Q&A: “Is it ever too early to post on social media?”

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

If you don't have a product for sale yet, should you even worry about social media? According to some people, yes, you should worry. You should stay awake at night worried 'cause you're missing out, you're too late. It's just too late, nothing you can do. Okay, that's depressing.

That's actually not my answer. Even if it were true, you can't exactly change the past. So what should you be doing right now? Hey, welcome to Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

We're gonna talk about this question today. Is it ever too early to post on social media? At what point in your new hustle should you start posting? Should it be before you even have a product or service? Or is it better to wait?

There's so much pressure these days. There's so much FOMO. And our listener is wondering about how to balance the competing goals of finish the product, like let's get it done, and start marketing it. So let's talk about it. What is the best strategy posting on social media before you have a product or service?

Do it or not. Or perhaps somewhere in the middle. Stay tuned for the question in detail and my answer. [Music]

Hi Chris, this is Johnny. And I've put together a new project that I'm excited to share.

I hope to make it a brand and a business, maybe even a book at some point. But I'm thinking of starting with Instagram to get the process going. Part of me thinks, okay, I should just start right away. That's what we always hear, right? Just start.

But another part of me thinks it's too early and I need to develop this more. Is it ever too early to post on social media and start attracting a following? I can't tell if I'm tricking myself one way or another. What do you think? Thanks for any help.

- You know what, here's what I think. Well, first of all, I think thank you for the question. Overall, don't overthink it. You know, it probably doesn't matter a ton. So go with your instinct.

If you're really kind of vacillating between do I need to do this or not, you know, either decision is probably gonna be better for you than the vacillation. So if you do want my vote though, I would hold off and focus on making your new project as good as you can. Let's not even say good. Let's say awesome. Making it as awesome as you can.

Avoiding the tendency to try and wait until it's perfect, of course, because it's probably not going to be perfect. But hopefully finding a healthy tension there. You know, I personally don't usually talk a whole lot about my projects until they're really close to being ready. I've tried doing it the other way. And just personally, I find that it usually increases the pressure on me and not in a good way.

But there's something really cool about saying, hey, here it is. Like instead of here's this thing I'm working on that will be ready one day. It's really cool to be like, I've been working on this thing for a long time and now I'm ready to talk about it, okay? So maybe for, you know, some marketing strategies, it's better to, you know, be posting ahead of time and the product's not done. I don't know what's happening, but I'm going to go ahead and talk about it.

But just generally speaking, my vote would be to hold off. Either way though, don't overthink it. Thanks again. Listeners, do you have a question? sidehustleschool.com/questions.

We will continue to feature them throughout the year. I'd love to know what you're working on and share it with our community of awesome people from all over the world. Okay, that's it for today, but I'll be back tomorrow with a new episode. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School.

[Music]