Does anyone else have a love-hate relationship with social media? 😅 We love the community we’ve built on Instagram, but sometimes the grind of coming up with content ideas, making them happen, and posting gets to be a lot. Sometimes we just want to try some marketing strategies that aren’t social media.
If you’re frustrated with the feeling of needing to be on social media, this episode is for you. Johanna shares a different perspective on showing up on social media.
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- Can you share the moment you decided that leaving social media was the right path for you?
- Reflecting on your own journey, what has been the most challenging part of leaving social media behind, and what advice would you give to your past self?
- What advice would you give to someone who hates social media but fears stepping away will harm their business?
Marketing Strategies That Also See Growth
Ready to take a break from social media and try something else? Social media is typically a place where you’re constantly chasing algorithm changes. It’s hard to be proactive, unlike other strategies. Johanna shares a few marketing strategies that aren’t social you can lean into that see just as much (if not more) growth than social media.
SEO
You knew we’d mention this one 😉 Optimizing your website and content for search engines can help improve your visibility in search results, driving organic traffic to your website. The best way to improve your SEO is through blogging. The more valuable content you put out, the more Google sees you as a reputable source.
Networking / Word of Mouth
Building relationships with your network or new business owners leads to word of mouth, which is an amazing marketing strategy. Attend local networking events, such as business breakfasts, chamber of commerce meetings, or industry-specific gatherings.
We’re involved in a few business directories, and we love going to live conferences to meet other entrepreneurs. From our efforts, we’ve earned:
- New clients
- More speaking opportunities
- Project collaborations
- And new friends!
Email Marketing
We love a good weekly email! Our Tips and Sips newsletter is chock-full of SEO and branding tips for creative entrepreneurs. We provide value but also establish ourselves as experts and stay top of mind with our potential clients. We’ve earned a lot of new business from our weekly email.
Podcast
We’ve really enjoyed investing in our podcast over the last year. Because of this platform, we’ve gotten to meet tons of amazing female business owners and have learned so much from them. Plus, we have been guests on some podcasts, including the Goal Digger podcast with Jenna Kutcher. That episode alone brought in $55K in revenue.
Webinars
Webinars can be great lead gen tools. The tricky part of webinars is you need a way to promote them, which typically involves social media. But there are other ways to market webinars that don’t involve social:
- Weekly newsletter
- Blog
- Podcast
- Affiliates
Partnerships
Partnerships can be a powerful strategy for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. Find other businesses with services that complement yours. For example, we might partner with a blog writer to complement our SEO services. You can work together on bigger projects and refer clients to one another.
Social media can still be a worthwhile marketing strategy, but burning yourself out won’t help your growth. Figure out how much you want to be on social media. Do you want to leave altogether? Do you want to scale back to once a week? It’s completely up to you. You don’t have to rely on social media for growth when there are tons of other marketing strategies that work just as well.
About Johanna & Bye, Social Media
Johanna is the founder of Bye, Social Media!, where she teaches marketing without social media for solo business owners. Johanna’s work is informed by her PhD research on Instagram’s effects on culture and society. Johanna quit social media because of her insights from her research as well as her frustration with the pretension she felt comes with social media. Now she shares what she learnt through her research and own experiences in business with other entrepreneurs.
Johanna works at the intersection of entrepreneurship, research, practical experimentation, and a sprinkling of spirituality/Human Design. Aside from her doctorate, Johanna holds an MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology, as well as an MA in politics. Her professional background spans industries as diverse as startups, VC, journalism, and art. Johanna has lived, worked, and studied in 10+ countries. She believes that the best way to market yourself and build a business is to embrace your unique strengths and authentic path in life. That’s not always easy, though ultimately most sustainable and rewarding.
Johanna is not on social media. To connect with her subscribe to her newsletter here.
Website links: Bye, Social Media! and Mercury (Johanna’s agency for email marketing).
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Abbey Oslin and Courtney Petersen are Minnesota-based marketing experts, educators, and co-founders of boutique marketing agency Duo Collective, which specializes in SEO, social media strategy, and branding for small business owners and creative entrepreneurs. To learn more about Duo Collective, or to inquire about working with our team, head over to www.duocollective.com.
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