In this weeks episode we discuss whether or not you need a social media detox and what that could look like in your own life and business. I also share my heart in retelling the story of how I came to the point where I knew I wanted to grow my business without using social media. We also go over five practical action steps you can take to still run your business apart from social media.
Episode Highlights:
・My story and the why that resulted in me taking my business off social media
・Do you need a social media detox? If so, what are some ways that could look
・Five steps you can practically take to still run your business during a social media detox
Episode Resources/References:
Connect with Heather:
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COLORMATCH (to get a free custom color match for the Seint Makeup)
VIP (to get a link to my VIP makeup channel over on Telegram)
Transcript |
21 | Do You Need a Social Media Detox? 5 Steps You Can Take to Still Run Your Business
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Hi friend! Welcome to the Scale Without Social podcast. Are you wanting to spend a little bit less time on social media? Or are you looking to take a more permanent or a temporary digital detox? But you still have a business to run so you’re trying to navigate what the heck that looks like. Well I’m so excited to share with you today my five steps that you can take to still run your business but take a social media detox.
Hey friends! Okay, so I’m excited to continue the conversation that we’ve been having around social media and how it can be addicting and the negative impacts that it can have on your mental health.
In the last episode I shared that according to research online that 5% to 10% of everyone that’s on social media is actually addicted. And whether or not that is you, you might be looking to spend a little bit less time on social media. You might be feeling a little bit overwhelmed or quite frankly, burned out.
So are you looking to take a digital detox, temporarily or permanently, but you still have a business to run? It’s my goal today to give you some advice and some steps that you can take. If you want to take a temporary or a permanent detox from social media. So I wanted to share my story first, because if this is the first time that you’re listening to this podcast, you might have missed it. Or if we have not connected in a past life before, you might not know my story.
You can actually listen to episode 1 to hear a little bit more about my journey in business, both traditional retail and in network marketing. So essentially I have been on social media, both Facebook and Instagram pretty much since the beginning. Full disclosure, I did build my network marketing business by sharing strategically on those platforms. However, I would never have considered myself an online influencer in terms of me trying to use the platforms as a personal brand, if you will.
I think there were times where I dabbled in it, but something just never quite sat well with me. And I just really struggled with how to balance what it looked like to use social media for how it was intended, which is keeping up with your friends and family, sharing life updates, and finding a way to communicate and connect with the people that we meet throughout our lives.
And then using it to leverage it for my business. Right? And so this was a struggle that I’ve had throughout my business journey in both of those endeavors both traditional retail, as well as network marketing.
But it really came to a head, I’d say about a year ago, last August. I saw a post from Jennie Allen. She is the founder of the If Gathering and she’s a best-selling author. She’s really awesome. She has an amazing podcast as well. I went back to find her post and she actually did a post on taking a rest from all of it for 30 days.
So she took not just a social media or digital detox, but she just took a break altogether. But something about her post that she made last August really touched my soul. It caused me to decide right there on the spot to take a detox from social media. So, what I did is I just let my Facebook and Instagram friends know that I was doing that in advance of it. And I just took that month to step away from social media.
I have to say it was incredibly refreshing and just eye opening. And one of the major reasons that I did it is I think I was trying to focus too much on that strategy component of social media when, quite frankly, it just didn’t set well with my purpose and my passion for being a business owner.
So when I decided to step back onto social media, about a month later, I was very clear on the fact that I no longer wanted to have a strategy when it came to social media. I just wanted to share what came to my heart, what felt right for me, whether that was something I loved or an experience I was having. And essentially that’s what I did for about five or so months until flash forward to January of this year of 2022.
When I decided to start a new podcast, helping business owners break down their big business goals and grow their business.
I took this incredible college level course called Podcast to Profit led by Stefanie Gass. That really just helped me to get clear on what I wanted this podcast to be. And one of the challenges that she gave to us in that program was to set up a Facebook group to serve the community of listeners for our podcast.
And again, something just did not sit right with me.
And so I had this idea that, wow, do I really need Facebook to build my business? Is that the core principle for what’s gotten me to where I am in my business today and I really thought about it and no, it’s not. And it’s also not what got so many others long before social media was a thing. Got them to where they are in business.
