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As an introvert, social media marketing is full of potential minefields and awkward interactions. You don’t have to talk to anyone in person if you’re not on video, but you do have to expend a lot of energy to schedule and maintain pretty constant communication with your audience behind the computer screen. 

To excel at social media marketing and management, it’s best to find solutions that work well with your strengths. Your ability to work alone or in small groups in a focused way is certainly an asset. Let’s take a look at social media solutions that work best for your personality type.

More Data, Less Intense Social Expectations

If you’re using a social media tool that provides dashboard metrics for your managers or clients, the data says it all. It may be worth investing in software that allows you to present everything concisely in an email to your clients, especially if you’re running your own agency. That way, you can avoid elaborate phone calls and long meetings with the pressure of disclosing and describing every metric. 

If you’re looking for a social media management tool, consider:

• Falcon.io
• Sprout Social
• Buffer
• Hubspot
• HootSuite
• HeyOrca

In addition to their helpfulness with dashboard-style presentations, these tools also help you automate and organize your tasks, leading to an overall less chaotic social media situation.

Schedule Your Days Accordingly in 5 Steps

Introverts need breaks from the constant stress and noise of communication. As long as you’re in charge of your own schedule, you can manage this yourself in five simple steps:

1. Identify the most taxing tasks: For many introverts, this will include long in-person events, meetings, and networking events. Twitter chats and other live events, even just online, can also prove quite taxing to someone who only handles large amounts of social interaction in small doses.  
2. Identify tasks that bring joy to your day: Are you interested in creating social media strategies or drafting social media posts all at once? Write down the social media tasks you love the most. This is especially important if you have a social anxiety disorder, as it will help you focus on the positive rather than the negative.
3. Take a look at your workday structure: There are probably some things you can’t avoid deciding on, like meetings. Aside from those items, find the flexibility in your day.
4. Balance out your tasks: By controlling the amount of heavily interactive tasks you have to deal with in a given day, you’ll find a more balanced workload — and avoid the overload of pressure-filled interactions and expectations. Preparation is the key to success for many introverts.
5. Evaluate quarterly: Because our personal and business needs change, it’s ideal to reassess your methods every quarter. 

Outsource Tasks Better Suited for Outgoing Personalities

Every introvert has tasks they hate. If you’re not up to doing live streams but want to include them as part of your social media strategy, congratulations: Now you know what to hire someone else to do for you. 

Everyone, regardless of personality type, has strengths and weaknesses. Now that you know what doesn’t work for you, find an expert to do it instead while you focus on a grand social media strategy.  

If you’re working with a team, even remotely, you can adopt design-thinking methodology to make better use of each team member’s strength and communication style. In this structure, teams focus on solutions and work towards them, rather than build a team around eliminating problems. This methodology focuses on attributes like empathy, positivity, curiosity, flexibility and willingness to collaborate on small teams. 

As an introvert, you’ll have the opportunity to add ideas or contribute independently to a project rather than find yourself forced to present in front of a large audience or represent the entire business at a networking event. 

Social media is a natural fit for introverts. While the field itself is social, most of the research, writing, and scheduling is independent work. It’s pretty simple to plug social media creation, and you can always stay sane with controlled scheduling and a focus on data presentation. 

Evaluate Constant Connection

Social media is now the lifeblood of marketing for many businesses. 80% of marketers boast better website traffic thanks to a robust presence on Twitter and Facebook. That’s great news for your job security, but it brings with it the pressure of being constantly connected, worried about what others think about the brand you’re representing, and maybe even fearing taking a break. 

When you’re put into high-pressure social situations while you’re carrying all that background stress, problems related to your introversion can intensify. Worrying about Twitter engagement and sneaking peeks at your phone during a family reunion or at a wedding is an indication of constant connectivity — and stress. You need to break away from the screen once in a while, whether that means setting realistic boundaries with your boss or hiring a backup social media expert. 

Express Your Expertise

For introverts, expressing a personality (even if it’s a brand personality) and broadcasting it to thousands of fans on the Twitterverse can seem more than a little intimidating. Instead of thinking of it like the electronic equivalent of speaking to an auditorium full of people, think about it like this: You’re the expert. People are paying attention because you’ve said something worth listening to. 

If you approach social media interaction from the standpoint of your expertise and willingness to help others, it’s a lot less scary. Plus, being friendly, informative, solutions-focused, and helpful is what great content is all about. 

You’re behind the screen, and your social media personality is whatever you want it to be. Once you’ve organized your time and figured out a strategy, you have the agency to determine how you want the world to see you. All that’s left to decide is what you’re going to say.

Author: Adrian Johansen

Adrian Johansen is a writer and marketer in the Pacific Northwest. She sees life as an opportunity for learning, and loves to share knowledge with others. You can find more of her work here.