Most people, particularly solopreneurs, are playing the social media game completely wrong.

Their profile is littered with a strange mix of personal life and business promotions, which ends up confusing both their clients and their real friends.

Furthermore, keeping up a constant stream of content to post flat-out burns most people out.

Soon, three no good options emerge:

1. Become a social media addict who constantly posts new things on all platforms.
2. Abandon social media and the potential business growth that could come with it.
3. Don’t post often and reap very little benefits, while still somehow seeming to waste a lot of time and energy keeping up this social media game.

What if there was a better way? I’ve found the key to all things is to simplify your approach.

You don’t need 40 products to begin. Just one that’s a rockstar.

You don’t need to post content about 50 different messages.

You don’t need to be on your social accounts 24/7. Yes, you really can take some time off.

It is not that we have too little time to do all the things we need to do , it is that we feel the need to do too many things in the time we have. — Gary Keller

Sharing your message, with focus and power, on social media doesn’t need to be complicated. You just need to be strategic, disciplined, and focused.

1. Decide Your Core Focus

Success isn’t that difficult; it merely involves taking twenty steps in a singular direction. Most people take one step in twenty directions. — Benjamin Hardy

You can’t become a master at everything all at once. After all, you’re not Superman.

Be strategic and do fewer things with more focus.

What one breakthrough would blow up your business?

What medium are you most powerful in? Is it blogging, podcasting, Instagram, or something else?

For example, I place 90% of my focus on writing. Writing is one of the most powerful ways I communicate my message and it’s the communication method that I’m best at.

Whenever I use other mediums (social media posts, podcasts, videos), most of the time it’s so I can bounce around ideas for my blog.

I don’t just get on every social platform simply to create different audiences about different things in different places. I have a core central hub and I redirect people to that.

Where can you serve your audience in the best way? Pick that platform and master it. All the magic happens in one core place. Everything else is just gravy.

Don’t try and master every single platform at once. And certainly don’t try to master every type of content at once.

Pick one. Master it. Make money from it. Then try other stuff.

2. Use the Redirect Strategy

Mastery is not a function of genius or talent. It is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge.— Robert Greene

Now that you’ve decided on your core communication method, host this on one of your social profiles or on your website.

This is where people come to hang out and be served by you at a higher level (business products) if they’re hungry for more.

Now, what’s your strategy for other platforms? Do you want to create different audiences on different platforms talking about different things experiencing different messages and different ideas?

No!

That creates an enormous amount of incongruency, confuses you, confuses your audience, and prompts the all-too-common content creation nightmare.

Your strategy on all platforms, except the core hub, is to gently redirect people to where you want them to go.

Post intriguing and valuable things on each platform and funnel your audience to the place where you can serve them at the highest level (i.e, your core hub).

3. Follow the Rules When You Do

Although most people immediately understand the redirect strategy and start using it, they also start to become lazy.

Posting square pictures on LinkedIn that you clearly created for Instagram.

Posting everything only to Twitter and then screenshotting tweets and posting the pictures to other places.

Not going to work.

You might get some traction, but it’ll be hard to rise through the ranks and get great ratings if you’re just copying and pasting everything. Not all content is designed for all platforms.

Stupid as it may be, since all social media platforms are (essentially) the same, you still have to follow the rules.

There are certain rules and certain things people expect on each platform. So, you can’t go spamming your core hub on each one. People will know. You have to be strategic.

What do you think I’m going to do with this article? Just post pictures and links of it everywhere? No. I’m going to pull perhaps the three most intriguing quotes, make them into high-quality Instagram photos with beautiful backdrops, and then subtly include the link if they want to read the rest. If you clicked through to this article from one of my social profiles, pay attention to how it was structured. I’ll apply a similar method to each other platform that I post this on.

Be very strategic. Make stuff that gets attention but doesn’t turn your audience off.

4. Embrace Your Size

We long to connect, all of us. We long to be noticed, to be cared for, to matter. — Seth Godin

So many new infopreneurs and new businesses try and set up their profiles with a whole bunch of fancy (and expensive) stuff that’s for the most part unnecessary.

Yes, your profiles should look nice, but you should also be authentic. You’re a real human and your customers want to be treated well by another real human. They don’t care for your big fancy stats and number or the Lambo ads … Or how cool you are.

You don’t need to overinflate or pretend your audience is bigger than it is. Just serve the people who are there and more will come.

