The 90-Day Social Media Plan for People Who Hate Marketing

The 90-Day Social Media Plan for People Who Hate Marketing

Your social media plan, if you can even call it that, is probably a waste of time.

It's a collection of good intentions, vague hopes, and random posts that feel productive but achieve nothing. You're busy. You're posting. But the needle isn't moving.

The problem isn't a lack of effort. It's a directionless effort.

This isn't another article telling you to “find your why” or “engage your tribe.” This is a brutally simple, 90-day framework to stop wasting time and start building something that actually works.

First, A Reality Check: Why Your Current “Strategy” Is Failing

Before you can fix the problem, you need to look it squarely in the face. Most businesses are failing at social media for the same predictable reasons.

You're chasing vanity metrics. Likes and follower counts are fool's gold. They are the easiest metrics to fake and the hardest to convert into actual currency. A post with 500 likes that leads to zero website clicks is a failure. A post with 10 likes that leads to one qualified client is a roaring success. Stop chasing validation from strangers.

You have no defined goals. I ask business owners what the goal of their social media is. The most common answer is a blank stare, followed by something like, “to get our name out there.” That isn't a goal. It's a wish. Without a specific, measurable objective, you are simply making noise.

You're posting randomly. A motivational quote on Monday. A picture of your lunch on Tuesday. A desperate sales pitch on Friday. This isn't a strategy; it's a digital diary of your chaotic work week. Random acts of content get random results. Usually, there are no results at all.

You're talking to everyone. When you try to appeal to everyone, you appeal to no one. Your messaging is bland, your content is generic, and your brand feels like a political party trying to win a swing state. It has no edge. No opinion. No soul.

You wouldn't build a house without a blueprint. Why are you building your brand on a whim?

The 90-Day Plan: A Brutally Simple Framework

Ninety days is the perfect amount of time. It's long enough to gather meaningful data and see real change but short enough that you don't lose focus.

Here's the breakdown.

• Month 1 (Days 1-30): Foundation & Audit. This is about stopping the chaos. You will stop guessing and start knowing.
• Month 2 (Days 31-60): Content Engine & Testing. This is where you build the machine. You'll create a system for producing and distributing content without it taking over your life.
• Month 3 (Days 61-90): Refinement & Scaling. You'll look at the data, make ruthless decisions, and do more of what works.

It's that simple. It's not easy, but it is simple.

Month 1 (Days 1-30): Laying the Foundation

This first month is the most important. Get this wrong, and the next 60 days are pointless. The goal here is clarity.

Week 1: The Brutal Audit

First, stop.

Seriously. Stop posting for one week. The world will not end, and your business will not collapse. You can't fix a moving train.

Now, conduct a social media audit. Open a spreadsheet and list every social profile you own.

Look at the last 90 days of your activity. For each platform, ask:

• What was my best-performing post? (And define “best.” Was it clicks? Shares? Meaningful comments?)
• What was my worst?
• What topics got the most interaction?
• What formats (video, image, text-only) did best?
• How many leads or sales can I directly attribute to this platform?

Be honest. The numbers don't have feelings.

I once had a client, a bespoke furniture maker, who was spending a fortune on glossy, professional photoshoots. His audit revealed his most engaging posts by a country mile were grainy phone snaps of wood shavings on the workshop floor or a video of him explaining a particular joint.

He was selling perfection, but his audience wanted the process. The mess. The reality. He immediately cut his photography budget by 90% and leaned into the workshop floor. His engagement and leads tripled in two months.

Week 2: Define Your Purpose (Beyond “Making Sales”)

You need a job for your social media. Making sales” is the job of your entire business, not one marketing channel. Be more specific.

Choose one, maybe two, primary goals—no more.

• Bad Goal: Increase brand awareness.
• Good Goal: Drive 100 qualified visitors to our services page per month.
• Bad Goal: Get more engagement.
• Good Goal: Achieve a 5% average engagement rate on posts that discuss [Your Core Topic].
• Bad Goal: Grow our following.
• Good Goal: Add 50 new subscribers to our email list from Instagram each month.

Make it measurable, or it's a daydream. According to a 2024 report, the top goal for marketers is community engagement, not just lead generation [source]. This shows a shift towards building value before asking for the sale.

Week 3: Identify Your Real Audience

Stop saying your audience is “small business owners” or “busy mums.” That's a demographic, not a person.

Get painfully specific.

• What industry are they in?
• What is the one problem that keeps them up at night that you can solve?
• What “stupid questions” are they afraid to ask?
• What social media platforms do they use to find business solutions, not just look at their cousin's wedding pictures?

Next, do a quick and dirty competitor analysis. Look at two or three direct competitors.

• Who are they talking to?
• What are they posting?
• What are they getting wrong?
• Most importantly, read their comments. What are their followers asking for? What are they complaining about? That's your opening.

Week 4: Choose Your Battlefield & Define Your Voice

You do not need to be on TikTok, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and X. This is the fastest route to burnout and mediocrity. Spreading yourself thin is just a quick way to become transparent.

Look at your audience research. Where do they really hang out professionally? Pick one platform. Two, at an absolute maximum. Get brilliant at one before you even consider a second.

Now, define your brand voice. Please write it down in a few words.

• Are you the sharp, authoritative expert?
• The witty, relatable friend?
• The calm, reassuring guide?

This voice should inform every single post, comment, and reply. You're just another faceless logo shouting into the void without a consistent voice.

Month 2 (Days 31-60): Building the Content Engine

The foundation is laid. Now, you build the machine that runs on it. This month's goal is to create a sustainable system for producing and publishing content.

