Do you worry that potential clients will forget about you if you stop posting on social media?

Summer holidays can often bring an added layer of pressure. Should you schedule posts while you're away? Is it OK to disappear for a couple of weeks? And do therapists really need to post everyday?

In this episode, I explore what a healthy relationship with social media could look like, why consistency matters more than frequency, and why taking time to rest may actually be one of the best things you can do for yourself and your private practice.

I also share some August awareness days that could inspire your social media content for the month.

Takeaways:

• Why consistency matters more than frequency
• What to do with your social media while you're on holiday
• Whether people notice if you stop posting
• Creating healthier boundaries with social media
• The importance of authenticity in your marketing
• Why rest isn't something you have to earn

August Content Ideas:

8 August – Happiness Happens Day. A chance to encourage clients to notice small moments of joy and connection.

15 August – Relaxation Day. An opportunity to discuss rest, burnout and nervous system regulation.

16 August – Authenticity Day. Perfect for exploring authenticity, masking, people pleasing and finding your own voice.

21 August – Internet Self-Care Day. A useful prompt to discuss comparison, healthy digital boundaries and creating a more positive relationship with social media.

Who Do You Want To Help? Exploring Niching is next taking place on Tuesday 14th July at 7.30pm. Other dates will also be available. Check out my website to book: josephinehughes.com

Setting up in private practice? Download my free checklist HERE

Need ideas for how to get clients? Download my free handout 21 Ways for Counsellors to Attract New Clients HERE

You can also find me here:

The Good Enough Counsellors Facebook Group

Josephine Hughes on Facebook

Josephine Hughes on YouTube

My website: josephinehughes.com

FAQs

Do therapists need to post on social media every day?

No. Consistency is usually more important than frequency. A thoughtful post once a week is often more effective than posting every day without a clear purpose.

Should therapists post on social media while they're on holiday?

Only if they want to. Some therapists schedule posts in advance, while others prefer to take a complete break. The important thing is choosing an approach that supports your wellbeing.

Will people forget about me if I stop posting?

Most people are far more focused on their own lives than on whether you've posted this week. A short break from social media is unlikely to have a significant impact on your private practice.

Keywords:

social media boundaries, managing social media on holiday, social media tips for therapists, out of office notice, social media scheduling, authenticity in social media, Internet Self Care Day, social media comparison, private practice growth, social media for therapists, taking breaks from social media, intentional social media posting, client relationships and social media, social media habits, mental health and social media, social media engagement strategies, planning social media content, self-care for therapists

The information contained in Good Enough Counsellors is provided for information purposes only. The contents of this podcast are not intended to amount to advice and you should not rely on any of the contents of this podcast. Professional advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from taking any action as a result of the contents of this podcast.

Josephine Hughes disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on any of the contents of this podcast.

What do you do when it's five o' clock on a Friday and you're getting up and leaving the house at 5am the following morning?

Well, I'll tell you what you do, you record your podcast.

That's what I'm doing.

And what I'm talking about today is social media boundaries for when you go on holiday.

So of course this is very relevant to me.

So tune in if you want to know how to manage your social media boundaries when you are about to go on holiday or take a break over the summer.

Welcome to Good Enough Counsellors, the podcast for growing a private practice without the pressure to be perfect.

I'm Josephine Hughes, counsellor and creator of Therapy Growth Group Health, helping you get the clients you want and create the practice of your dreams.

So isn't it difficult to know what to do?

And I've faced this question today, which is, what am I going to do about my social media while I'm on holiday?

And to be honest, you know, I'm somebody who doesn't schedule a lot of social media in advance.

I usually do it on the day when I'm thinking about it.

However much I try and organize myself, I'm just a very much do it on the day sort of person.

That's the way my brain works.

But of course that then begs the question as to how can I actually get anything ready for when I'm away.

And so what I've actually done is I've just quickly redesigned my out of office notice and I'm going to be adding that to my social media shortly and publishing it so people will know that I'm away.

And I'm sure that post will attract some people saying, have a lovely time and I can go away and not post on social media if I want, but equally, if I get an idea, I might well post on social media.

So I think it's very much up to you as to what you want to do.

