Ditching Social Media, Reclaiming Focus
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[00:00:00]
Hey guys. Welcome back to how it's really going with Shayna Wrecker. And I deleted Facebook last week. I fully, deleted it. I do have my messenger, but my account is gone and I'm honestly thinking about doing the same with my business, Instagram, and for someone who spent years being coached by other business coaches, that if you weren't on social media for your business, you basically didn't exist.
If you weren't on Instagram, if you weren't, doing lives and all the things, you just basically didn't exist. And as a business owner, it's. Kind of crazy to land in a place where I'm considering getting rid of social media. that's what this episode's about.
Ditching my social media accounts, what I am looking at doing instead, and all of my thought processes around the whole thing.
When you have a podcast like this one, you're taught to market it using social [00:01:00] media.
I always thought that those two things had to go hand in hand . When you put intention and energy into something, it's really interesting watching the universe move the puzzle pieces around to support you.
I have a business acquaintance friend that we chat chitchat every so often. She does copywriting. She's doing, her own thing. She's amazing. Her name's Lindsay Smith. Give her a shout out. Lindsay Smith creative.ca. I did her website way back when. We've just been in the same circles and as far as business goes, and we've been going back and forth talking about podcasting and she led me to this person that she's been working with, her name's Jan Ditchfield,
I've been listening to some of her podcast episodes and like this has helped me get to this. Point, and I wanna share a little bit about what she teaches. 'cause I think it's really important for this episode. But what I'm saying is that it's interesting that when you put some energy and attention into something, how, the pieces and that you need.
To support that, find you between, to having [00:02:00] conversations with Lindsay and then listening to this podcast and my own research I feel like things are starting to come together in the way that they're supposed to.
I've learned that you don't necessarily need. Instagram or social media to promote a podcast, you need good SEO and good SEO is how people find podcast episodes because your platform like iTunes or Spotify, is searchable. And so for people to find this podcast.
It's about having the right keywords and the right titles and the right descriptions in your episodes to grow a podcast. It doesn't have anything to do with Instagram. Sure. Could Instagram, help maybe, but the time and effort that you'd have to put into that forget it.
I don't have the capacity to build an Instagram to support the podcast. I barely have the capacity to do the podcast as it is right now. Just to back up, when I was going through business coaching, when I was being coached to be a business coach, like I used to work with Chris and Lori Harder I [00:03:00] worked with rose, gosh, I can't remember her last name.
I wanna say Rose Landry, but that's from heated rivalry. Um, Her name's Rose, but I can't Radcliffe, rose Radcliffe. I did her business coaching. I worked with, I don't know, there's probably, I spent. Thousands of dollars on working with business coaches, and they were great in that time. This was like 20 20, 20 21 up until about 20, 23 is when I stopped and.
The message back then was if you had an online business, you had to be on social media. Like you. If you weren't on social media, what were you doing? And I remember Chris harder even saying if you were launching a coaching program or a product, whatever, you had to be omnipresent. You had to unload the barrels, be on all Instagram and social media platforms, Facebook, everything, and be marketing your message.
It's about being everywhere all at once. And that was what we were taught back then to, to be successful in selling anything online. And that has changed, and I know it's changed for me because I know I experienced [00:04:00] social media burnout in my business, trying to be all the places all at once, and it made me literally just close my business and be like, I can't do this anymore now that I'm back.
I have a different business, but in being online and being, trying to be present for that business, I've realized what I don't wanna do, which is get back onto social media, which is why my business Instagram, it looks pretty and I have someone who helps me with it.
And I still am struggling to try and post on there because I feel like, what's the point? It's the same 10 people who see the post, who like it, who comment, my husband comments on it like, and it's like I'm putting all this time and effort and money into building this Instagram. And for what?
Nobody's seeing it. Right now for that, my Kajabi based business, I get my clients through referrals and through. Other like places, not my Instagram. So why am I even spending an ounce of energy, time, or money in that space? It doesn't make sense. So I've made the decision mentally, I'm just gonna shut that down [00:05:00] like nobody needs to like, or I can just leave it, but I'm not gonna grow it because I don't need it.
I know that Instagram has now searchable as far as SEO is concerned, but I have. Strategies in place for SEO for that business. I have a company that I work with that helps me with my blo, my blog posts, and helps me with my SEO and making sure that my website and all those things are up to par.
I would rather put time and energy and effort into that versus into a social media account that is really doing nothing for me.
So this experience has got me really thinking about what do I want to keep and what do I wanna get rid of in regards to my personal life and my business world? Because one of the things that in this podcast with Jan Ditchfield, she talked about was how much time she was spending creating Instagram posts for her business.
She was saying that she did four posts a week and she was in her stories like three times a day. So she had used those numbers as [00:06:00] her reference point. And so that was 16 pieces of content. And so when she did the map on what it actually took for her to create all of that content, it ended up being like 32 hours in a month
and she was like, for what I was getting back in return. For my business from putting in that much time and effort. She goes, it was nothing basically. And that was time away from her family or friends developing other pieces of her business that, do generate more returns. When I heard those numbers and I actually thought about it, I was like, oh my gosh.
