“I Can Do Social Media Myself”… Okay, Let’s Talk About It

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“I can just do social media myself.”

As the owner of a social media marketing agency, you probably expect me to respond to that with, “No, you can’t! You need to hire us!” But plot twist: you absolutely CAN do your social media yourself. I know because I did it. I built my first six-figure business doing my own social media. Nobody swooped in and took over my content. Nobody magically handed me a successful social media strategy. I learned. I invested in courses and education, experimented, made mistakes, figured out what worked for my business, and kept showing up until eventually I built a six-figure business using social media.

So this isn’t a blog about why you’re incapable of marketing your own business. The real question I want you to ask yourself is: You can do your own social media, but SHOULD you? Because those are two completely different questions.

After years of doing my own marketing, managing social media for other businesses, building The Social Party, creating more than 15,000 short-form videos with my team, and eventually delegating parts of my own marketing, I’ve experienced both sides. I’ve been the business owner saying, “I’ll figure it out myself,” and I’ve been the business owner saying, “Somebody please take this off my freaking plate.” Both can be the right decision. It completely depends on what stage of business you’re in.

I’ve noticed there are usually three types of business owners who tell me, “I can do social media myself.” So let’s figure out which one you are.

Type #1: You Can’t Afford Social Media Marketing Yet

Maybe you just started your business. You’re trying to land your first clients, revenue isn’t consistent yet, and every dollar coming into your business already has somewhere to go. Hiring a social media agency for $1,500, $2,500, or more every month isn’t realistic right now. And you know what? That’s okay. In fact, I think you probably SHOULD do your own social media right now. But here’s the deal: if you can’t invest your money, you have to be willing to invest your time.

Years ago, when I lived in Texas, the Texas Hill Country experienced devastating flooding. We were raising money for the community, and I decided to give away a free month of social media marketing. Anyone who donated and sent me their receipt could be entered into the raffle. At the time, the package I was giving away was worth around $1,000. One of my clients made an incredibly generous donation—essentially the equivalent of an entire month of service. I sent her this long text telling her how amazing she was and how grateful I was, and she responded with something I’ve never forgotten: “When you don’t have the money, you invest your time. When you don’t have the time, you invest your money.”

HELLO. That is entrepreneurship.

When I first started my business, I couldn’t outsource everything, so I paid with my time. I learned. I watched videos. I took courses. I experimented. I made mistakes. I figured shit out. Today, I delegate a lot more because my time has become more valuable inside my business, but if you’re just getting started and you HAVE the time, use it.

Maybe you don’t have a cash marketing budget yet, but you have a time budget, and social media gives you an incredible opportunity to use it. You can create content, talk about your services, show your products, educate potential customers, answer frequently asked questions, share testimonials, tell your story, build trust, and get visible. You don’t need a $10,000 advertising budget to start telling people your business exists.

So if you’re telling me, “I need more clients. I need more customers. Nobody knows about my business. Sales are slow,” but you’re also not consistently talking about your business online, we need to have a conversation. If you have more time than money right now, invest the time. Nobody else is responsible for making sure your business shows up. You don’t have a social media manager texting you asking for content. You don’t have an agency building your strategy. You don’t have somebody asking, “What are our goals this month, and what content are we creating to support them?” YOU are that person.

And no, posting one random AI graphic every seven business days isn’t what I’m talking about. That’s another blog for another day because I HAVE THOUGHTS. I’m talking about actually marketing your business.

Stop Letting Social Media Gurus Confuse the Hell Out of You

There’s another problem I see constantly with newer business owners. You want to learn social media, so you open Instagram or TikTok. One guru tells you, “YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!” You think, okay, got it. Then you swipe and another one says, “NEVER DO THAT!” One tells you to post three times a day. Another tells you posting too often is hurting your account. One tells you hashtags are dead. Another tells you that you absolutely need them. One says trending audio is everything, and five minutes later somebody else tells you trending audio doesn’t matter.

By the time you’ve watched 100 videos about how to create content, you haven’t actually created any freaking content. You’re overwhelmed, confused, and afraid you’re going to do it wrong.

Here’s what I need you to understand: there are a hundred ways to bake a freaking cake. There isn’t one social media strategy that works for every single business. You can grow organically. You can use paid advertising. You can create short-form videos. You can collaborate with other businesses. You can attend events. You can start a podcast. You can build an email list. You can create long-form content. You can market locally. You can combine multiple strategies.

