Happy Friday everyone! We made it. It’s almost the weekend and we have NBA playoffs all weekend. I’m an Oklahoma City Thunder fan…so I’m feeling pretty confident right now.

However, I’m pretty excited for today’s issue. I’m primarily speaking to everyone who is a one-person social media team or has interest in becoming a one-person social team in the future. I will also hit on a few other things, as today’s agenda is packed.

In this issue, we will go over the following:

Let’s get to it.

-Sam

Here’s a scenario for you…

You're the social strategist, the copywriter, the designer, the community manager, the analyst, the one who’s hitting “publish”, the one creating the content…

And the you’re also the one fielding the "can we go viral?" questions too.

Living the dream, right? 😅

If you are a one-person social media team or have been before.

You can strongly relate to this.

One-person social media teams are becoming less prevalent, but there are still a lot of one-person social media teams out there. The smaller brands tend to have just one-person teams. While industry leading brands have teams of 20+ people (which is pretty crazy).

I have been a one-person social media team before and to be completely transparent..It can be pretty tough. You manage…everything. Is it difficult and challenging? Yes. But to be honest, it will force you to learn and grow in ways you couldn’t even imagine. You are put in scenarios where you wouldn’t be put in anywhere else.

At the end of the day, being a one-person social media team will open up many doors. It’s an opportunity to act on. it’s an opportunity to let your skillset shine and go beyond the job description. Is it a challenge? Yes. But you’ve got this.

Today, I want to shed some light on how to not just survive as a one-person social media team. But thrive.

🙌 Prioritize your Platforms — Not every platform deserves equal energy. Pick 1-2 channels to win on instead of spreading thin across 5 channels. You don’t need to be on every social media platform. You just need to be where your community is the most active.

🗓️ Master your Content Calendar — Use your social media calendar to set expectations with leadership, not just organize your posting schedule. Schedule far out, share it with leadership in advance.

💭 Start your day with ‘Creative Hours’ — I have learned over the years that I am the most fresh, the most creative, and have my best ideas early in the morning when I clock in. So, I will allocate the first two hours of my day to focus on projects, asks, and campaigns that demand a lot of brain power and focus. The first two hours for me are fully dedicated to strategy, writing post copy, creating decks, and making concepts. I promise this is a game changer. This is a big driver in just being more efficient as a one-person social team.

🤳 Make Short-Form #1 — Short-Form, vertical content franchises and engines should be your primary focus when it comes to content creation. Why? Because short-form content can generally be channel-agnostic and live across multiple channels. Prioritize short-form and you can distribute across Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts.

📲 Scrappy Content Engines — For social media teams of one, there’s a good chance you have a minimal content budget…or you have no budget at all. Therefore, your content engines and pillars must be produced quickly and in a scrappy way. The two best solves? For one, your iPhone for short-form content. And two, memes. There’s nothing wrong with memes. If it makes sense for your brand - run it.

🛑 Learn to say “no” — But do this in the right way. If you have too much on your plate, don’t be afraid to tell leadership or your manager that you do not have the bandwidth to take something else on. There’s a trade-off. When something else is added, something else needs to be lessened. Understanding priorities is key.

📆 Always be ahead — Schedule weeks out. Schedule months out if you can. Even if you just have a placeholder in your calendar. The farther you’re planned out. The more prepared you will be for last minute asks and fire drills.

💻 Templatize everything — Templatize everything. This made my life so much easier and will free up so much time. Templatize reports, creative briefs, strategies, and anything you can. This will free up time.

‼️ Create Systems — One of the most important things you can do as a one-person social media team is to create systems for everything you do. The process to create content, get approval, and to publish should be seamless and rather quick. The more you can systemize things, the more clear your mind will be.

🏝️ Take time off — Social media is exhausting, we all know this. It’s even more exhausting as a one-person social media team. You do not have to be online 24/7. When you’re logged off. You’re logged off. Make your mental health a priority.

The other day I was thinking about some of the biggest learnings from working in social media the past 10+ years. I’m so grateful for all my experiences and have had the opportunity to do social for some of the biggest brands in the health & fitness industry.

It’s been a crazy ride and I feel like I have learned so much. So the other day I shared some of my biggest lessons & learnings to my Instagram stories and it got like 30+ likes. I’m not active on my personal socials very much so this was a lot for me 😅

However, I just wanted to share these in case you find this helpful.

Here a few things you should know before you go.

⛽️ Follow Cadence I lead social & brand over at Cadence, a fast-growing sports hydration brand. Be sure to give us a follow here and follow along.

📱 Interested in learning more about creating shareable content? Check out last weeks issue to catch up here.

‼ Forward to a friend! If you do find Stronger Social helpful, be sure to forward to a friend.

🤔 Got a topic that you want to see addressed in a future issue?If so, respond to this email and let me know!

Thanks for reading and hope you have a great week!

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