what if I told you that there was an easier way to growing on social media without burning out putting pressure on yourself and running yourself to the ground nowadays there's a lot of experts and gurus including myself back then who would tell you that you got to be on every single platform be consistent every day and have a team basically to help you grow to build a Content machine but what I found is that if you're not careful it really leads to burnout and increased expenses that ruin and absolutely obliterate your profitability now you might be wondering wait a second there's so many guys and gals out there that do this strategy and they have so much success they're able to bring their YouTube channels from zero to a million well you got to ask yourself are you playing on the same playing field because those people that you are likely looking up to are people that have big budgets and big teams and for someone like me who actually implemented this strategy and spent hundreds and thousands of dollars on this type of strategy I still burned out in fact I quit my business for an entire year which is why in this video I want to share a much more sustainable approach to social media including the six shifts that I'll personally be making in my social media strategy for longer term success so let's get right into it number one I am no longer tracking my social media metrics I know it sounds crazy especially for those of you who geek out on this stuff but hear me out when we set goals we typically say things like I want to have 10,000 followers on Instagram I want to gain 100,000 Subs on YouTube I want to get at least 2,000 views per video I want to make at least $3,000 a month month on social the thing with setting goals like this is that there is an element that we cannot control for example I used to have scorecards like this where every single week I would track my metrics my engagement rate my follower growth all the things My Views and what I found is that it would always make me feel like because I would see that I was not hitting my goals and there was an element that I really could not control I cannot control Instagram algorithm changes I cannot control YouTube algorithm changes I cannot control how my audience chooses to to engage in my content I can try my best to optimize my post but ultimately I cannot control that end result and so I found that making scorecards like this was not necessarily the most effective way to make sure that I would actually hit my goals in a healthy way that would also protect my mental health and so I read this book called the 12we year and I'm not going to dive into the whole detail about this book but the one thing that it does talk about is the idea that ultimately it's your actions that breed results we can all say that we want 100,000 subscribers on YouTube but if you are not consistently researching scripting posting filming promoting improving then you're never really going to hit that goal and so now instead of having scorecards like this I've now switched over to a more action-based scorecard thanks to this book so let me show you what I'm talking about so this is an example of what an action-based scorecard would look like but before we dive in the first thing that you're going to want to do is ask yourself what is the main goal that you want to achieve with your social media this quarter in my case I would would love to get 800,000 subscribers which means that I want to gain an extra 100,000 Subs now I ask myself what are some things that I can control to get closer to that goal because remember I can't control the amount of views or the subs that I get if I could then I would be the next MrBeast right but what I can control is being consistent in posting and making a solid effort in improving my videos and so what are the actions that I should be taking every single week to do that well for me I've identified that I need to script video I need to film videos upload them have a short form strategy to drive traffic to my YouTube channel and also have at least a weekly analytic review so I'm looking at the data and seeing how I can improve my thumbnails my titles my retention all those things once I've identified the core actions that I should be taking every single week to hit that goal of 800,000 subscribers which by the way is out of my control but at least I know me taking these actions allows me to be one step closer to that goal than not hitting it at all all and so what I did was I used notion to put in my main goal and then from there I had each week laid out under each week are my weekly actions and then under each weekly action I get really specific so for example script 3 videos a week well I have script one script two and script three film three videos a week I have video One video two video three short form I have all five um editing I have all five and then for the weekly YouTube analysis um I just have one and so what I do is by the end of each week on a Friday I'll review my action scorecard and ask myself did I accomplish these tasks so I'll ask myself did I do script one yes I did script two and I did script three great 100% on this action so I've completed it great and so I check that off next thing film three videos a week well truthfully I only filmed one video a week so I only accomplished a third of what this action required and so I don't get a checkbox here short form yes I actually did script all five videos so great I accomplished this and notice that this week's score is increasing as I check things off short form edit five videos a week I did do all five videos which is awesome so I also get a 100% score now I'm at 60% and then did I do my weekly YouTube analytic analysis I did so I get a score of 80% now inside the book the 12we year it talks about how you should try to aim for 85% every single week because then you'll be a lot closer to hitting your goal if you've accomplished at least 85% of those tasks we don't aim for Perfection Perfection doesn't exist things happen so I really appreciate that I also really like the idea of having a weekly score for how many tasks that I've completed that are