How to Market to an Audience That’s Barely on Their Phones
It’s July. The weather is gorgeous, the out-of-office auto-replies are firing on all cylinders, and if you’re looking at your social media metrics, you might be feeling a mild sense of panic.
Engagement rates drop, reach feels sluggish. Yeah, you’re posting great content, but it feels like you’re shouting into an empty room.
Before you decide the algorithm hates you or that your business is failing, let’s all just take a deep breath. It’s not you. It’s summer.
In July, consumer behavior shifts drastically. People aren't doom-scrolling for 45 minutes on their couch at 8pm. They’re at the cottage, at the beach, or wrangling kids who are out of school. Sure, they are still attached to their phones, but consuming content in short, distracted bursts.
If you want to keep growing your business online during the summer months, you can’t just post your usual content and hope for the best. You have to adapt to how your audience is actually living right now.
Here is your July survival guide.
1. Get to the Point (Faster Than Usual)
Attention spans are always short on social media, but in July, they are microscopic. If someone is checking Instagram while waiting in line for ice cream, you have about two seconds to hook them.
Now is not the time for a 500-word caption that buries the lead.
💡 OMG Pro Tips:
💜 Use punchy hooks: Tell them exactly what the post is about in the first three words.
💜 Make it skimmable: Use bullet points, short paragraphs, and bold text.
💜 Deliver value immediately: Don't make them swipe through 8 carousel slides to get the one piece of advice they actually need.
2. Shift Your Posting Times
The standard "best times to post" go out the window in the summer. The 5pm commute scroll? Replaced by patio drinks. The Saturday morning coffee scroll? Replaced by packing the car for a day trip.
Pay close attention to your analytics right now. You might find that early mornings (before the day gets started) or late evenings (when people finally wind down) are suddenly your highest-performing windows.
💡 OMG Pro Tip: Don't be afraid to experiment with times that usually flop in November.
3. Lean Into the Season (Without Being Cliché)
We’ve all seen the generic "Happy First Day of Summer!" posts with a stock photo of a beach ball. They don't do anything for your business.
💡 OMG Pro Tip: Instead of posting generic summer content, show how your product or service fits into their actual summer reality.
💜 If you’re a service provider, talk about how outsourcing to you means they can actually take a Friday off to go to the lake.
💜 If you sell a product, show it being used in a summer context.
💜 Acknowledge the chaos. If your target audience is moms, talk about the reality of balancing work with kids being home.
4. Don't Go Dark
The biggest mistake business owners make in July is looking at lower engagement numbers and deciding to just give up until September.
Consistency builds trust. Even if your likes are down, your audience is still watching. They are still remembering your name. If you disappear for two months, you will have to work twice as hard to regain your momentum in the fall.
💡 OMG Pro Tip: Adjust your expectations, tweak your strategy, and keep showing up. Your business deserves more than a summer hiatus.
You deserve a summer break just as much as your audience does. If you’re tired of stressing over what to post while you're trying to enjoy the cottage, let us take it off your plate.
Book a call to build your summer strategy.