What "I Don't Know What to Post" Actually Means (And How to Fix It)
If I had to guess the number one phrase living rent free in the majority of business owners’ minds, it’d be “I don’t know what to post!”. As a marketing strategist, I’ve been hearing it for almost a decade, and what I’ve come to learn is that’s not what you really mean when you utter that phrase.
Because if you needed a content idea, you’d only have to scroll for approximately 3.2 seconds before finding a piece of content you could take inspiration from. Or you could simply answer a common question about your business. Or share a short “about me” post to reintroduce yourself.
There are literally thousands of different options to solve the “I don’t know what to post!” problem.
Lacking creativity isn’t your problem, this is
You’re not lacking ideas, you’re lacking an organised structure that makes each post make sense. You’re lacking a strategy that decides what you need to post based on your goals. And without the overarching guidance of why you’re doing something, every post is a guess.
It’s like you need to make a decision every single day. And as someone with ADHD, I know decision fatigue is real, especially when you’re already in charge of making a tonne of business decisions every week.
What you actually mean when you say "I don't know what to post"
Speaking from experience - both personal and from working with marketing clients for nearly a decade - I know what you really mean when you say “I don’t know what to post” is this:
1) You don't have a strategy (yet)
No strategy means no direction, a lot of guesswork and having to start from scratch every time you think about a post. Because there's no structure telling you the purpose of your content each week, it’s easy to feel like creating content is a waste of time (especially when you’re not getting results from it).
The fix: Look at your business goals, decide what’s most important to you right now and focus on that one thing:
Clicks to your website? Share more links in your stories, set up DM automation, talk about your offers + long form content more often
Brand awareness? Share Reels that speak directly to your target audience, use a mixture of talking head + text on b roll, tell personal stories
Community building? Share BTS + relatable content that encourages engagement, show your face on your stories
Sales? Share content that builds trust with your audience, talk about your offer regularly (not everything needs to be a full on sales pitch), be strategic about your pinned posts
2) You’re stuck in perfectionism
Naturally, you want to give a good impression with your content but because you’re caught up in trying to make every single post “amazing”, you end up posting nothing. And the longer you go without sticking to a steady schedule, the harder it is to post anything.
The fix: Remind yourself that not marketing your business at all is the only guaranteed way to not attract any customers. The more you create, the better you’ll get at it. And remember that as you evolve over time, so will your content.
I thought the content I posted when I started out in 2017 was incredible at the time. I look back on it now and cringe. And no doubt the content I’m sharing now will make me cringe in 10 years time. Not because it’s not good enough, but because I’ll have evolved and so will my “style”.
3) You only get a few likes so think “what’s the point”
Spending an hour on a carousel only to get 3 likes (one from you, one from your bestie and one from your mum) is disheartening. Anyone who tells you differently is lying. It’s natural to believe that a like means your content’s “working”, but that’s not always the case.
The fix: Remember that likes don’t guarantee sales so stop worrying about how much engagement your post gets. I worked with a property developer who averaged 2-5 likes per post yet they still sold a house worth £800k through social media. And if you need more evidence, read about the post I shared that had 12k likes and made me £0.
4) You’re overwhelmed by conflicting advice:
You get told to post daily, be on every platform, focus on going viral, jump on trends, be polished, don’t be polished, only share reels, only share carousels. It’s exhausting. And the advice becomes so loud you forget to tune in to yourself: what do you actually want to create?
The Fix: Instead of listening to cookie-cutter strategies or buying into the trending advice of the moment, speak to an expert (like me, hi!) and get their advice on your business.
One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to social media marketing. You need a personalised strategy, tailored to your business, your goals and your capacity to create content in any format.
Those four fixes will help in the short term, but if you want to stop having this conversation with yourself altogether, here's what actually changes things for good:
The fix isn’t coming up with more content ideas
You wouldn’t be the first one to think the solution to “I don’t know what to post” is a list of content ideas. Hooks from experts, inspiration from other businesses, a free pdf containing 100 posts for your industry might all seem like the answer but it isn’t.
