I can have a chat with my family about buying a new camping tent and within an hour I'm getting ads for a new camping tent. Yes, it's creepy, but it's the way it works now. But you've got to train it to show you the stuff that you actually want to say. First step in that is telling it what you don't want to see. Then we can move on to starting to find the stuff you do like once you've cleared out all of the crap. And I do this quite intentionally when I go through this and I do this every few months because I'll find myself liking a page because you know I met someone and they recommended it but then the content type might have changed whatever it might be. So I do this every few months. Once you've cleaned out the crap, then I not only want you to have a think about the stuff that you like and you want to follow, but this is where you need to do that whole customer avatar exercise. Think about your ideal customer and the type of content that they like and they follow. Now, it shouldn't be. that far removed from the stuff that you actually like if you know your values and your business values actually line up. So you know for instance I don't tend to follow a lot of the really pushy, salesy, bro types. Because not only do I not enjoy that content, but my ideal client, Nicole, I don't think she enjoys that content either. So I don't want to be consuming that and absorbing that and subconsciously thinking that's the way things should be done. I want to follow people that I resonate with whose values align with mine, either my business or my personal values, which again, shouldn't be that far apart that it feels gross. who would my ideal client potentially follow? Now, my ideal client, Nicole, she's, I've got a list up here of everything about her, She probably, follows Mecca and the Ordinary for her face stuff. She probably follows Brené Brown, uh, Amy Porterfield. Glennon Doyle, all of those types of, inspirational, motivational women, you know, Mel Robbins. She probably follows all of those for, a bit of a pick me up and for some advice and for some learning, for some fun. She probably follows things like, old school Disney. she might love to read fiction, you know, Leanne Moriarty, Moriarty. I can never say her name properly, but anyway, Because she's got kids, she might follow podcasts like One Bad Mother or she might follow business chicks So there's all of those things that I don't hate. If I hated any of those things, I wouldn't have her as my ideal client because that wouldn't make me happy in my business. We have a chance to build a business that we love. And that means that we can. have an ideal client avatar of somebody that we would actually get along with. And that's what I'm all about. That's the real side of things. So that's the first thing I want you to do. I want you to curate your feed. Follow the stuff that you love. Follow the stuff that your ideal client loves. That shouldn't be super, super far apart. I mean, you might not be the biggest fan of, you know, Queer Eye for a Straight Guy, but your ideal client might be. But you might not mind seeing some stuff in your feed every now and then. But if something feels ick, just unfollow it. Start absorbing the type of content that you actually enjoy and you'll start emanating that. Next, when you are scrolling social media and you do see something that you do want to see that stops your scroll, have a think about why. Stop for a second and think about why. Is it just because it was funny? That's cool. That's probably my main reason for stopping most of the Is it because it resonated with you? You can see yourself in something that someone was saying or showing or a skit that somebody might have put together and you're sitting there going, oh my god, that's so me. Or does it resonate with you in the other way, where somebody is telling a story of a struggle, or something that they've been through, or one of their clients has been through, or someone they know has been through, and you're going, Oh my god, that, yeah, that has happened to me, or that is something I struggle with too. Have a think about why you stopped, and why you watched, or read. or clicked on that content. Then have a think about it from your audience's perspective. What kind of content or what story could you tell? With that in mind, that would stop their scroll. Is it the story of a woman who has had huge trouble with her hair falling out postpartum? It's not something that's talked about super often. And it's something that, if you were in that position and you saw somebody talking about it openly and honestly and telling the story of it, even if they don't have a resolution yet, you might stop and watch that and go, I feel really seen because that's happened to me too. Every industry has stories. It could be, if you have a kid's swimming school, it could be the story of a kid that was absolutely petrified of the water. might run away and hide in a corner every time, every time they show up. Now, if, if, You're telling that story and a mum or dad happens to see that story online and they're going, oh my god, my little one does the exact same thing. You're onto a win. That kind of story where people resonate with it and where they can see themselves in it, just like how you do when you're scrolling. That's what makes them stop and watch. So first things first, curate your feed, get rid of the crap so that you don't hate it so much, start to actually follow and like the stuff that you like and that your audience likes and spends time with and engages with. And by the way, when you do that, if you really want to curate your feed, you really have to send signals to the platforms about what you do and don't like. So. Not just go and follow a bunch of pages, you have to actually then engage and interact with what they post every now and then to signal to the algorithms that, yeah, I really do actually want to see this stuff in my feed more than the other stuff. So, like, save, share if you want to, if you think that, you know, your friends and family would like. something as well, but the more you interact with the stuff that you do actually engage, that you do actually like, and that you do resonate with, the more the algorithms will actually put that into your feed, and you can start to not hate social media so much again. Secondly, think about what stops your scroll, and from there, Think about what could stop your audience's scroll. What resonates with them? What they connect with? What's going to make them smile? Or what's going to make them feel seen? Now, thirdly, putting content out there, especially content from you, the real you, without you having the mask on, without you pretending to be something that you're not, putting that kind of content out there does help attract people that get you, that like you, and that you're probably going to be happier to actually work with. By being scared to put yourself out there, by wanting to hide behind your brand, or by wanting to just think that they'll come to you, or that you don't need to be on social media because you don't like it, or it feels ick, or it feels salesy. Think about it this way. You're actually robbing them. your audience, the people that would love to work with you, that would love to hear from you, that would love to hear those stories where they can go, me too, you're robbing them of the chance to have that by waiting for things to be perfect or by being too fearful to actually jump on and do things. I'm not saying everybody needs to be super confident on camera straight away, but think of it from the other way. Don't think of it as I'm pushing stuff out to people. Think of it as I'm putting stuff out there for other people to find and enjoy and resonate with and connect with and if I don't put my stuff out there, they're stuck looking at all of the crap that I just cleared out because there's not enough of the good stuff, the real stuff, for them to consume. You're robbing them of that chance. And you know what? If they don't like it, they can scroll on. It's actually that simple. Anyway, that's my little ranty venty advice- y thing for the day. I hope you have a wonderful week. I hope to see some more real Reels out there, and I hope that reframing that for you has given you maybe that little boost you need to go actually, yeah, I do have something to say that might make somebody smile or feel better about themselves or just feel good in general, and I'm going to put it out there for the world. Go do it.