One of my clients, a yarn shop, just let me go in favor of having one of her staff take over the social media. This was only sad to me because back in July, I had THIS EXACT THOUGHT and almost “fired” the client and told her to hire this exact staff member to do her social media. This account is now lively and personal with daily videos of what’s actually happening in the shop. It’s amazing and perfect and exactly what I would want for the shop.

Another client puts immediate content on Facebook and that is my cue to slurp it up and create a post over on Instagram. It’s okay, but not perfect, but she’s a busy small business owner and I’ve sort of accepted this as our way of communicating.

And so it goes. Two more clients and I go though spurts of good, planned-ahead content that is relevant and fresh, then we go back to reposting stuff from vendors or me trying to catch up with a newsletter.

What to do? In a perfect world, small businesses should keep their social media in-house. The content creator should have daily, direct access to the workings of the business. Anything posted should have a personal connection to the audience. I can’t put my face in reels and stories, but the shop owner or the person teaching the class can.

The challenge for a remote manager is setting up a content stream that helps the business owner feel supported, but actually connects with the customer. This is not easy. I will think more about it…