Everything about social media, answered straight.

Pick the ONE platform where your customers actually spend time and start there, don't try to launch on five at once. Set up a proper business account (for analytics and ads), decide on a simple content format you can sustain (a weekly tip video, behind-the-scenes, customer questions), and post consistently for 90 days before judging results. Depth on one channel beats a thin presence on all of them.

Use a business (or creator) account. It's free and it unlocks the things you need: analytics to see what's working, the ability to run ads, scheduling tools, and contact buttons. A personal profile hides all of that and looks less credible to a prospective customer. Convert it in settings, it takes two minutes and doesn't lose your existing followers.

Teach and show the work. 'Boring' businesses grow by answering the exact questions customers ask before they hire: 'how much does X cost,' 'how do I know if I need Y,' common mistakes, before/afters, a day on the job. Nobody expects glamour, they want competence and a real human. Screen-recordings, quick explainers, and job-site clips all work without any production polish.

Almost certainly not. Shadowbans are rare and usually tied to a specific rule break (banned hashtags, spammy DMs, reposting watermarked video). Far more likely: your recent posts underperformed so the algorithm is showing the next ones to fewer people, or you're posting static content that just gets less reach than video. Fix it by posting native video consistently for a couple of weeks rather than hunting for a ban that probably isn't there.

Followers are a lagging result of reach, and reach now comes from video that gets shown beyond your existing audience. Stop optimizing for the followers you have and start making shareable, native short-form video on a consistent schedule. Hook in the first second, deliver one clear idea, and post regularly. Also engage genuinely in your niche. Vanity growth hacks (follow/unfollow, giveaways) attract non-buyers, aim for the right followers, not just more.

Consistency matters more than a magic number, but the benchmark bands that correlate with growth are roughly: Instagram 4–7×/week, LinkedIn 2–5×/week, TikTok about once a day. Pick a cadence you can actually sustain and hit it every week, an unsustainable pace you abandon in a month is worse than a steady 3×/week you keep for a year. Lean toward video, since it out-reaches static by a wide margin.

They're minor now, not magic. Platforms lean on content understanding (what's actually in your video/caption) far more than on hashtags to decide who sees a post. Use a few relevant ones for categorization, but don't stuff 30 unrelated tags or expect hashtags to rescue weak content. Your hook, your format, and your consistency drive reach, hashtags are a rounding error by comparison.

Yes. Faceless video is a proven format: screen recordings, hands-on demos, text-on-screen tips, product close-ups, before/afters, and voiceover-over-b-roll all work, and plenty of big accounts never show a person. Short-form video is where the reach is (Reels out-reach static ~2.25×), so the format matters more than your face. Start with one repeatable faceless format and batch it.

Systematize it instead of relying on inspiration. Build a short list of repeatable formats (FAQ answers, myth-busting, before/after, behind-the-scenes, tips), then batch-film several at once on a set day. Mine your actual customer questions, reviews, and DMs for topics, they're an endless, on-brand idea bank. A repeatable system beats waiting to feel creative, and it's what keeps you posting after month one.

Repurpose the idea, but make each native. The same core clip can go everywhere, but re-export it without the other platform's watermark (a TikTok watermark visibly suppresses Reels/Shorts reach), and tweak the caption/format to fit. Batch one shoot into platform-native versions; that's how small teams stay consistent across channels without 3× the work. Don't just cross-post the identical watermarked file.

Views without action means a broken path, not necessarily bad content. Check: is there a clear next step (a real call to action)? Is the offer compelling and the landing page fast and clear? Is the audience you're reaching actually a buyer, or just entertained? Often the content is 'entertainment' with no bridge to the business. Add an obvious next step to every piece and make sure the destination converts.

Sometimes, but spend it right. At $10–20/day, ads work best for retargeting and warm audiences (people who already visited or engaged), not cold prospecting at scale. Across industries Meta ads average ~$0.77/click and ~$22/lead (WordStream, 2024), so a tiny budget buys limited cold reach. The non-negotiable rule: only run ads to an offer and page that already convert organically, otherwise you're paying to confirm it's broken.

Mostly, yes. The 'Boost' button optimizes for cheap engagement (likes, reach), not customers, so you get vanity metrics and few leads. Real campaigns built in Ads Manager let you choose a business objective (leads/sales), target properly, and control placements and creative. Same money, very different result. If you're spending on Meta, learn Ads Manager or have someone run it, skip the boost button.

Enough to exit the learning phase and gather data, for most small businesses that's roughly $500–$1,500/month to start, not $50. Below that, the algorithm can't optimize and you can't read results. Start with retargeting and one clear campaign objective, give it a few weeks to gather conversions, then scale what works. The exact number matters less than: spend enough to learn, and only scale proven winners.

Pick one (maybe two) and go deep. Being on five platforms you can't maintain dilutes the quality that actually earns reach. Choose where your customers are and where your content can shine, master it, then repurpose into a secondary channel. Reach comes from consistency and native content, both of which get harder the more channels you split across. Focus beats spread for almost every small business.

Not dead, just pay-to-play. Organic Page reach is ~1–2%, so 'posting to your Page' does little. But the users are still there, especially 30+ and local audiences, and Facebook remains strong for local ads, Groups, Marketplace, and events. For a local business, Facebook (via ads and Groups) can be one of your best channels, you just can't rely on free organic reach the way you could a decade ago.

For B2B, it's usually the highest-intent channel, 89% of B2B marketers use it for lead gen and 62% say it actually generates leads. It works differently from TikTok/IG: consistent, useful posts from a real person (founder/expert), genuine engagement in your niche, and thoughtful outreach beat polished corporate pages. If your customers are other businesses, LinkedIn is rarely noise, it's where the buying conversations happen.

Start DIY to learn your voice and what your audience responds to, nobody knows your business like you on day one. Bring in help when consistency, editing, or paid ads become the bottleneck and the work is costing you more in time than an agency would in money. Whoever does it, hold the work to business outcomes (leads, bookings, sales), not follower counts. The goal is a system that runs reliably, whether that's you or a partner.

Hold them to outcomes and visibility. Every month you should see: what was posted and why, the plan for next month, engagement and audience trends, and, most importantly, the leads or sales it drove. Red flags: reports that are only follower/like counts with no tie to revenue, no clear strategy, and no straight answer on what they actually did. If you can't tell what you're paying for, that's your answer.

Build the bridge from content to purchase, and stop optimizing for vanity metrics. Every piece of content should point to an obvious next step; that step should lead to a clear offer and a fast, convincing landing page; and you should capture emails/DMs so you can follow up (most people don't buy on the first touch). Followers who never see an offer never buy. Engagement is the start of the funnel, not the finish line, design the rest of it deliberately.