Transcript:
[00:00:00.250]Hey, Megan here. Thank you for joining me again. Last week. I was talking to you about all the tools
that I think you need to market your business, whether it’s product based, service based, or blogging.
And I left you with a little caveat that I never mentioned tools you need in your social media.
[00:00:16.820]
And I think looking historically at my content, that’s a bit of a blind spot because I usually talk about
social media specifically in Instagram, Pinterest, and things like that. And I didn’t want to talk about it
because I left social media. I closed a lot of my social media accounts and I want to tell you why and
also the struggles that that has caused and how I’ve overcome them.
[00:00:47.370]
So first, look, everybody knows the importance of social media marketing, including me. I advocate
for it. I think that it is a great way to connect with people and create the sales funnel process, getting
those touch points, know, like and trust you. I’m guilty of all of that and I still believe it, despite my
own decision to leave social media for a long time, I have felt, and a lot of this will be specifically
about Facebook and Instagram. Twitter is having its own little cluster fluff right now, and we’ll see
how that goes.
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But for right now, my decision before was specifically Facebook and Instagram based. For so long I
felt like I had to be on Instagram and Facebook. I had to be there because my competitors were there
and social media marketing is just so critical, right? So I have to be on these platforms. But I hated it.
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I really hated it. I felt hypocritical being on there because I knew the data that everybody was giving
meta and it never made me feel good about doing that. I never liked this trade off that you have to
give in order to work with these companies. And to be fair, I get it. It’s a free service, which means you
are the product.
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And these places have to make money, right? They not only have to have a profit, but they have to be
able to employ tech people and customer service and they need revenue. So if the service is free, they
have to find that revenue elsewhere. I get it. That didn’t make it any easier for me to stomach and I
never liked having to give that up and give up my data.
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And it just never made me feel good about what I was saying. Now, full disclosure, obviously I’m here
talking to you on YouTube, a Google product. I realize Google is not the bastion of data privacy. Fair
enough. For me.
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It became a question of, I don’t know, it was still the trade off I was willing to do to talk to you, if that
made sense. On Instagram, I feel like the algorithm is so against you as an influencer or as a content
creator that I don’t know, it just for me, YouTube felt like the lesser of evils, even though that’s not
really the case. I know objectively, data wise, Google Alphabet is no better than meta, but you pick the
partner you want to dance with. That’s a horrible analogy. So I stopped using the ones I hated the
most.
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I stopped using Facebook, I stopped using Instagram. And I didn’t actually delete my accounts. I put a
post on my Instagram why I didn’t delete the account because I realized in this day and age it is way
more acceptable to have a debt account than it is no account. Especially if you are trying to get
someone to trust that you know what you’re saying. If I am saying that you should trust me to do your
marketing or to help you learn better marketing, and you can’t find any other data points about me
that’s probably like, I don’t know, that probably doesn’t instill a lot of trust.
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So that’s why I was honest on that last post saying “I’m not going to be here anymore. I realize that it’s
better for me to have this debt account here than to completely erase it. So that’s why this post will
stand” and that’s what I put.
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The problems that I have faced with this are ones that I want you to be aware of if you’re thinking
about doing the same thing. And the biggest ones that have come up is that I have had to find other
options for connection. And not only connection for my community, but connection for other
communities. Facebook groups are so prevalent everywhere, not only for marketing friends chat, but
product support. So many products and software have Facebook Group chats for support and when
you don’t have that, you’re kind of at a loss, right?
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It’s not easy to miss out on that. And so it’s a big trade off that you have to have. But on the other
hand, me not being on Instagram, doing live streams or stories or reels or not doing any of that means
that I lose that touch point, that potential touch point for my clients and my fans, potential clients. I
lose that sales funnel. So it’s something that I had to be accepting of and cognizant of.
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And I would say those two are the biggest things that I had to stomach when I was out.
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But let me tell you about how I got past that one with regards to the connection part, it is what it is. I
email if I need support from an app and if they say our Facebook group, I’ll say I don’t have Facebook.
It is what it is with that. And I think that we saw in that Pinterest video that taking a break from social
media was trending and was starting to rise. Which makes me think again that that means people are
starting to move away from social media.
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So I can’t beat the only one that’s having this problem with Facebook Groups, and I think that the more
people advocate for saying, I love your software, or I have questions, whatever, but I’m not on
Facebook. The more businesses hear that, the more they’re going to move away from Facebook
Groups. So you just have to be the unfortunate pioneer in this world. That’s what I’ve had to deal with
that way. In terms of the Instagram touch point or Facebook touchpoint to a lesser extent.
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One, Facebook wasn’t one of my highest converting social media platforms anyways, so it’s not like
it’s a huge loss for me. Two, I started instead really focusing on the things that I enjoyed doing
marketing wise for me, that’s SEO, Pinterest, and talking to you here on YouTube, also my podcast to
a lesser extent, but that’s on hiatus right now while I get all of my stuff back, all of my ducks back in a
row. So if I can divert the frustrated energy that I put towards Meta into positive energy on the
platforms, I like, that’s going to not only work out better for me conversion wise, but it’s going to be a
better connection for me with people like you, who I can talk to in a way that I enjoy, which makes me
more confident, more relaxed, and makes you hopefully like my content better than me just posting
every day on Instagram because I feel like I have to. That’s not fun. Granted, okay, business isn’t going
to be fun 100% of the time, but doesn’t have to be miserable either.