The goal isn’t to follow every social media guru on the internet. The goal is to find a strategy that works for your business and stick with it long enough to actually learn something. At some point, you have to stop consuming and start creating.

Education Isn’t Enough If You Never Implement It

Ask me how I know. I have spent $997 on courses before, logged in, watched a few modules, gotten overwhelmed, closed my computer, and basically never looked at them again. There went a thousand dollars. BYE.

And sometimes the course wasn’t even bad. The problem was that I had information without accountability. I had questions without someone to ask. I had education without a community around me actually implementing it. Eventually, I realized I didn’t just need more information. I needed education, community, support, AND accountability.

That realization completely changed how I invested in my own business, and it’s a huge reason I created The After Party. The After Party is my $297-a-month membership for business owners who aren’t necessarily ready to hand their social media over to an agency but also don’t want to figure out every freaking thing alone.

Inside the After Party, you get daily content ideas, so “I don’t know what to post” stops being an excuse. You can submit your videos for feedback from my team and me. We can tell you to change something, try a stronger hook, cut a confusing part, add something important, or sometimes simply say, “STOP OVERTHINKING IT AND POST THE DAMN VIDEO.”

My team and I have created more than 15,000 short-form videos for businesses. We’ve made the mistakes. We’ve tested things. We’ve seen what works. Instead of spending years learning every lesson the hard way, you get access to what we’ve learned. I’m also sharing what I’m learning about email marketing, funnels, business, content, podcasting, and the strategies I’m currently implementing in my own company.

I’m actually documenting the launch and growth of The Social Party Podcast so I can eventually turn around and tell After Party members what I tried, what worked, what didn’t, what I’d do differently, and how they can use those same strategies in their own businesses. I desperately wish I had that kind of community when I started. So if you’re Type One, my advice isn’t necessarily, “Hire an agency.” It might be: Do it yourself, but stop trying to do it alone.

Type #2: You’re Making Money, But You’re Scared to Invest in Marketing

Now we’re getting spicy. Your business is established. You’re making sales. You have customers. You’ve proven people want what you’re selling. Then you talk to a social media agency and they say, “Our services start at $1,500 per month,” and suddenly you need to lie down because $1,500 is real freaking money.

Maybe your company makes $10,000 a month, but that doesn’t mean you have $10,000 sitting around at the end of the month. You’ve got taxes, payroll, software, bills, business expenses, personal expenses, and everything else that comes with running a company. Maybe after everything is paid, there’s $2,500 left, and now you’re thinking, “If I invest $1,500 into marketing, I only have $1,000 left.”

I understand why that feels scary. I invest in my own business constantly, and I STILL have to make those decisions. I’ve invested during months when I was breaking even. I’ve even invested so heavily during certain seasons that the business went negative that month. Am I telling you to do that? NO. Please don’t drain your checking account and tell your spouse, “It’s okay, babe. Ali told me to.” I DID NOT.

What I am saying is that entrepreneurship requires understanding the difference between simply spending money and strategically investing money. Investments involve risk. I’ve spent money on events, advertising, marketing, magazine features, courses, programs, and coaches. Some investments were amazing. Some did absolutely nothing. Some didn’t pay off until a year later, and some completely changed the direction of my business. That’s business. You don’t get a crystal ball every time you swipe the company card.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that sometimes paying for somebody else’s expertise saves you from paying for your own learning curve.

I recently joined a paid advertising community because I wanted to get better at paid ads. I was already running ads, so technically I could do it myself. Sound familiar? But I invested in learning from people who knew more about that specific area than I did. I made changes based on what I learned, and within that first week of implementing those changes, I went from three consultations booked to seven for the following week.

Before that, only one of my three appointments had shown up, and that person wasn’t even a qualified lead. With the seven appointments, not everyone showed up, but around four did—and they were qualified prospects who could actually afford my services. Sometimes you don’t need to spend another six months figuring everything out yourself. Sometimes you need somebody to look at what you’re doing and say, “Change this.”

And listen, your 16-year-old cousin being on TikTok all day does not automatically make her a marketing strategist. I say that with love. I’m sure she’s fabulous. But there is a massive difference between using social media and marketing a business on social media.

Marketing isn’t just posting a Reel. It’s understanding the hook, knowing who you’re speaking to, understanding the problem you’re solving, choosing keywords, creating calls to action, figuring out why somebody would share or save the content, analyzing what happens after they click, and building a strategy that turns attention into leads and leads into customers.

