Social media fatigue: how my break from Instagram helped my business grow

Dec 3

I’ve just taken an entire month off posting on Instagram. Yes, it was scary.

Yes, I did feel like my business was going to implode when I made the decision to take a step back — I know is sounds a bit sensationalist, but it did get to that point — and I thought that I’d no longer be relevant and my competitors would surpass me, if I wasn’t always creating something new.

Social media fatigue is a real thing now. Whether it’s a hangover from hours locked indoors or the rise of small businesses in the age of the social platform. But having only posted about 3 times in the space of 8 weeks there have been benefits to both my mindset and positives then it comes to the growth of my business too. I know it sounds counterintuitive, but I’m not lying: I’ve got numbers to prove it.

This article is all about my experience, what the tipping point was for me to take such a drastic decision, and lessons you can take into your own biz life, if you’re finding it all as draining as I did.

My serious social media fatigue: a vicious cycle

Me and social media, social media and I don’t have a love/hate relationship. It’s more like a fear/hate relationship.

I always have this expectation on myself to be able to do everything. I’ve studied a lot of marketing strategies and I do understand them. I’ve had Asana boards dedicated to storing ideas, a system for creating new content, the conversion tactics to keep things ticking over. This time last year I was getting on totally fine with implementing it. It is in my repertoire to keep my social media squeaky clean and engaging.

So if it was within my means to keep my Instagram feed up-to-date (and see decent enough results), why should I stop? Why should I ask someone else to do it for me? My mindset at the time was: ‘Asking for help will show everyone you aren’t capable or your knowledge is inadequate’ and ‘If you let the momentum drop and post less often, anyone who is following you will think you can’t handle it anymore and you’re getting overwhelmed.’

I didn’t want to show weakness. Not just weakness to my followers, but I felt like I was admitting defeat to myself.

(Disclaimer: I have two younger brothers who are amazing at every sport they’ve ever tried. I also went to an incredibly competitive grammar school — think Mean Girls on steroids — so there were certain things ingrained in me to always be better, do more and always overthink what other people *might* be thinking about you. Anyway, that’s a whole other can of worms that we can get into another day, if you’re not bored of my moaning quite yet.)

So I just carried on posting regularly, caught in the middle of this internal discourse between one side of my brain and the other.

The comparison game (and subverting it)

I think the turning point was actually when I got engaged. Sounds like a weird time to hit a wall? I know, right! Stick with me here... Anyway, we started to get asked a ton of questions about our wedding, when it was going to be and where.

All these arbitrary ideas of what a wedding should be, white wedding cakes, walking down the aisle, 100 people staring at you all day. Hmmm, maybe not my idea of fun. It crossed my mind that my wedding doesn’t have to be like everyone else’s, just because ‘that’s what people do’ (and accept them blindly without question or reason).

At the same time, I had some amazing projects to work on, but I didn’t want to give Instagram the energy that I could be spending on clients (or even more importantly, on myself). I was resistant and resentful of how much of my day was being spent creating stories. I’d intend on doing about a minute’s worth of video in the mornings, format it, write captions and check links. I’d get sucked into a blackhole and reemerge 3 hours later, when all my morning energy had been used up and I haven’t started my client work yet.

But then I applied the same thinking about my wedding to my social media. If I don’t have to follow the traditional idea of a wedding, and I can just do something that feels right for me, why do I have to do what everyone else does on social media?

Instead, I should approach my Instagram with more of a mindset that puts me first, before everyone else. I’ve got to make sure that it feels right and not follow the crowd.

It felt weird and a little uncomfortable, because I had that tiny red-horned Alice sitting on my shoulder, arching her eyebrows at me, scolding me because “don’t forget, consistency is the key to growth”.

I’ve been told five too many times that I should have a marketing plan that works for me even when you’re not at a screen, so I felt guilty putting my Instagram on hold. In all honesty, I didn’t have a back-up plan for taking time off the platform.

I didn’t have 3 months of posts planned out and prepped already. (I hate batch writing captions and often write them at the last minute.)

Anyway, I did it. I didn’t post for over a month. There was the odd story, but it was just photos of me in the sea or eating/drinking nice things. Nothing work related.

After the initial shock of it, the guilt eased. I had more time to spend on client work. Or I’d finish work earlier than usual and spend more time with friends. It felt juicy and wholesome.

Limiting my time on social media and the impact on my business

A few weeks back into posting (still maybe only once or twice a week though) and I went to open up MailChimp to send my regular fortnightly email (it’s called ‘The Industry Insider’). Usually I get hit with a ‘You’ve had 2 new sign-ups in the last week.’ Instead, this time, it told me I had 15 new sign-ups. A double-take pushed me to go look at the stats for my email list. And then to my Google Analytics account. Here’s what I found:

In the month prior to taking a break off IG: 9 new email subscribers

During the month I took off IG: 49 new email subscribers
Overall: 544% increase

In the month prior to taking a break off IG: 202 new website users
During the month I took off IG: 313 website users
Overall: 155% increase

So from 10+ hours a week posting on Instagram and a few sign-ups to zero hours and so so much more engagement with potential clients.