The solution is a confident content strategy that tells you exactly what every post is supposed to do, so you’re never left staring at a blank page wondering where to start again.
When you know your goals, your audience and what feels exciting to you, the ideas come naturally. But they’re not just good ideas, they’re intentional ideas. Every post has a purpose, acting as a brick in your marketing foundation to build the know, like, trust factor that helps you make sales from your content.
Why a content strategy solves the problem for good
Having a basic, simple to follow structure suddenly makes everything feel so much easier. When I’m building bespoke content strategies for my clients, I always start with the content goal which comes from reviewing their business goals. Understanding what the content needs to do alongside their actual capacity to create content means I can build out a structure that makes sense in terms of what their output is, plus the results they want.
Once the content strategy is outlined, a content plan can be put together. This is where the purpose of each post is decided to ensure that every piece of content is working to support your overall business goals.
It’s only after the content strategy and the content plan have been created that I start to think about the actual content ideas (i.e. the content calendar).
Knowing why you’re posting and when you’re posting has to come before what you’re posting so that everything is done intentionally. There’s no guesswork, no throwing ideas out there without any thought behind it, no panic posting at 11pm because you haven’t shared for a week. Everything has its purpose.
This also means you’re not wasting your time creating content that isn’t working hard for you.
The most basic content plan if you’re feeling really stuck
You don’t need to make things complicated for yourself. The purpose of your content is to build the know, like, trust factor so as an example, your content schedule could look like:
One post per week telling people who you are/who your business is
One post per week connecting with your community and prioritising engagement
One post per week positioning you (or your product/service) as an authority
Your content is then consistently building trust with the people who are thinking of buying from you. Because you know yourself, you don’t buy from people you don’t trust.
A note on consistency
I have a confession to make to you: I used to be allergic to the word “consistency”. It made me feel trapped, suffocated, and ultimately like a failure when I’d fall off the wagon (regularly).
The idea of being consistent felt overwhelming because I’d based it on what I was being told to do. I didn’t want to post every day, I found it exhausting. I didn’t want to focus on the content trend of the moment or showing up on video daily.
As soon as I gave myself permission to show up how I wanted to, consistency started to feel a lot easier. It felt like a decision I was making for myself and my business, not something I was being forced into.
You get to decide what consistency looks like for you. And remember, it doesn’t mean posting every day. It means posting regularly enough that you’re always top of mind for your audience. One intentional, high quality post per week has more of a compounding effect than posting daily for three weeks followed by nothing for two months because you’re burnt out.
If “I don’t know what to post” is living rent free in your mind, it’s not because you’re bad at marketing your business. And it’s not because you don’t have enough content ideas. It’s because you don’t have a confident content strategy yet. And that’s exactly what The Robin Intensive was designed to do for you.
Questions answered in this blog post:
Why do I never know what to post for my business?
It's almost never a creativity problem. "I don't know what to post" usually means one of four things: you don't have a strategy yet, you're stuck in perfectionism, you're measuring success by likes rather than sales, or you're overwhelmed by conflicting advice. The fix for all four starts with having a clear, confident content strategy.
What's the difference between a content idea and a content strategy?
A content idea is what you post. A content strategy is why you're posting it, who it's for and what it's supposed to do for your business. Without the strategy, ideas are just guesses. With the strategy, every post has a purpose and is working to support your business goals.
How many times a week should I post on social media for my business?
As often as you want to without burning out. One high quality, intentional post per week posted consistently will outperform daily posting followed by weeks of silence every time. Your capacity to create is just as important as your content itself.
What does a simple content strategy look like?
At its most basic, a content strategy answers three questions: what are your business goals (including your target audience), what’s your capacity to create content (i.e. 2 hours per week) and what type of content fills you with the most excitement? From there, every post will have its own purpose: it will either tell people who you are, build connection with your audience or position you as an authority, establishing trust.
I'm Rebecca, not Robin or Rose (long story, worth reading). I built Robin Rose Creative to help business owners stop guessing what to post and start showing up with confidence. I’m a firm believer that you don't need to go viral to make sales (and I've been proving it since 2017). Come and say “hi” on Instagram 👋🏼
