Thank you to Jo Ann Lorraine for her info rich overview of Social Media for 2025. It was great having so many of you on the call and actively engaged.
3 TAKEAWAYS FROM Bricks Need Mortar’s Social Media for 2025:
- Know Your Audience & Meet Them Where They Are:
Figure out where your ideal customers spend time and adapt content to their platform behaviors. - Align Your Content with Platform “Micro-Cultures”:
Each platform has a series of written and unwritten rules. Spend time on each app as a user (or hire someone who gets it). Recycling the same exact post across platforms rarely works the way you want it to. - Prioritize Goals & Be Strategic with Resources:
Track your metrics monthly or quarterly (not daily!) to spot trends and pivot without burnout.
And if you missed the call, view the Replay here!
As promised, Jo Ann has provided written answers to all the questions that came up in the final minutes of the call.
What is the expected investment to hire an expert/outsource this job?
If you need supplemental support the monthly cost to contract someone would sit somewhere between $750 and $2000, depending on your needs.
If you were looking to contract someone to fully manage your social channels tip to toe, you should expect to invest between $1000 and $5000, depending on your specific needs and the contractor’s experience managing social media.
Things like frequency of posting, types of posts, data analysis, number of social media channels to manage, etc. can affect the amount a manager will charge for the job.
Keep in mind that some social media professionals prefer to either manage the channels (planning content, data analysis, goal settings, audience engagement, etc.) or create the content (design, video editing, etc.). Some, like myself, will offer to bundle both jobs into one service. Be sure you know what your potential hire’s services are and whether your expectations match what they can offer.
For a team of 1 what would be your recommendation for the frequency and type of content on Instagram?
I would recommend you aim for at least one permanent post (e.g. grid posts on IG) a week and sprinkle in some temporary posts (e.g. stories on IG) a week as well. This will keep your account alive in the algorithm.
Typically, video content will take you far if you’re just looking to post something general. But I do recommend thinking about what you want to say and who you are trying to speak to specifically in the post and deciding what format (short video, single post, carousel post, daily series of posts, etc.) gets that message across best.
Can you address Posts vs. Stories on Instagram?
Generally speaking, I like to use permanent posts (e.g. grid posts on IG) for the most planned and polished content, announcements, etc.
Temporary posts like stories are great for link sharing, raw BTS footage, resharing your announcement posts or posts from other accounts. I have one rule for story posts on my managed accounts and it is that I don’t exceed 6 story posts within one 24-hour cycle. I’ve found users often feel overwhelmed and/or lose interest after tapping through 7+ of your story slides.
Could you talk about shadowbanning? / Follow-up: So shadowbanning is usually IG’s reaction to “bad behavior”?
So there are two reasons your social media accounts may get flagged and hidden by the platform.
- You are posting too frequently (4+ times a day), liking and commenting too fast (I’ve seen people flagged for this, believe it or not) using too many hashtags that are irrelevant to your content (e.g. using #CleanGirlAesthetic on a post about lawncare just to boost your reach). This is considered “bot-behavior” and the platform may shrink your account’s presence to protect users from irrelevant bot-run accounts. To counteract this, post and comment less, use only relevant hashtags (5 at most).
- When a platform hides your account because they find your content “controversial” or “inappropriate” or “too political” – whatever those may mean to the powers that be – this is what people are generally referring to as “shadowbanning.” This typically happens to individual activist accounts or social justice minded business accounts, unfortunately. You can tell this happens when your engagement drops drastically (more than 50% over the course of 1-2 posts). Working your way back from this is a tricky line to walk and I imagine it will get even trickier in the next year. Thus far, I’ve seen two strategies work relatively well: 1) engage your audience with an honest plea for assistance (asking them to overly engage with your ask post to reset your metrics) and 2) encourage the community you’ve built to follow you on your other platforms so the messaging you put time and energy into can still be seen elsewhere. If the platform becomes too much of an interference in your messaging or you find your values just don’t align with their framework anymore, encourage the community you’ve built there to migrate with you to a new platform that better supports your messaging.
What is the current best time of day /week to post generally?
As a general rule, for accounts looking to reach a west coast audience, posting between 9-11am will serve you well. You’ll get folks on their morning scroll, and your content has a high chance of circulating throughout the rest of the day.
However, I would recommend looking into when your specific audience is most active. For example, on Instagram there is an analytics asset on your Professional Dashboard that will tell you what time of day your account’s followers are most active. One of the accounts I run has followers that are most active between 5 and 7pm on weekdays. This account’s goals prioritize current follower engagement over reach to non-followers so we post content almost exclusively during that time.
I also really recommend testing different time slots, seeing which audiences you reach, and adapting your plan to this. I’ve found a lot of success putting some time into testing time slots, different audience demographics might be active at entirely different times.
And if you missed the call, view the Replay here!
