[Creator Briefing] Is social media simply too much or is it a tool writers need?

A Q&A with Nicola Washington

This is THE CONTENT BRIEF 💼 where you’ll find actionable strategies to help you simplify your content strategy and system (and stay sane as the editor in chief of your content)—delivered in brief, straight to your inbox.

I like to say being online today can easily feel like you’re swirling in the eye of the content storm. 😵‍💫 There’s so many things you “should” be doing, so many ways you “should” be showing up that it can easily feel like too much.

Which is exactly the premise of

Too Much by Nicola Washington

.

Nicola is a social media strategist for writers and is often told by her clients that the demands of social media are just too much on top of everything else you’re responsible for. 

I’m sure that’s why so many creators (vocally

Emma Gannon

) are leaving it behind altogether in favor of focusing on all-things Substack—which, yes, has its own demands, too.

However, Nicola says if you’re a writer and want people to read your writing, social media remains one of the best ways to get in front of your people. (See her writer’s guides on everything from going live to stories, reels, carousels, static posts and more.)

So in today’s Creator Briefing, she’s sharing her thoughts on creating content, using social platforms effectively while respecting your creative energy and keeping one goal front and center: making connections.

Nicola Washington is a social media strategist for writers and creator of Too Much by Nicola Washington. Find her on Instagram or Substack.

What does “content” mean to you? What part does content play in your business? How do you approach it?

In some ways, anything in life can be used as content—ideas, thoughts, opinions, expertise, insights, experiences, or imagined worlds, the process and the outcome—but crucially, this is very different to everything in life has to be used as content. 

I often get the impression that “content” has become a loaded word that makes us imagine chopping our lives into tiny, bite-sized snippets that we throw out onto the internet for strangers to consume and judge. But I always stress the importance of boundaries to all of the writers I work with. Whatever dominant social media cultures would like us to believe, we do actually get to choose what we share on the internet!

For my business, content is how I reach and connect with writers, some of whom become clients. It’s how I show them I understand the challenges they are facing, and how I might be able to help. It is where I showcase my expertise and tell people about my services, but it’s also a way of offering support to a broad spectrum of people.

How did you become a content creator? In short, what’s your story?

I don’t really think of myself as a content creator. I think of myself as an Instagram strategist who uses content to reach her audience, but I suppose this does in fact automatically make me a content creator!

Working in social media marketing is my second career. I was a secondary school teacher for 12 years but, after my children arrived, circumstances led me to retrain as a social media manager in 2016-17. 

At that point, I was blogging and promoting that blog on Instagram, which was my first foray into being a content creator. I then worked with small businesses for six years as a social media manager, creating content to connect with their target audiences, managing online communities, and nurturing them toward becoming customers. Toward the end of 2022, I decided to pivot my services to support writers as I wanted to move my work life closer to my personal interests.

Most of my work with small businesses came via word-of-mouth but changing niches means I’ve started creating content to market my own business for the first time. I’ve been working full time with writers since July 2023 and although it hasn’t been easy to switch lanes, working with writers has given me a fresh injection of enthusiasm for my business.

In some creative circles, there’s an exodus from social media apps but Instagram, especially, is a core part of your work. How do you think of the platform? How can Substack writers use it effectively (and feel less lost doing so!)? What do you wish more writers, especially those here on Substack, knew on this topic?

For a long time, we’ve been passive consumers of Instagram at best; at worst we’ve found ourselves participating in dopamine-fueled cat-and-mouse games that make us feel irritable, anxious, inadequate or all of the above.

This isn’t our fault—our attention is the commodity Instagram trades in so it shouldn’t be surprising that its developers have found ways to keep us using it, even when we stop benefitting from doing so. But I do think it’s possible to take more responsibility for how we use Instagram than we perhaps have in the past.

In my work, I find myself reiterating the same message often: Instagram is a tool and you get to decide how you use it.

For me, community and connection are more important than “going viral” or “blowing up,” and I reject the idea that the size of an account is any indicator of the value of the work, or—perhaps more pertinently—the person behind it.

Whenever I get caught in patterns of comparison, or feelings of inadequacy, I return to this philosophy to reframe my relationship with Instagram as one that serves me.

I like Instagram because it’s a platform where community can still thrive, and meaningful relationships can be developed. There is also huge potential for the platform to act as “word of mouth with a megaphone” for writers as the user base is so large.

Although I enjoy the Substack experience, it does not yet have the broad user base of traditional social media platforms. I think it’s well known and popular among people who work in creative industries but I’m not sure it’s yet a tool for “mass” marketing.

If writers want to take advantage of the strengths of both platforms, it can work well to explore an idea in long-form for Substack, and then use that to create a series of Instagram posts, breaking down your thinking into smaller, more easily digestible “moments.” You might even take your punchiest quotes or most beautiful sentences and turn them into reels or memes.

In this way, you’re not constantly having to expend yet more creative energy to keep the content treadmill turning.

Finally, for anyone whose book or work is already or soon to be out in the world, think of Instagram as a way to make connections, not sales. If you define your ideal reader carefully, and post relevant content that interests and engages them, the sales will take care of themselves.

You’ve said if you want more engagement, you have to be more engaging. What’s your best advice for doing so?

Meaningful engagement on Instagram looks like people being motivated to leave a comment under a post, reply to a Story with a DM, save your post to refer back to later, or share it in their Stories (or directly with a friend in their DMs).

The first step to generating this kind of engagement is to take a step back from individual content ideas or posts, and consider who your ideal reader is. What are they interested in? And where do their interests overlap with what you are creating?

The sweet spot where your book or business and your ideal reader’s or customer’s interests overlap is where your content should sit. Create content your ideal reader finds useful or educational and they are more likely to share or save it.

This is one of the most-saved posts I’ve ever created because it addresses a problem I know many of my audience struggle with—coming up with content ideas.

toomuch_social

A post shared by @toomuch_social

To generate conversation in your DMs or comments, share personal stories that are relevant to your writing. This often generates a reciprocal sharing of experiences between you, the writer and your readers, which in turn creates spaces where you can connect on a really human level and deepen your relationship with them.

A light-hearted version of this dynamic can be seen in this reel where I posted about the frustration of working for years on my writing but not yet being published or represented by an agent. This personal experience overlaps with the experiences of many of my audience and the post created a space for us to commiserate together, support one another, and also showed my audience that I understand what it is like!

A slightly more serious and vulnerable version of this kind of personal storytelling to connect with my audience can be seen in this post about rejections. It generated lots of lovely comments with people sharing words of encouragement or stories of their own and again made it clear that even though my day job is social media, I understand what it’s like to try to be a writer, too.

toomuch_social

A post shared by @toomuch_social

What are you currently feeling inspired by? 

My sources of inspiration change all the time but at the moment I’m feeling especially inspired by

Dr Lily Dunn

’s series “Ten Important Things” on her Substack,

And a Dog

, as she brings meaning to the domestic and mundane in a way that awakens thoughts and memories of my own.  

I’ve also started visiting art exhibitions more often this year—as part of a promise to myself to start putting myself in places I’ve always felt like I don’t belong—and I’ve been stirred and moved and inspired recently by the work of Lubaina Himid and Evewright.

For more from Nicola Washington, subscribe to

Too Much by Nicola Washington

and follow her on Instagram. Have a question for Nicola? Drop it in the comments below!

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Thanks! I pour a lot of love into this space and I hope you can feel it. It wouldn’t be the same without YOU!