Weeks 5-6: Develop Your Content Pillars

Your content pillars are the 3-5 core topics you will own. These are the subjects you want to be known for. They are not sales pitches. They are pillars of value that support your entire content structure.

For Inkbot Design, our pillars might be:

1. Branding Psychology: The ‘why' behind design choices.
2. Startup Marketing Mistakes: Honest truths for new businesses.
3. Design Deconstruction: Analysing what makes great design work.
4. Practical Business Advice: No-fluff tips on running a creative business.

Everything you post must fit into one of these pillars. This ruthless focus makes content creation easier and teaches your audience what to expect from you. If a content idea doesn't fit, you don't post it. Simple.

Week 7: Build Your Content Calendar & Workflow

Stop thinking about what to post today. Start thinking about what you'll post a month from now.

Use a simple tool. Google Calendar. Trello. A spreadsheet. The tool doesn't matter. The system does.

Map out your content pillars for the next 30 days.

• Monday: Pillar 1
• Wednesday: Pillar 2
• Friday: Pillar 3

This brings us to batching. Content batching is the single most effective tactic for busy entrepreneurs. It's the concept of doing all similar tasks at once.

• Don't write one post today. Write all eight of this month's text-based posts in one afternoon.
• Don't film one video. Set up your camera and film four or five in a single session.

This approach saves an incredible amount of time and mental energy. You shift from being a constant, frantic creator to a strategic, focused publisher.

Week 8: Start Creating and Scheduling

You have your plan. You have your pillars. Now, execute.

Spend this week creating the first month's worth of content you just planned. Write the posts. Record the videos. Design the graphics.

Then, use a scheduling tool (like Buffer, Later, or Metricool) and load it all up. Schedule everything.

Why? Because this frees you from the tyranny of daily posting. Your content machine is now running on autopilot. Your new job isn't to be a content creator. It's to be an engager.

Month 3 (Days 61-90): The Refine and Scale Loop

Your content is going out consistently. You're not scrambling every day. This is where the real work—and the real results—begin.

Week 9: Listen and Engage

With your content scheduled, your primary daily task on social media should take 15-30 minutes.

Your job is to be human.

• Reply to every single comment. Not with a thumbs-up emoji, but with a real sentence. Ask a follow-up question.
• Spend 10 minutes using social listening. Search for keywords related to your pillars and find conversations to join. Offer advice. Answer questions. Don't pitch. Just help.

This is what “engagement” actually means. It's not a metric; it's an action.

Week 10: The Mid-Point Review

It's time to face the data again. Open your analytics. Look at the past 30 days of your scheduled content. Ignore your ego.

Look at the goals you set in Week 2.

• Are you driving traffic?
• Are people signing up for your list?
• Which content pillar is performing best against those goals?
• Which format (video, carousel, text) gets the most shares or saves?
• Which posts are driving clicks? This is often hidden in the platform's analytics but is the most critical metric for many.

Here's the rub: You have to be ruthless. You might love creating content for one of your pillars, but you must kill it if the data shows it's a dud. Your audience doesn't care about your effort; they care about what's in it for them.

Weeks 11-12: Double Down or Pivot

The data from your review dictates your next move. The guesswork is gone.

You will likely find the Pareto principle in full effect: 20% of your content drives 80% of your results.

You must take that 20% and make it the core of your next 90-day plan.

• Did a specific topic take off? Make that its content pillar.
• Did video outperform everything else? Your next content batch should be video-heavy.
• Did long, text-based posts on LinkedIn drive the most qualified leads? Great. Do more of that.

This is the loop: Plan -> Execute -> Measure -> Refine.

This is where many businesses realise they need an expert eye to interpret the data and build a scalable strategy. If you're more focused on running your business than becoming a part-time data analyst, our digital marketing services exist to take this entire process off your plate.

Tools That Don't Get in the Way

People love to procrastinate by obsessing over tools. The best tool is the one you'll actually use consistently. Don't spend a week choosing a project management app.

• Scheduling: Buffer, Later, or Metricool are all excellent. Pick one.
• Analytics: The native analytics on each platform (LinkedIn analytics, Meta Business Suite) are more than enough to get started. Master those before you pay for anything else.
• Design: Canva is fine to start with. But remember the story of the furniture maker. Authenticity often beats polish.

The goal is a simple, effective tech stack, not a complex one requiring a PhD.

The Biggest Mistake You're Still Going to Make

I can lay this all out for you. But here's what will happen.

You'll get excited. You'll do the audit. You'll build the pillars. You'll feel brilliant for about three weeks.

Then, you'll get a big client project. You'll get busy. You'll miss a content-batching session. You'll think, “I'll just post something quickly today.” And just like that, you're back on the hamster wheel. Back to random acts of content.

Inconsistency is the killer of all great plans.

This 90-day framework isn't a “nice to have.” It's a system that only works if you commit to it. The 90-day mark isn't a finish line you cross. It's the new starting line. It provides the intelligent baseline from which all future growth is built.

This 90-day social media plan aims not to add more work to your plate. It's to make the work you're already doing count. It's to trade frantic, pointless activity for focused, intentional action.

Stop looking for the secret hack or the silver bullet. It doesn't exist. There is only the work.

The real question is: Are you ready to stop being “busy” and start being effective?

If you've read this far and realised you'd rather have an expert team manage this entire process, that's precisely what we do. We build the strategy, create the content, and analyse the data so you can focus on what you do best.

Request a no-obligation quote today, and let's discuss how to fix your social media for the better.

For more brutally honest advice, keep reading the Inkbot Design blog.

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