Over the past decade or so, the marketing vogue has been what is sometimes called a social-first marketing strategy. This involves directing the majority of marketing efforts toward creating content specifically designed to perform well on social media platforms.

But as more people start to reconsider their relationship with social media—and social media’s relationship to culture at large—let’s remember that social media is only one tool in the marketing toolbox, not the whole arsenal.

Depending on how you want to be perceived as a business and content creator, you could even decide to adopt what we might call the social-last marketing strategy.

The social-last strategy involves first and foremost publishing content in the medium and context in which it can provide the most value to your audience (as opposed to forcing content to fit the mold of current trends), and then using social media primarily as a top-of-funnel awareness generator which points people to where your really valuable content can be found.

What this does is twofold:

First, it respects people’s time. If you are among the growing number of those who are personally trying to spend less time on social media, why would you ask your customers to spend more time there on your content?

Second, it allows you to build a focused content environment which is free from the noise that comes from social media feeds. If you can direct customers to a channel or webpage that is filled exclusively with you, then they’re no longer comparing you to another similar business that they’re likely going to see the next time they swipe the screen.

I’m not saying this strategy is necessarily superior to the social-first method, I just want to make sure we’re allowing ourselves to think outside the box and make strategic decisions because they make sense for our business and not just because it’s what everyone else is doing.