You can, if you want, schedule your social media and it'll continue to go out while you're away.

But that the question as to what you would do if you got any replies, would you answer them or would you leave them until you get back?

So sometimes something like an out of office is quite a useful thing to do.

And what we often worry about with that is, oh, what if people forget about me or, you know, shouldn't I be posting often so that people see me and I stay relevant to them?

And I think it's really important not to put too much pressure on yourself because on the whole, people don't really notice if you don't post.

But when you start posting again, do something, even share something that's interesting about the fact that you've been away and people quite often respond to that and then you're just back to doing your normal posting routine.

So the thing that I would really like to say is that it's very easy to think that you've got to post a lot, but actually I think it's much better to be consistent and consistency for you.

Posting daily just might not be possible for you.

And I think possibly this is.

It's not easy for therapists to be posting every day.

You've got too many other things going on in your life.

And recently I interviewed Annie Jones, who talked about using Facebook for reaching clients locally.

And she's definitely of the opinion that to post once a week is sufficient.

Especially if you think about your post, you plan it out and you think about the people who it's going to be going to.

That is so much better to have a thoughtful post that you've really planned where you've thought about who it is you're trying to reach, where perhaps you've selected something that's really relevant to them to talk about.

And a considered post like that is far more likely to speak to people than a rush post where you just think, oh, I'll just quickly find something to share.

It's much more intentional and it will speak to people more than just something that you just quickly find for the purposes of, well, I've got to do something.

It's much better to be focused and intentional than it is to just post anything thing.

And you may think to yourself, oh, you know, am I failing if I don't do that?

No, you're really not.

You are in charge of what your social media looks like and it's up to you to decide what's going to work for you.

You don't have to do it the same as anybody else.

And I think we have to be really careful here because you'll often get your.

If you are on, say, Facebook, you'll get business suite saying to you, oh, post every day, because that means that more people will be able to find you.

It wants you to be on the platform.

It wants you to be doing stuff that keeps other people on the platform as well.

It hasn't necessarily got your best interests at heart.

And I think it's really important to think about what you need.

And having a week or two weeks away from social media where you can refresh yourself, you can forget about it.

You don't have to think about clients.

That is really good for you and it gives you a break, it gives you a rest.

And it means that when you come back, you'll be so much fresher and better able to engage with people online.

So you're not failing if you're not posting daily, and you're definitely not failing if you take time off.

Now, while we're thinking about your relationship to social media, you may also like to think about your client's relationship to social media as well.

And there's a day coming up in August which could be quite useful to you, and that is on the 21st of August, it's Internet self Care Day.

Now, I don't know about you, but I do spend an awful lot of time scrolling through social media.

And I think I saw an article the other day that said something like, you know, do you really want to spend four weeks of your one wild and precious life scrolling on social media?

Because someone had worked out that's sort of how much time we spend in our lives scrolling on social media?

And if it was four weeks, I don't think that sounds enough.

Certainly not for me.

So easy to just get caught up in scrolling in social media.

But of course that does have an impact on us, doesn't it?

And so 21 August Internet self care Day could be a great day where you could bring in a story about how you look after yourself and how you control your social media scrolling.

For example, you could talk about how you set boundaries on social media.

Possibly you could talk about comparison.

I have a lot of online comparison as I've talked about before, and I'm getting so much better at this now.

One of the boundaries that I've put in place is that if I find myself comparing myself to someone else, I'll actually unfollow them and not look at their stuff because it's not healthy for me to be comparing myself to them.

And I just let them go and just think, let them get on with what they're doing and I'll get on with what I'm doing.

And that's.

I found a really healthy social media boundary for me.

So what helps you, what helps you when you're on social media and how could perhaps you help your clients adapt something that might help them to have a healthier relationship with the Internet and reduce comparison, reduce overwhelm, and maybe create a few healthier habits for when you're on your phone.

So that's Internet Self care day on the 21st of August.

Now another day that is coming up in August is on the 16th and it's authenticity Day.

And while we're talking about social media and you thinking about your clients and what they need, I think it's really helpful to think about what you need too.