You’re not hiring someone because you don’t know where the “post” button is. You’re hiring expertise, strategy, consistency, and time.

“But $1,500 Is So Expensive.”

Maybe. But you have to look at investments in context. If you invest $1,500 into something that ultimately contributes to $2,500 in profitable business you otherwise wouldn’t have generated, are you upset that you spent the $1,500? Probably not. You’re probably asking, “Okay, how do we improve this next month?”

Now, let me make something VERY clear. I cannot guarantee that spending $1,500 on marketing will make you $2,500. Nobody ethical should promise you a guaranteed return from organic social media because there are too many other pieces involved.

I learned that very early in my agency. When I first started managing social media, I charged one client $350 a month. Yes. THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS. Don’t call me. Don’t DM me. Don’t send me a carrier pigeon. That pricing is DEAD.

This client sold space-saving side tables for couches, and during one month of working together, the business generated six figures from the momentum around the social media marketing. Was that an incredible outcome? YES. Can I promise that outcome to another client? Absolutely not.

Why? Because social media isn’t magic.

You can invest thousands into marketing, but if your product sucks, selling it is going to be difficult. You need a good offer. You need something people actually want. You need a website or funnel that makes sense. You need a way for people to buy. If you sell through consultation calls, you need to actually SHOW UP, and then you need to know how to sell.

Social media can bring people to your front door, but what happens after they arrive matters just as much.

Social Media Is Not Your Entire Sales Funnel

Let’s say your social media is doing its job. People see your videos, they’re interested, and they click your website. Then they get there and your website looks like it hasn’t been updated since MySpace. Nobody knows what you sell. Nobody knows where to click. There’s no clear call to action. They can’t book. They can’t buy. They can’t figure out how much anything costs. They don’t even know whether you’re still in business.

Then you say, “Social media didn’t work.”

BABE. Social media got them there. Your funnel lost them.

This is why you need to think about the entire customer journey. What happens after somebody watches your video? Where do they go? How do they book? How do they buy? How do you follow up? Are you collecting their email? Attention without a system to capture it can become a gigantic missed opportunity.

I know because I’ve done it.

With my personal fitness brand, I had a video go viral. It received more than a million views, and that content sent more than 100,000 clicks to my website. Imagine having ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND people interested enough to click over to your website. And I wasn’t properly collecting their information.

They came. They looked. They left. BYE.

I still want to throw up thinking about it.

Later, I implemented email marketing, and email started generating sales because people get distracted. Someone sees your Reel, they’re interested, they click, and then their kid needs something. Their boss calls. The dog starts barking. DoorDash shows up. They close their phone, and your business disappears from their brain.

Maybe they wanted your product but weren’t ready. Maybe they needed more information. Maybe they wanted to think about it. Email gives you another opportunity to continue that relationship.

That’s why inside the After Party I’m not only teaching, “Here’s how to make a Reel.” We’re talking about email marketing, funnels, consultation links, systems, and marketing because if you’re going to invest in getting more attention, you need to be ready to actually DO something with that attention.

Type #3: You Can Afford Social Media Help, But You Still Insist on Doing It Yourself

And now we’ve arrived at my favorite category. You have the money. Your business is successful. You’re busy. Your time is valuable. You could afford a $2,500-a-month social media package, but you’re still saying, “I don’t know if it’s worth it. I can just do it myself.”

Meanwhile, you’ve got a freaking BILLBOARD.

You’re spending $5,000, $10,000, maybe even more on traditional advertising. You’re spending thousands on magazine placements. I’m not saying billboards don’t work, and I’m not saying print doesn’t work. Different businesses need different marketing mixes. But think about what somebody often does after they see your billboard. They Google you. Somebody’s friend recommends your business? They Google you. They see your ad somewhere? They look you up.

Then they find your social media, and your last Instagram post is from 2024.

HELLO? Anybody home?

Social media isn’t always where people discover you. Sometimes social media is where people validate you. They’ve already heard about you, but now they want to know if you’re legit. They want to know whether they like you, trust you, whether you’re active, whether you know what you’re talking about, and whether other people are buying from you. Your social media can help answer those questions before you ever speak to that person.

So yes, I know you can do it yourself. We’ve established that. But WHY are you?

If you can comfortably afford to delegate your marketing, why are you spending your valuable time doing it?

One of my dentist clients basically said, “I can be a dentist again. I didn’t go to school for social media.” EXACTLY. She went to school to be a dentist. LET HER BE A DENTIST.