essential to me hitting my goal because let's say that I'm consistently not hitting 80% let's say every single week for some reason I'm hitting 60% of my weekly actions and by the way my weekly actions typically don't really change but it can be adjusted if you would like and I'll talk about that a little later but let's say my weekly score and consistently is below 85% well then that tells me two things I'm either number one biting off way more than I can chew meaning if I'm consistently not filming three videos a week then maybe I'm at capacity and this is way more than I can handle so the following week I might adjust this down to two videos a week of filming instead of three the next thing that I appreciate about this score is it also allows me to ask myself whether or not I'm being distracted maybe I actually can film three videos a week but I can't for some reason because I'm always spending my time on Instagram stories and Instagram is not even a part of my goals and by the way I keep watching this video CU I'll tell you why but ultimately it allows me to just reflect and ask myself why am I not hitting this goal do I need to adjust how much I'm taking on as one person or do I need to be honest with myself and realize that maybe I'm not focusing on the right things or I'm spending too much time doing non-essential work another thing it allows me to do is adjust my routine too maybe it's not that I'm distracted but maybe it's because I'm tired all the time and that would require me to have an earlier bedtime or get 8 hours of sleep so I really like having this scorecard because it allows me to reflect and it gives me flexibility to adapt where I need whether it's within the scorecard itself or within my actual life and by the way I also use this concept for my own personal life for example one of my other goals this quarter is mastering my routine and so here I actually have my daily routine that I want to be able to hit every single week and I do the exact same thing where I score myself every single Friday on whether or not I did these things and it doesn't even have to be at the end of the week you could be checking these off as you go um but I find this really helpful and what you'll notice is within my quarterly plan I really only have two focuses and later on in this video I'm going to explain why that's important for me personally but beyond that if you actually read the book the 12we year he talks about how every 12 weeks you should really only have three goals Max and so that's why I only have two now I actually use the 12we year system in a much larger way outside of social media and I have a whole notion Board of how I goal set so if you would like me to go through my notion board and how I've set everything up for my personal life and also for my business life then make sure you comment below and let me know so I can make that video and if you're someone who doesn't necessarily want to do this on notion that is totally okay you can actually Google the 12we year scorecard and you're going to see a lot of examples of how other people are organizing their action-based scorecards I only did it on notion because I like using notion but you can do it in a completely different way the one thing I recommend is actually picking up the book because it does such a better job in explaining the whole concept of 12we year that I didn't necessarily cover in this video video I'm focusing on growing one platform only when I look back at my biggest career highlights it was always when I chose to focus for example when I spent an entire year simply focusing on growing my YouTube channel I grew my channel to 100,000 subscribers in that one year when I focused on just perfecting and growing my online course I went from not only making $1 million with that course but eventually $8 million within 4 years and so success leaves Clues and I am taking hints from my past self that there is value in focusing on one thing at a time now in case you missed my last video I actually documented what happened to my income and my social media platforms when I stopped posting for an entire year specifically I compared YouTube and Instagram and the results surprised me because even though I wasn't posting any new videos for an entire year on YouTube I still gained 20,000 subscribers and I earned over $100,000 in income and the reason is because people were still still finding me through search and YouTube was still in some sense pushing some of my older videos whereas on Instagram I actually lost thousands of followers the moment I stopped posting Instagram stopped pushing out my content and I earned zero income from the platform and so that experience alone really opened my eyes to which platform I wanted to invest most of my time in especially when I'm considering long-term growth and sustainability not only this what I found is for me I feel like the best impact I can make and the longer term impact I can make is on YouTube while I was away and when I wasn't posting for an entire year on social I never had anyone reach out to me saying that they missed my Instagram reals or that they missed my Instagram stories but many people said that they missed my YouTube videos now of course everyone is different the platform where you deliver the most value in is where your audience will likely go to as Tony Robin says where your focus goes is where energy flows what I also learned is that I can only focus on so many things at once especially now that I'm a solopreneur I need to manage my time wisely and even when I had a Content team and we were trying to be on every single platform I noticed that the quality of the content suffered and my creativity stifled as well I was mediocre at everything but not great at anything now this isn't to say that I'm not going to be on Instagram or any other social media platform but what I am saying is I'm only focused on growing YouTube while everything else I no longer have the pressure of wanting to build a huge following now if it happen s it happens but I'm no longer putting pressure on myself to grow on those platforms and if anything by taking away the pressure