And one of the things that we can do when we're running a social media page is we can look around at other people and they're doing something like Reels, for example, or they're doing a post in a particular way and we think it's very effective and we sort of think to ourselves, is that what works?

And then we can start trying to push ourselves into a particular mode.

And the thing is, it might be authentic for that other person to be doing that, but it may not be authentic for us.

And of course when we're trying too hard, people can actually pick up on that.

It's the authenticity shines through so much more if we can just be who we really are.

Because some of us love to say share personal stories, but for other people, that just wouldn't be right for them.

So please don't feel that you've got to do it the same way as everyone else and just think about that Authenticity day and what being authentic really means for you and maybe share something about what authenticity means for your clients as well and how that might come through in their lives.

There's so much AI slop around at the moment, isn't there?

And I think that could be even a good way of talking about authenticity, about being real, about being you.

And you could even bring something in on that particular day about how you're not like AI because you're a real human being with human beings responses and how that can really help clients because you're able to make connections, to see things, to help build them up in a way that AI just doesn't make possible.

I'm very aware as I'm talking that as I said, it's five o' clock on a Friday and I'm going on holiday in 12 hours time.

Isn't it always so much easier to talk about boundaries for other people and find them much more difficult to implement them for yourself?

All I can say is that I know I'm going to be able to relax after I've recorded this podcast, because I will send it off to my editor.

He'll have something to do while I'm away and I'll come back and it will all be ready, which is why I wanted to do it before I went away.

But having said that, there are some lovely days coming up in August which I think someone like me could really take notice of.

On the 10th of August it's lazy day.

On the 15th of August it's the relaxation day.

And on the 8th it's happiness happens Day.

And I think there's a lovely theme running through all of those about rest and about allowing and about being rather than doing, how people relax in different ways, perhaps how laziness isn't really laziness, it's often rest or it's a sign of maybe burnout and how important it is to enjoy our rest.

And with Happiness Happens, I think it's also about focusing on those small moments of joy.

So what I'm going to do now is quickly remind you that if you're somebody who's on social media and you're struggling a bit to know what to say, often that's struggle can be around.

You're not really quite sure who it is you're trying to reach with your social media.

And that's when our social media can be very bland.

And it means that the authenticity isn't really there because we're trying to be all things to everyone.

Whereas if you really know who it is you're trying to reach, that makes it so much easier because you can directly see speak to the problems that people have got and you can talk about your lived experience of working with clients.

Obviously you wouldn't talk about the clients, but you could talk about the sorts of things that happen to people and the way that people might feel.

And because you've got that lived experience, it comes across as very authentic.

So next week this is coming up in July, I am going to be teaching on niching and exploring whether or not you'd like a niche.

And that's going to be on Tuesday the 14th of July at 7:30.

And I will pop the link into the show notes.

But if you're listening to this after the episode has come out and that date has passed, I do run these workshops regularly, so do check out the link in the show notes.

So I'm going to finish now and go and pack my suitcase.

But before I do, I just want to leave you with some short questions.

What would a sustainable social media schedule look like for you?

Would it be just posting once a week?

Because that is perfectly okay.

You don't have to post every day.

I talked about boundaries on social media.

What would help you, what would help you to have a healthy relationship with social media, especially if you're somebody who's running a business page.

What would it look like for you when you're on holiday?

Are you just going to put that out of office on?

Are you going to be replying to people's questions while you're on holiday?

Just have a think about that before you go away.

And how about this one?

This is a sort of thing my supervisor would say to me.

What would happen if you gave yourself permission to rest?

I think that's a really good one for me to think about as I sign off.

Remember, there are people who need your help.

They're going to go on needing your help even when you get back.

So to take a week or two out is perfectly okay.

And social media is a tool that supports your practice, but it doesn't have to be a tool that takes over your life.

Thanks for listening and I will be back next week.

Perhaps a little less rushed.

Thanks for listening.

Do come and join my Facebook community.

Good enough counsellors and for more information about how I can help you develop your private practice, please Visit my website JosephineHughes.com if you found this episode helpful, I'd love it if you could share it with a fellow therapist or leave a review on your podcast app.

And in closing, I'd love to remind you that every single step you make gets you closer to your dream.

I really believe you can do it.