How? And why? It baffled me as much as you are confused right now.

It seems that, when I was posting regularly on Instagram (2-3 posts a week and stories probably 5 days a week), people didn’t have a reason to leave the platform.

If they wanted advice for writing their own copy or tips when tweaking their website, they could just jump onto my Instagram profile and find something new to chew on. But when they wanted something from me when I wasn’t posting as much/at all, they needed to go elsewhere for new content/value/learnings/insight from me.

They had no choice but to go to my link in bio. Makes sense, right?!

Along with the podcast I recorded a few months ago and the blog posts I have written over the years, it was doing the work for me, without me needing to be at a screen a crazy amount of time.

If you want to see what the return on investment (ROI) for social media versus your website (and where it’s really worth putting your energy), I wrote an article discussing this. You can read it here.

I’ve now limited the amount of time I can use Insta to 30 minutes a day. I focus on the bits of Instagram that I do actually enjoy — which is talking to you, real humans with real work-life-balance struggles, in the DMs — and the momentum is continuing.

What to do if you’re experiencing social media fatigue too...

Give yourself permission to shut out the noise and shut down the app.

Use this time to stretch, get a coffee, take 5 mins of fresh air, something that brings you life. I’ve just downloaded Babbel+ so I can relearn Spanish ( — I did a 6 month trip to Central America when I was just outta school and loved it but can’t remember my verb endings anymore). Honestly, you get so much more time to dedicate to things that actually matter than you would if you were stressing over which hashtags to use. Your business will not implode if you don’t post for a few weeks. Trust me.

2. Honestly, think about how you use Instagram when you’re not working.

If you find yourself mindlessly scrolling, there is a real chance that your audience might be mindlessly scrolling too. (I’ll put my hand up for this too, I still do it, I cannot lie about that). If I’m scrolling without really using my brain -- I mean, I can’t remember 99% of the posts I’ve read today — it’s likely your future customers are too. They won’t miss you if you’re gone for a wee while.

3. Think about what your audience really needs from you; stop being noisy.

If you feel ineffective and no one is listening (or if you feel inclined to ramp up your frequency of posting just to get heard above everyone else in this space), this often leads to waffle. You may just be creating content just to be seen, without the intention behind it and people get used to not getting a ton of value straight off the bat, they might start ignoring content. If you’re feeling ignored or your efforts are futile, either take a break -- it’ll help you get more perspective. Or work out how you can be clearer and more succinct in your message: that means posting less but getting more engagement.

4. Limit the amount of time you allow yourself to use social media.

You’ll actually start to think about how you want to use your precious time, rather than being sucked down the rabbit hole. If you’ve got an iPhone, you can set a timer that goes off when you’ve used up your 30 minutes. I’ve got one set up on my iPhone AND in Instagram, so I get told off twice for going over time. You can even set a password that locks you out of the platform after your allocated time.

5. Don’t take everything you see from the experts as gospel.

You can’t do everything yourself and piecing together all the ‘hacks’ and strategies and tips you have soaked up means you’re always fighting a losing battle: they won’t all work in conjunction and will make you feel exhausted in a pretty short space of time (hello, social media breakdown!). Just pick and choose what feels right and is actually manageable. And if it still feels draining and you’re starting to hate marketing yourself altogether, hire someone else who can take that weight off your shoulders.

6. Reconnect to what you want, instead of looking at everyone else’s shiny lives.

Back when I was forever-scrolling, I felt inadequate that everyone else was able to work from wherever they wanted and people were living a life away from their screens, going on trips and all that jazz that I felt I wasn’t able to do. So when I took a step back from the platform, instead of comparing my life to everyone else’s (focusing on my flaws), I had the extra brain space/band width to be able to reconnect more to what I actually wanted. So I booked myself a week surfing in Portugal to celebrate my Insta break (and also kinda because it was my 30th too).

Running a business isn’t just shiny bits. And people who pretend it is all sunshine and lollipops can go jump off a bridge (I’m looking at you Instagram influencers who make us all feel bad about feeling unproductive and not having a perfect 2023 plan already finished).

I want to be transparent, so you know you’re not the only person in the universe feeling these feels.

If you’ve found this even a teensy bit reassuring, I think you’d enjoy reading my fortnightly mini-marketing guides.

There’s always a lil’ sneak peek into what’s going on in my business right now, the barriers I’m facing, what I’m doing to overcome them (and particularly what hasn’t worked for me).