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It can be what you need it to be, and for me, it needed to not be wasting my time on Instagram. What
I’ve really focused hard on is answering better questions through my SEO. A lot of my blog posts now
are questions that I have found need answered and aren’t being really tackled. I found that a lot of
people are really interested in learning more about traditional marketing, like go to market strategies,
things like that, but I’ve taught that because they haven’t either had marketing classes or they’re just
kind of making it up as they go. And so I really started to focus more heavily on answering these
questions and making sure that it was search engine optimized, which has resulted in longer times on
my website, more views, and higher up the Google chain for the other services that I’m still on,
Pinterest here and Twitter.
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To a lesser extent, I automate what I can because it’s there. I use Missing Letter to help automate my
Twitter, and honestly, the only reason they really keep my Twitter right now is because they have
Missing Letter. I have to just decide to let that go to I don’t know what’s going on with Twitter, but I’m
rarely on there anyways, so anything that is there is just automated as a touch point. It’s not really
something I’m active on on Pinterest to be totally transparent despite my love for Pinterest. I don’t
really do a lot with it, and my account still grows every week.
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I think that that’s going to be a 2023 thing for me is really focusing on doing better with Pinterest
because they have so many cool things and cool tools, and I really need to pay better attention to
that. One marketing aspect that seems to be really overlooked in my experience, that has been a
game changer for me is one on one networking. And I think that is the most terrifying thing to do, to
reach out personally to someone and say, what can I do for you? But it’s such a critical business thing
to do, especially for solarpreneurs and freelancers. And I know that it’s scary, but the conversion on it
is so much better than being passive.
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So I’ve really focused on getting better at that, as difficult as it is.
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Now, you’ve heard all of my ramblings about why I left social media and how I have tried to replace
that marketing with different methods. I want to leave you with a couple of questions for you to
answer that will help you decide if you should leave social media or not. Because despite me having
ethical reasons for leaving, I don’t advocate for leaving social media if you don’t have ethical
problems with it. Run your business the way you feel is best to run your business. Don’t listen to how I
run my business.
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Everyone is different. Everyone’s borderlines are different. I still advocate for social media marketing
with my clients because I know it’s effective. It’s just when you decide it’s time to leave, if you ever
decide that. So here are some questions to kind of help you make that decision.
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One, is it benefiting your bottom line? That’s a yes or no question. You can get into the nitty gritty like,
well, my conversion rate is 0.4% on Instagram, and my conversion rate on email is 8%. So technically
it still works, but it doesn’t work as well as email. What is the cost of your time?
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Are you making a profit from that time on social media? Yes or no? And that is not an easy yes or no
to answer. I’ll give you that. That is a tough one.
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It’s a hard truth to swallow sometimes. And so I think you really need to answer it quickly and then
think about the answer, if that makes sense. Number two, how will you attract new clientele if you
leave social media? Again, my strategies are better SEO automating where I can on the platforms that
I still use, diving more into Pinterest, improving my one on one networking abilities. How will you
continue to market your business if you leave social media?
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What will be your method for creating a new sales funnel? That’s what you have to consider. And
number three, do you follow through with ethical concerns? Now, this is obviously if you have ethical
problems with social media. It made me feel really gross in a way to be on social media, to be on
Instagram and supporting those platforms.
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But I felt that way for a long time. I still felt like I had to be there. And so following through on ethical
concerns, it reminds me a lot of I have a friend who is a really successful craft blogger and she is, I
think, on TikTok. Not on tik tok. So you can’t say for 100%.
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But I know she was testing it and we were talking about it. I said, you know, I don’t really like the data
part. Going to China, that freaks me out a little bit. And she’s like, yeah, but they’re going to get your
data anyway, so who cares if they understand that opinion. That’s what I kind of think of when I think
of that question of do you follow through on ethical concerns?
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If you’re like, Look, I know I got my data, but I’m making brand deals on here, then fine, don’t leave
social media. If you are really bothered by it, then start making a plan, but don’t feel like you have to
just because you have ethical concerns. It’s up to you to decide again how your business is run. So
that is my reason for leaving social media. Will I continue to keep culling my platforms?
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I hope so, because it’s a pain in the ass. Especially now with Elon taking over. Twitter doesn’t look
good. And if Pinterest server starts sucking, then the hustle get rid of that too. Then it’ll just be me
and you on YouTube until I get over.
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And then I’ll just be screaming. And to avoid, I don’t know, drinking a lot, maybe, I don’t know. Have
you thought about leaving social media or have you left social media? I’d love to know what your
strategy was. If you can leave a comment and let me know.
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What made you what was the tipping point that made you decide it was time to go? Or is making you
lean in that direction? Leave a comment and let me know and I’ll see you in the next video.
