This article is an excerpt from a past monthly letter. If you enjoy this kind of grounding support, sign up to receive the monthly coaching package: it includes an article like this one, journaling prompts, creative practices, spiritual rituals and supportive tools to help you navigate your rebellious path as an artist or creative entrepreneur.

For better or worse, social media has reshaped how we communicate with each other. It’s also brought a lot of changes as to how businesses, big or small, engage with customers. As impactful as social media can be, I don’t buy that it is the only way to market an online business. However, it’s definitely a sales channel you shouldn’t neglect, especially when you’re starting out.

Whether your business is a good fit for social media or not, you also need to take into consideration if it’s a world that’s good for you, as a business owner. For a lot of us sensitive, conscious and introverted entrepreneurs, social media can leave us drained, overwhelmed and a bit hopeless as to how it can really succeed for us.

Social media as a whole is noisy, buzzing, flashy. You’re constantly bombarded by other people’s ideas, thoughts, energies. If you’re the kind of person that feeds off that, you’re set. If not, engaging in social media without some kind of structure is a losing proposition. It has the potential to literally take all your energy.

For a lot of new entrepreneurs that look up how to start a business and how to market it, comes from social media references. More times than not, those references are part of the people that feed off social media without getting drained. That means they aren’t on the same playing field than the sensitive, conscious and introverted entrepreneurs out there. Consequently, the energy it takes them to do the same tasks on social media is drastically less than it would take you or I.

Rather than to out-social media these social (media) butterflies, you need to adjust how you approach it. You cannot play by their rules because you don’t have the same “social DNA”, so you’ll need to make up your own rules to survive.

5 rules to align your social media strategy with your introverted nature

Believe you can be you and succeed

“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Gandhi

You don’t have to be loud, flashy and bold to share your message. Your gift as a sensitive being is your sensitivity: your ability to hear, feel and see what most people don’t. You may also have a desire to understand and explain things with more depth.

You might see other entrepreneurs beautifully showing up with their vibrant colours and achieve massive success in their business. It doesn’t mean your softer hues cannot obtain the same level of success.

Your beauty is in the nuances and the depth you can provide – use this gift to your advantage.

Questions to guide your process:

In your industry, is there a concept where most people scratch the surface you could explore more in-depth?
Are there polarizing thoughts and opinions you have about specific topics related to your craft?
How can you show your audience and dream clients that you truly care and understand them? Which pain point isn’t addressed properly?

2. Choose platforms and formats that align with your nature, personality and purpose

Oftentimes when we start a business, we tend to duplicate and what we first see is usually the obvious. It doesn’t mean that’s the only way: it’s just the way most people use the path to least resistance to get noticed.

Being sensitive, conscious and introverted myself (INFJ and empath here!), I simply cannot use Instagram the same way my extroverted business besties do. Showing up on live videos 5 times a week, uploading videos everyday and simply spending time on this (overwhelming) platform drains the precious energy I need to serve my clients in the best way possible.

Some platforms might be very effective when it comes to building relationships with potential clients, but there are other things to take into consideration for your social media strategy: aligning the platforms and formats to your nature, personality and purpose as an individual.

For example, after having experimented with Instagram for 6-8 months, I found that it was robbing away my creativity, my mental clarity and my focus. I still use it because I genuinely enjoy connecting with like-minded people and it’s an easy way to do so, but I’ve adapted my strategy to make it work for me.

Here’s what I mean: I love sharing and teaching topics in-depth, in an intimate setting where I can attend to each individual. I also love to write, take my time to articulate my ideas and create beautiful and helpful guides for my audience. I like artsy aesthetics! I couldn’t find a way to fully be myself and work on my purpose with 15s slides, live videos and tiny squares. But it’s a great way for me to show the behind-the-scenes of my business, and invite people to my other platforms so that I can build more intimate relationships with them on a deeper level (blog, podcast, FB group, email list).

Looking at your nature, personality and purpose:

Intuitively, which platform(s) sound like a right fit for you?
On which platform do you tend to spend your time? What about your current clients?
How do you best express yourself: in video, in writing, in audio?

3. Clarify the message you’re passionate about

As an introvert myself, I know that if we don’t have something important to share, we usually stay quiet. The reason why you’re not showing up “as others are” on social media might not be because you “can’t be consistent” or you “don’t have the right strategy”. Actually it might be because you’re not passionate enough about your message.

I want to be clear. I’m not saying you don’t believe in what you do or yourself, but at times, when we’re still struggling to find the right way to verbalize our offer, we tend to shy away from it. It may mean you had the right stem, but strayed from the core of what you originally wanted to do. It can also be that you still haven’t gone through enough trial & error to hit the right buttons. In any case, rather than to insist on pumping out content, if something doesn’t feel right, it may be time to go back to the drawing board and adjust parts of your communications.

Questions to guide your process:

How do you feel about the latest post or stories you’ve shared?
Did it come from your heart or your mind?
How could you make sure your next message comes from your heart?
What do you truly care about? What seems to be the most helpful for your clients?

4. Step into your quiet (and powerful) leadership

You can be sensitive, conscious and introverted, and be a leader. They are not mutually exclusive aspects.

By trying to mimic entrepreneurs with extroverted energy, the truth is that you strip yourself of the leader tag, because you’re simply following someone else. The only way you can be a leader is to be yourself is by accepting your personality, weirder traits and all, and share what comes from your heart. With 8 billion people on the planet there’s most likely someone that needs to hear what you have to say, today.

Questions to guide your process:

Who are the business owners, brands and people around you that you look up to? This can be outside of your own industry.
Why do you look up to them?
Can you point out a pattern between all of them?
What can you say about the type of leadership that attracts you?
How can you integrate some similarities and aspects to what you have to offer, while remaining yourself?

5. Set supportive boundaries to manage your energy

Typically, sensitive beings like us recharge in solitude. We can be social and enjoy being around people, but that’s not what fuels our energy. That’s why setting supportive boundaries, knowing that you fully recharge in solitude, is crucial to help you gather the energy you need to show up and share your message on social media.

Essentially you need to create a schedule for your social media interactions. Otherwise, the sense of duty will constantly suck you in during all times of the day rather than keeping your focus on other areas of your business that need you. You also need to create these time slots for yourself in order to be able to avoid feeling like you should be doing like anyone else. Unfortunately, you’re simply not the kind of person that can always jump on and get social just like that. So plan ahead and stick to it.

Questions to guide your process:

Do you have space during the week to recharge?
Would it be supportive for you to set specific times during the day to show up and engage on social media?
Could you batch record videos a morning, instead of having to create videos every day?
Can you plan for buffer days/time between each social media session?

There are parts of social media that can be a great tool for marketing your business but you don’t have to use all of it, all the time. While you can definitely test out what works for you, I strongly advise that you don’t put so much pressure on yourself to keep up with your extroverted counterparts. It’ll leave you feeling in a constant dynamic of compensating and it’s something I’d love to avoid for you.