Why Your Socials Are the First Thing to Go
Ask a business owner when they last posted on social media and you'll often get a wince. Because something caught fire that week, and the week after, and posting was the first thing to go.
Why it matters more than it feels
People rarely buy the first time they see you. It takes around 11 touches before someone buys (NP Digital, 2025), and if they've never heard of you, it can take 20 to 50 (Jeb Blount, Fanatical Prospecting). Social media is the cheapest way to get those touches. Cheapest in cost, that is, not in time.
It isn't a discipline problem
Most owners who stop posting fall into one of three groups.
- Some never start, because there's never a free hour.
- Some post in bursts, a good week then a month of silence, or every post eats an afternoon.
- And some post regularly but hate the result, because it doesn't sound like them.
All three have the same cause. Every post starts from a blank page: what to say, how to say it, where to say it. That's the part that takes the time, so that's the part that gets dropped.
Where AI actually helps
AI is good at the blank page. It is not good at knowing your business. Ask it to "write a post for my bakery" and you get a post that could belong to any bakery, in the same words everyone else gets. That's the AI-sounding content customers learn to scroll past.
The fix is to tell it about your business first. Who your ideal client is. What you want to be known for. What you do differently. How you sound with a customer you like. With those answers, AI can plan your topics for the month and draft posts that sound like you on a good day. You still review every word. You just stop starting from nothing.
Try it this week
Open whichever AI tool you already use and paste this in, with your own answers in the brackets:
"Here's my business. My ideal client is [who]. I want to be known for [what]. What I do differently is [how]. When I talk to a customer I like, I sound [three words]. Suggest 3 content pillars for my social media, then plan 4 weeks of posts across them. Don't write the posts yet."
Read the plan before you ask for a single post. If the topics could belong to any business in your industry, your answers were too general, so add detail and run it again. Once the plan sounds like you, ask for one post at a time, and edit each one before it goes out.
If you'd rather work through it with others in the room, I'm running a free hands-on session on Tuesday 20 October for NSW Small Business Month.
https://workshop.onelevelup.com.au/ai-firebreak-workshop/social-media-sorted/registration/2026-10-20/
Until next time
Loz Demousselle
AI Adoption Consultant at One Level Up, helping 8 to 80 person firms get their whole team using AI, daily and safely.
More at onelevelup.com.au