As I was listening to an interview with Pat Flynn over his new book, Superfans, he said the easiest and fastest way to build more connected and more loyal fans for your social media is to simply privately message some of your followers each day to show that you really care and want to help them.

Obviously, if you have 100,000 followers you can’t do this with everybody, but you can start a few conversations each day, and word will spread quickly about how awesome you are at being personal and engaged.

If you’re small, you can do this with literally everyone who’s following you, today!

I did this with one of my accounts and I was able to help people. To start a conversation. To refine the content that I produce to be more beneficial.

And it was so, so, easy.

Don’t worry about the fact that you’re not big yet. Most people aren’t. It will come eventually if you’re serious about helping your audience and spreading the message.

5. You Are Always Selling

People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons. — Zig Ziglar

Some people I talk to have this false belief that selling is simply about money.

It reminds me of John Reese, a legendary internet marketer back in the day, who said something to the effect: “you have to sell the free stuff just as much as you do the paid stuff.”

Your content and your ideas are useless if you can’t get their attention.

Why did you read this article? Did the headline draw you in?

Am I glad I put in the work to sell you on why you need to read this?

Are you glad that you bought it?

Selling is the most generous thing you could do if your prospect truly needs what you have and they’re in pain.

You’re helping them. It’s just a skill you need to master.

Let go of all your false beliefs that you have to put on this big show and master 500 different closes so you can ninja-stop objections.

Your tactical knowledge will never pull through if your mindset isn’t in the right place.

Embrace selling your message because people need it. Own it. Truly own what you do.

Sharing your ideas is selling. Getting people to share your posts is selling.

Every word, image, audio file, and video you post is selling someone something.

Everything is selling. Everything.

If you have any moral objections, apprehensions, or fears about selling, then you’re not going to succeed in this game.

Selling is just communication. It’s igniting the fire under others to get them as excited about your ideas as you are. It’s helping them to change. To get the same results that have worked for you and for your other clients.

Selling comes in the form of time, emotion, energy, effort, action, and money. It’s a lot bigger than most people realize.

Start getting your audience to commit. Get them to engage in ways that you know will ultimately help them way more than you. Selling is solving their problems.

That’s why you got into social media for your business in the first place.

You are a salesperson. And proud of it.

6. Understand Who

No, your message doesn’t apply to everyone. You have to accept that.

Regardless of how valuable your message is, regardless of how much you’re trying to give it to them, some people just won’t bite.

Jesus, the greatest messenger of all, was giving away literally a priceless message (eternal life and everlasting happiness), didn’t charge any money for it, and yet was still rejected and scorned by many people, who didn’t want to change themselves.

You may come across people who need your message and still refuse to accept it. Be there if they come round. They may be still learning and growing. Be patient. If they reject your message, wish them the best and move on.

You have to realize that people still have the decision whether or not to improve themselves or their situation by doing business with you.

If they want to stay stuck with their current problem because they’re scared to change, sadly that means, that you have to let them make that decision. After you’ve tried everything to help someone, you move on.

When people visit your social profiles and even have conversations with you, and then they decide that your service just isn’t right for them, don’t try and force a bad fit. Just let them stay if they want to.

The game of social media is voluntary. You put ideas out because you care. If others care, they will chime in. If not, they find somebody else.

Nobody is ever, at any time, obligated to listen to you. So when they give you attention, respect that.

And when the wrong people move on, it gives you a chance to focus on who the right people are. You’re constantly honing in your message.

Who, really, do you want to serve?

Who do you think you could get a result for?

What does the dream business look like?

When you get inside the head of who you really want to serve, not just who you could serve, then everything changes.

You play bigger. You post content that resonates. You create a powerful conversation.

Refine your message and don’t be afraid to let the wrong people move on.

Conclusion: Stay Focused

Social media is inherently designed to be fickle, to cause distraction, and to be a waste of time.

The creators of these platforms want you to spend and waste several hours a day on them so they can better understand your data and show you more ads and make more money.

They want to keep people distracted.

Hence, when you, as a business owner, start approaching this game with the goal of being very deliberate, very focused, and very strategic, you’re going to get pitfalls in your way.

Just remember, you don’t consume, you create.

You are here for different reasons. Own that. Don’t simply download social media apps because it might be useful. Truly evaluate your pros and cons.

And to be completely honest, social media business growth is simply not for everyone. It’s a decision you need to strategically evaluate, not simply a bandwagon to jump on because everyone else is doing it.

Remember your goals. Authentically connect. And go for it.

This article was originally published on Medium.com. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out at elijah@elijahcorless.com.