August is a weird month for a lot of businesses, isn’t it? Employees on annual leave, kids out of school and clients breaking their usual routine – but what does that mean for your Social Media strategy?

For some businesses, August is their busiest month and the easiest time of year to attract new clients – just do your thing! For others, it can be quite a difficult month, so what can you expect and how can you make the most of it?

1 – Expect lower than usual engagement rates

I like to think of August as a month of posting but not scrolling. While people are off on holiday, hopefully enjoying some sunshine and having fun with family and friends, they tend to post more but actually spend less time on Social Media. Inevitably, this leads to your engagement rates dropping – don’t be too hard on yourself, it’s not your fault!

If August is a difficult month for you, hold off on your upcoming big launch. Wait for your engagement rates to get back to normal in September so you can reach as many people as you can.

2 – Keep posting consistently

Spending time on creating good posts and getting little to no engagement from your followers is tiering and demoralising, but keep at it! If you randomly stop posting for an extended amount of time – like all of August – the algorithm is not going to be on your side when September comes and your followers are ready to listen again.

Don’t be too worried about keeping up with your usual post frequency, but try to continue posting multiple times a week across all your platforms.

3 – Change the way you post

Your followers have broken their usual routine and are in a different mindset to usual, your posts need to reflect that! People are thinking about having fun, seeing friends, and maybe planning for their kids to go back to school, so avoid talking to them about their job. For B2B, this isn’t easy, but it is an opportunity to remind people that your products or services can save them time.

Don’t be afraid to play around with the time at which you post as well. While your followers might usually like your posts to pop up during their morning coffee break, through August they might prefer to see your posts later in the day after they’ve put their kids to bed.

4 – Focus on your profile/page itself

If you choose to post slightly less frequently than usual, you can use that extra time wisely and focus on the details that often get forgotten about. When was the last time that you looked at your bio? Is your About section still an accurate reflection of your business? How old is your profile picture?

If you want extra support to optimise your profile/page, a Social Media Audit will help you get on the right track and continue supporting you through the following months. Get in touch to find out more.

5 – Don’t feel obliged to have a summer sale

If August is a difficult month it’s because your ideal client isn’t in the right frame of mind to buy from you, money isn’t the issue here. Don’t feel like you need to offer a summer discount.

6 – Support your fellow small business owners

Do you know who else is finding August difficult? Your competitors, your fellow small business owners. This is your chance to support them, engage with their content, and focus on building some good relationships.

This will not only help you to build a community around your business, but in the short term, it will help with your engagement rate!

7 – Enjoy your summer

If your ideal clients can take some time off and enjoy the summer, so can you! As a small business owner, it’s perfectly ok to not talk about business all of the time – sharing some personal posts will make you more relatable.

Find out more about personal posts here.