That is a lot of time not to mention money, I have someone who helps me create my posts and do the graphics and all that stuff. So that's money and that's time and it is not having any type of return. And I realize where I need to spend my time and energy is in SEO generated content, which is blog posts, podcasts, that kind of content. Now, I know Instagram [00:07:00] does contribute to SEO now, but I don't think it's enough to warrant the time and energy it needs in order to create.
Content for that.
The other important point that she made in this podcast was about the length of time that Instagram content stays relevant for, which is 24 hours, maybe a little bit more, if you're lucky, if you get people who engage with it, but then it kind of dies and it just washes away into the algorithm where podcast content, if someone is searching for something and they find your podcast episode, whether it's a new one or an old one, and they listen to it.
Oftentimes they are going to binge other episodes in your podcast, and I've seen that happen in my podcast before where I've had a new episode launch, but then some of the older episodes are getting listens because people scroll through your episodes and they listen to other pieces. So your content stays relevant for much longer in a podcast format than Instagram.
I would [00:08:00] rather put that time and energy into maybe building a podcast for my Kajabi business. I think more and more people are moving towards this type of content because we're all burnt out over social media. Yes, it's fun to scroll memes and send memes to friends every once in a while, but even that, I've started to get a little bit like, oh, I just don't wanna waste away my life on my phone.
And this whole like realization about social media, especially after deleting Facebook and stuff, is just maybe do a reassessment of what do I actually wanna be doing when I'm on my social media accounts? When I'm on my phone,
like where do I want it? What do I want it to be doing for me? Yes, there is a social aspect and I do wanna have that, but there is also this purpose of my businesses and my podcast, like how, what do I want these to become? And then what is the best way for me to use my time and energy to, to get these messages and to get my business out to more people?
That's where, for me, [00:09:00] Facebook and Instagram is not it. That's absolutely not it. One of the things that I have started doing is I have started moving towards threads. Now I don't know how or why I started doing this again. The, my friend, I talked about Lindsay. She is on threads and she crushes it on threads.
She's one of those super witty. Obviously she's a copywriter so she knows what to say and all the things, but she's great at just putting out some great content and I go on there every once in a while and see her stuff and it's always funny or good or whatever.
Interesting. And, And it doesn't have to be a lot, that's the thing. Threads to create content for threads. It could take you two seconds. Like I literally just posted something before I started this podcast, and it was like two seconds and I hit post, and so I also feel like threads as far as, let's say marketing, this podcast is a better fit because threads is just about random thoughts, things, opinions.
It's much like this podcast. This podcast is my random thoughts, things, opinions. There's no rhyme or reason. It's just what [00:10:00] comes out of me. And that's what Threads is. And I really feel like it's a fun place to just be yourself and say what you wanna say and be unique and don't worry about being weird 'cause everybody's weird on there.
And just have fun. I feel like I've. In the last little while I've realized how much I hold back from sharing , especially platforms like Instagram, because I'm worried about people thinking, I'm weird. Or I'll go to post something in my stories and I'll be like, oh, that, that seems weird.
That sounds weird. Or, it makes sense to me, but it's probably not gonna make sense to other people, so I'm not gonna post that. You know what I mean? And I'm holding back on being myself because I'm worried about what other people are gonna think. And I'm like, I'm just over it.
I'm over it. I don't care. You think I'm weird? I'm weird. I am weird. I say weird things. There's lots of random shit that comes outta my mouth every so often. I don't care. I just don't care anymore.
If I can just be weird and random on [00:11:00] threads, then I'm gonna be weird and random on threads. And you like it, you can hang out. If you don't, you don't have to. And same with this podcast. I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say. It's gonna be what it's gonna be. And I'm not gonna overthink it.
And if you like it, awesome. Stay. And if you don't, you don't have to listen. That's the place that's the space that I'm trying to create.
So really in essence, this podcast episode is me just processing out loud.
For the first time in a long time, I feel like I've been given permission to let go of the things that don't serve me that I have been.
, Ingrained, it's been ingrained in me since I started doing business coaching. And even when I was back in my network marketing days, we were, you need to be on Facebook, you need to be doing Facebook Lives, you need to be on Instagram, you need to be in your stories. Like those things were fed to us over and over and over and over again, and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I've been per given permission.
To let that go, that I don't have to be on those places in order to be successful. And God damnit, that feels good. [00:12:00] It just feels so good. Like if I can just. Show up here and talk., I love talking, I love sharing all the things. So if this is the way I can do it now and just be me, that just feels so refreshing and so fucking good.
And I am here for it.
I'll tell you this podcast specifically, there is something about it that I just can't fully explain yet. And when I say out loud that it's time for me to stop getting in my own way and actually build this. Something in my gut, like it's like a firecracker going off, like my stomach literally drops in the best way and I'm learning that I need to pay attention to that feeling.
It means something like when you can't let go of something and you think about it and it just makes your stomach all warm and fuzzy, that's a sign that you need to pay attention to that. So that's what I'm doing. I'm paying attention to it, and I am so happy that you are here with me for this. Let's see what happens.
I can't wait. We'll talk to you soon. Bye for [00:13:00] now.