now those platforms are a lot more fun if you look over on my Instagram I'm sharing more things that are outside of my Niche which leads me to the next shift that I am going to be making and that is focusing on sharing my vibe and not necessarily just focusing my content around a niche now a lot of people do tell you to find a niche including myself because this is good advice when you're starting out and also also when you want to give someone a reason to want to follow you not only this following a niche or at least having some focus in your content is going to be great for algorithms to actually push out your content because they need consistent creators who talk about a particular subject in order to know what content to push out to people on their platforms to watch or to engage with and so there is a strategic element and it is sound advice but this is a short-term strategy and not necessarily a long-term strategy especially if you want to build a personal brand that people will actually remember and Miss because guess what when you only revolve your content around a niche yes you may grow but you put a huge risk on your channel on your personal brand on your content and the reason why is because niches can become obsolete if you tie your brand to a particular industry then if that industry goes kaput then there goes your brand for example if you spent a lot of your time talking about you know Apple products and all of a sudden apple is is no longer a thing then you've really screwed yourself when it comes to your personal brand you also end up becoming a commodity if you focus all of your content around a particular Niche the moment that you stop talking about that Niche your audience is not loyal to you they're just loyal to your content to your Niche so when you stop posting about that particular subject guess what they're going to go somewhere else to the next best person that talks about that particular topic not only this you as the Creator you will likely outgrow your niche as well and I'm speaking from personal experience I pigeon told myself into the niche of Instagram and while it worked and it helped me grow really fast the problem was eventually I outgrew the subject but I was still doing it I was still posting it because I was on this hamster wheel of pleasing an audience that expected that type of content from me and not only this the niche that I chose which is social media that changes all the time it was really exhausting to want to keep up with Trends and so like I said niching down and having a niche is a a great short-term strategy but not necessarily long-term and so how can we exactly future prooof Our Brands and be an Irreplaceable creator that people genuinely want to grow with and want to follow you for you well it's to focus on developing and sharing and embodying your Vibe what is a Vibe well for me personally I think a Vibe is you sharing your interest outside of your Niche it's you actually sharing your wisdom and the experiences that you've gone through in your life out side of the topics that you're known for it's about leaning into your personality it's about letting your personality shine having a particular aesthetic it's about not just delivering information but focusing on how you want people to feel after they've receiv received the information it's about sharing aspects of your personal life and by the way you don't have to share every single thing of your personal life but the things that you want to share that you find interesting because while your Niche can attract an initial audience it's really your vibe that will actually retain them and turn them into a tribe of people that want to follow you for life to me this is how you avoid becoming a commodity because now people are following you for you and not necessarily the information that you provide they want to know about your routines they want to know about your day they want to know about what's up in your life they want to know you know what your plans are for the future outside of what you're known for and I find that incredibly valuable even for me there are a lot of creators that I follow and then I unfollow when they switch niches but there are creators that I still follow even though they've evolved even though they've changed because they took me through that journey of their evolution and I feel invested in it and so how exactly am I implementing this how am I going to be sharing my vibe a little bit more while still pleasing the algorithm well for me YouTube is still going to remain an educational platform for me this is where I share more of my tutorials it's going to be a little bit more Niche base where I talk about content creation social media all those things however for my short form content outside of YouTube or even within my YouTube shorts let's say it's going to be my creative Outlet where you guys can get to know me a lot better this is where I might share my interest I might share my routine I might share things that I've done that don't relate to my Niche um I might share my personal experiences my unfiltered thoughts I really like this strategy because there's actually a lot of random things that I genuinely want to create content about but I don't want the commitment of making that what I'm known for so for example there might be a really cool productivity tool that I want to share with you guys that I find helpful for my own life but I don't necessarily want to be a productivity Guru and I don't necessarily want to spend time creating a long form video on or maybe there is this new beauty product that I am dying to share with you guys but I don't necessarily want to be a beauty influencer it can also allow you to test your content before you commit to it so for example if there is a concept that I might be interested in developing and investing time in creating a long form video for over on my YouTube channel I might create a smaller version of that and put that on Instagram or Tik Tok and see how the audience reacts to it before I commit my time to actually making a longer form version of that it can also be within your branding for me I really