Maybe you went to school to do hair, but you’re sitting at home at 10 PM trying to figure out why Instagram won’t sync your trending audio. Why? Maybe you’re the president of a tech company and you’re spending an hour deciding what font to use on a freaking graphic. WHY?

You’re a CEO. A dentist. A hairstylist. A realtor. A restaurant owner. A contractor. An attorney. An esthetician. Whatever your thing is, ask yourself: Is social media the highest and best use of MY time?

Technically, you can do a lot of things yourself. You can clean your office. You can do your bookkeeping. You can build your website. You can answer every email. You can schedule every appointment. You can mop the floors. You can learn how to fix the toilet. But eventually, successful entrepreneurship requires you to stop asking, “Can I do this?” and start asking, “Should I be the person doing this?”

Social Media Marketing Is a Job

When people tell me, “I’ll just do my own social media,” I want to ask what exactly they mean by that. Because posting a picture once every two weeks isn’t the same thing as strategically marketing a business.

You need ideas, strategy, content, recording, editing, captions, hooks, calls to action, keywords, analytics, testing, and consistency. You need to know your audience and understand what they care about. You need to create the content, and then when your brilliant Reel gets 184 views and you want to throw your phone through a wall, you need to wake up and DO IT AGAIN.

Social media marketing isn’t, “I posted Tuesday. Why am I not rich?”

It’s a job.

And if your business has reached the point where you can afford to delegate that job, I don’t want you asking whether you’re capable of doing it. I want you asking what ISN’T getting done while you’re doing it. What sale aren’t you making? What client aren’t you serving? What employee aren’t you training? What partnership aren’t you building? What new offer aren’t you creating? What CEO-level work are you avoiding because you’re editing a 12-second Reel?

THAT is the real cost of doing it yourself.

And sometimes delegation isn’t even about time. It’s about joy. I don’t only delegate because I’m busy. I delegate because I don’t want to build a business where I spend every day doing shit I hate. I started a business because I wanted freedom. I wanted to build something I loved. So why would I intentionally create a job for myself filled with tasks that make me miserable?

There are things in my business I LOVE doing. There are things only I can do. And there are things other people on my team can do better than me. LET THEM. That doesn’t make me less capable. That’s leadership.

If social media makes you miserable, if you’re constantly behind, if you haven’t posted in months, if “I’ll do it tomorrow” has become your entire marketing strategy, and you can afford help? It might be time.

So, Can You Do Social Media Yourself?

Absolutely.

If you’re Type One and you don’t have the money but you have the time, do it yourself. Learn. Create. Get visible. Invest your time. And if you need education, accountability, daily content ideas, feedback, and community, that’s exactly why I created the After Party. Doing it yourself does not have to mean doing it alone.

If you’re Type Two and your business is making money but investing in marketing scares you, don’t blindly throw money at marketing. Get your foundation right. Make sure your offer is good. Make sure you have a website or funnel. Make sure people can buy. Make sure you can sell. Make sure you’re following up. Then start thinking strategically about investing in growth.

And if you’re Type Three? You have the money. You have the business. You have the clients. You have zero freaking time.

Hand over the passwords and go run your company.

The answer to “Can I do social media myself?” is yes. I did it, and it helped me build my first six-figure business. But doing social media well requires time, education, consistency, strategy, testing, and patience. There may come a point when continuing to do everything yourself actually costs you more than delegating it.

Entrepreneurship often starts with doing everything yourself, but growth eventually requires realizing you can’t KEEP doing everything yourself. There’s a season to invest your time. There’s a season to invest your money. There’s a season to learn. And there’s a season to delegate. Your job is to be honest enough with yourself to know which season you’re in.

So the next time you catch yourself saying, “I can do social media myself,” I want you to add one more question:

“But should I?”

If your answer is, “Yes, I need to do it myself right now,” that’s exactly why I created the After Party. For $297 a month, you get education, daily content inspiration, feedback, accountability, community, and access to strategies my team and I are actually using and testing.

And if your answer is, “Nope. I technically CAN do it, but I am freaking done doing it,” that’s what The Social Party is here for. Our one-on-one social media services start at $1,500 a month, with additional options depending on the level of support your business needs.

Either way, I want you marketing your business. I want people to know you exist. I want your ideal customers finding you. And I don’t want your incredible business to become the internet’s best-kept secret simply because you’re trying to do every freaking thing yourself.

Yes, you can do social media yourself. The better question is whether doing it yourself is still the best decision for the business you’re trying to build.