We spend hours scrolling, engaging, liking, commenting and then spend another 4 freaking hours making a 15 second reel (!). And for what result? Instagram sees our efforts and responds with 4 views and a pat on the back to ‘stay consistent’.
blogging offers more bang for your buck in small business
Other marketing channels require far less consistent input, yet social media continues to be where business owners spend the most time creating content. For example a post I researched and created relating to long distance relationships and FIFO life, took me a few hours to put together initially but over time, without any additional effort – it now gets over 14K views (and growing) per month to my website. We prioritise checking our socials- sometimes first thing in the morning, on our morning tea, lunch breaks, before dinner, after dinner and in between! Meanwhile, it feels like the owners of these huge companies are rubbing their hands together in glee, watching the dollars multiply in their bank accounts. Our screen time skyrockets while mental health declines… It kinda feels like it doesn’t make any sense, until you understand the biology behind it. The problem is this mini ‘high’ from our dopamine system is short-lived and we crave more. Like many addictions, we get stuck in the addictive cycle because our brain literally becomes hooked. We get caught up in how many views, likes and follows we have and it suddenly becomes all-consuming… So much so, that the methods used for marketing outside (or at a pinch, alongside) social media are forgotten even though they’re just as potent (if not more). It’s a testament to how powerful channels like blogging and email are, because they don’t require us to spend so much time engaging online. In fact, they work so brilliantly that we don’t need to consistently put a lot of time into them. You can ‘set and forget‘ – rewarding your initial efforts with ongoing leads and business growth. They also talk about how they haven’t done anything with their email list, or how they know they should work on their SEO but they haven’t got there yet…
Word of Mouth is the most powerful marketing tool
It’s pretty evident that most of us are obsessed with the stats on our social apps despite the fact that they aren’t what’s really working hard for us. In a global trust in advertising survey by Nielsen 92 percent of consumers around the world say they trust recommendations from family and friends over any other kind of advertising. When you hear info like this it makes me wonder why we aren’t prioritising word of mouth marketing more? It’s such a great way to spread the word about your business, and can be done in such an organic way. The only way we are going to start breaking our social media addiction is by actively prioritising our other marketing channels. Having a break from socials will give you back time to get more strategic with the content you publish. Instead of putting our most valuable content into a social media post where it will die a swift death, maybe it’s time to think about turning them into a blog, an email or even a podcast. In my repurposing strategy, social media posts are actually the last thing I create from my long form content. There’s an underlying belief that we have to work hard to achieve success.. To be successful in business is based on a patriarchal construct that society has long held that you needed to take charge, ‘strike while the iron’s hot’, outperform and execute – a lot of masculine archetypes. There hasn’t been an emphasis on balancing any of this masculine out with more space and free time to allow for feminine ease and flow. So, when we find ourselves with space and ease in our businesses, it feels uncomfortable largely because of the way we’ve been conditioned in society. We have an expectation of business and ourselves to keep pushing ourselves constantly if we want to do better and keep smashing goals. This results in a feeling of urgency to be online and working on/in our businesses all the damn time. In reality what we need more of as humans is:
Connection to self and others. Quality rest. Time to BE without expectation. To experience joy.
And the irony is the more of these things 👆🏾 we fit into our lives, the more abundance and success we invite into our businesses.
Marketing outside of social media is more important than ever
Never before have we been ‘busier’ as a society. With sky-high levels of stress, anxiety and burnout. As a collective we are craving time off our screens to ground ourselves and improve mental wellness. In reality, our minds and bodies aren’t wired to spend this amount of time on social media sites or on screens in general. We should be pursuing more opportunities for in-person connection instead of time to scroll on socials. Things like a good old-fashioned face-to-face conversation and belly laugh with a friend are crucial in overall wellness compared to likes and follows on Instagram. If you’re like me and stuck in a bad habit of checking your phone home screen every couple of minutes, it’s a pretty strong sign that you could do with a social media detox. Taking a break from social media has so many benefits, including fostering a healthier relationship with technology and improving feelings of connection with people around you. After taking a break from posting for 3 months on my business socials, I found that I had lower levels of stress and anxiety. I wasn’t comparing myself to other businesses, or getting distracted by reels and simply because it was one less thing on my to-do list.
1. Turn off push notifications
Switching off notifications from your social feeds means you can be be more intentional with your use of social media, instead of reflexively opening a notification when it pops up on your phone.
2. Set screen time parameters
Most smartphones have the ability to set up screen time limits, even for specific social platforms. The first step would be to identify how much time you are actually spending on your social media accounts and then set a realistic target and period of time to reduce your usage. You can always start small then increase as you build confidence and change your habits.
3. Charge your phone in a different room at night
Quality sleep is super important in improveing overall wellness. Sleeping with your phone beside your bed can have not only have a negative impact on sleep but in the way you connect with your partner before bed, too. If you don’t have the self-discipline (🙋🏼♀️ guilty) to leave your mobile devices alone at night, do as I do and charge your phone in the kitchen or a different room to avoid temptation. I’ve invested in an alarm clock for days I need to check the time or wake up early so that I don’t have the convenient excuse of needing my phone beside my bed… Good news: even a short break can yield positive results and help you reconnect with the world in a more meaningful way. I advocate for taking small steps in the right direction, instead of trying to burn the whole place down and start again, perfectly. There are so many other ways to market your business outside of social media. Start by focusing on one other marketing channel that would work for your business, evaluate, then build from there.
Set up an automated email marketing sequence
Putting together an automated email welcome or nurture sequence is something that when done properly, will continue to serve your business on repeat with little to no maintenance. Invest time in crafting an irresistible opt-in then plan 3-5 emails to welcome subscribers to your list. For best results, evaluate your email stats regularly to tweak your automation along the way.
Host an in-person event
I am a huge fan of bringing people together IRL. You could plan to host an in-person meetup, workshop or social event to encourage real life, genuine connections with your community. it doesn’t always have to be about selling++. The magic comes when you also recognise that building quality connections is more about the long-game in business, but having a strong sense of community just makes life more fun in general.
Get blogging!
Blogging in your small business is not only beneficial for boosting website traffic but it helps build authority in your industry and engage your audience. Writing long form articles is also the easiest way to easily have content on-hand to repurpose to your other marketing platforms like email and social media.