like Kawaii things like I really like super cutesy things and so I actually you know redid my whole office to show those elements so for example my keyboard literally has cats or bunnies on it this is a cloud this cat and a Moon Star thing I have a freaking like potato that's just up there on my shelf and so these are things that I genuinely love like look at my coaster this is like a cat coaster and so even within the things that you put in your video that's not necessarily information but is like in the background of your videos can also attract the people that have similar interests to you at the end of the day we're often attracted to creators that we feel the most likeness with and so by me doing all these things is because I genuinely like them but it's also because I want to attract an audience that likes those things too because it makes my job as a Creator a lot lot more enjoyable and I'm able to build a community that I genuinely want to contribute to and want to be a part of next shift is I'm now focusing more on spending my time doing permanent content rather than Vanishing content and I'm specifically talking about any content that only lasts 24 hours like Instagram stories what I found is I used to spend a lot of time on Instagram stories I would put a lot of pressure on myself to show up every single day on stories because I loved seeing the instant gratification of seeing how many views and also getting instant interactions from my community but what I found especially when I took a year off of social media and I reflected on this I realized I spent way more time doing Instagram stories and that time could have been spent making more short form content that basically share the same thing I used to drop so many valy bombs so many you know behind the scenes of what I'm doing in my life on Instagram stories and I feel like I should have turned those into into more permanent content pieces that would actually give me more results in the long term now in this video where I actually examined my social media when I took that time off I noticed that the one piece of content that got me the most subscribers was actually a YouTube short it was a YouTube short that YouTube decided to push out even though I posted it two years ago and so what I'm realizing is whoa instead of spending all that time creating Instagram stories cuz sometimes for me the amount of time that I spend on Instagram stories and creating good stories for you guys actually was the same amount of time of putting together an Instagram re or a YouTube short or a Tik Tok and so I'm realizing whoo there is so much gold that I kept sharing in my Instagram stories that would only last 24 hours that would necessarily not give me any benefit once it expired and yes you could argue that you could put it in your highlights but if you put it in your highlights within Instagram story it's basically assuming that that person already follows you or found your profile whereas if you you turn that into an Instagram real there is potential that a non-f follower is going to be able to find you through their explore feed or through their feed in general because now Instagram pushes out people you don't even follow and so personally for me yes I see value in Instagram stories of cultivating community and creating content really quickly and also encouraging DMS or even selling through Instagram stories but for me personally I'm not going to be spending as much time as I did before now on the topic of no longer putting pressure on myself to be on every single platform or to have a goal of growing every single platform and also not posting every single day on certain mediums my next shift that I'm making in my social media strategy is to integrate unpredictability now what I mean by this is I used to announce my posting schedule to the world hey guys you can expect a Weekly Newsletter from me every Sunday hey guys you can expect a YouTube video from me every Wednesday now this is great to establish Cadence to establish I guess a sense of trust or to establish you know consistency but it also burnt me out like crazy and took away my creative freedom what I mean by this is I used to have a newsletter and it was this really fun outlet for me to write whatever was on my mind without feeling confined to a niche and for me to just speak freely to a more contained audience it was something that I genuinely loved doing until I made it a thing until I told people that hey this is going to be a Weekly Newsletter so you can expect a new email sent to your inbox every Sunday at 10:00 a. m. I found that the moment I set a schedule for my newsletter was the moment my newsletter almost became a commodity now I put myself in the same league as every other newsletter that gets sent out every Sunday at 900 a.
m. or 10: a. m.
or whatever and because I know my audience is likely subscribed to a lot of newsletters because I was sending it weekly it no longer became a special thing and not only this because I forced myself to write a new email every single week you could see that the quality of the emails were pretty much inconsistent and declining that's where I learned that sometimes having a schedule is great but other times you might want to keep certain platforms or certain content pieces without a schedule so that you have that creative freedom to put out good and so that's where I learned that even though sometimes having a schedule is great it's also okay to let people miss you let people miss your amazing content and to also genuinely focus on quality versus quantity and I actually learned about this concept through my friend glow who's been able to generate six to seven figures every single year without a posting schedule here's what she has to say all right letting people miss you the sounds counterintuitive probably it's all the advice that tells you to be consistent and show up non-stop but like you have seen many of us have burnt out from that and I've been posting on social media since 2001 so it's been a long time I've been on Instagram for 13 years and at the point where I Disappeared for the first time I posted on average 1.