And I realized that my experience was just a stepping stone for being a part of something even bigger. And facing and addressing the problem with mental health and comparison and FOMO and all of the things that social media brings into our lives that we could remove those negative aspects of it and still run a business. So that’s when I decided to pivot this podcast, you can go back and listen to episode eight, to hear my heart a little bit more on why I believe that you can build your business without having to be a slave to social media.
And so from that point forward, I decided, you know, once and for all that, it would be confusing for me to try to show up and leverage social media. So I took a pretty strong detox and I have now been off of social media for about four months now. Which is kind of wild.
And I have to tell you, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and it just feels so freeing to be able to focus my energy on other aspects of growing my business and being able to help others do the same thing as well.
So maybe you’re in a similar position where you are looking to spend less time on social media, or maybe you are looking to take that social media detox. Again, temporarily or permanently.
So today I wanted to share with you five steps that you can take and to make it really easy, they all start with the letter D. To take that digital, social media detox, and still run your business effectively.
Okay. So the first D is decide. So if this is you and you are wanting to take a digital detox, you’ve got some decisions to make.
Is it a specific platform that’s triggering these negative thoughts for you? Is there one in particular that when you look at your screen time, you’re finding, you’re spending an excessive amount of time. Do you have just a certain one that maybe does, or doesn’t cause problems for you personally?
And so for me, that’s Instagram and Tik TOK. So the reason these are a little bit more of a trigger for me is because they are the easiest for me to go down a rabbit hole or a time suck.
And also to me, they’re the ones where I see so many entrepreneurs trying to show up like an online influencer, as opposed to trying to use or leverage social media, just to connect with other people. And so many of them are burning themselves out by trying to build this massive following. But instead of building relationships on connection and trust, which is what is ultimately going to build their business, they are focusing on something that isn’t necessarily the right fit for their business model.
And so for me, Instagram and TikTok are much more of a trigger than say Facebook. So Facebook is something that can be a little bit of a rabbit hole, but it’s also a great place to keep up with the life events and happenings, like when I have something that one of my friends is going through, that’s a hard time like losing a pet or going through a medical issue or something to be celebrated like a marriage or an engagement.
So Facebook can be a great place because that is still primarily a platform to either connect with and share information with the people that you know, and love. But also Facebook is a phenomenal place for groups and resources to support your business. And I have several communities and groups that have served me well, personally, like the, she works his way community or Bob Heilig, who I’m going to be interviewing, coming up on the podcast.
He’s an amazing business mentor and He’s taught me so much, and I’m a part of one of his high level leadership programs that is primarily on Facebook. Or when I was doing that Podcast to Profit group that I was telling you about earlier the information was primarily on Facebook in a group. And so for me, Facebook isn’t as much of a problem.
And because I have some of those resources, it isn’t something that I intend to completely get off of. But I’m currently praying about potentially. Deleting Instagram and Tik TOK completely from my phone. But we’ll get to that in just a second.
So one thing I also like about Facebook is you can customize your newsfeed now they are kind of playing around with this it looks like.
And basically what you can do is you can go to your settings and go to your feed settings and you can customize by selecting 30 favorites. That will go to the top of your newsfeed. So you can really see those close friends and family that you really want those updates from. You can also unfollow some people who maybe are just taking up a negative energy or a negative mental space for you. You can also snooze people if you want to. And then they have some little key ways that you can kind of follow those groups or pages or people back if you need to. So you can customize your Facebook feed, which I think can be helpful and can be definitely an impact on that first D, which is decide again.
So also you can decide to do it permanently, right? Like. My brother has not been on Facebook for years, like five or more years. And actually when I was reviewing some of the features, like there’s a friends list feature, which I find to be really outdated. I couldn’t even figure out how to see the people on my friends list, but I had a friend’s favorite list and I was able to see several people, like my brother, who have deleted facebook altogether, they’re no longer on the platform.
And maybe that is for you, but more than likely, especially if you aren’t necessarily addicted to social media, you just want to take a little bit of a break. You could decide to just take one day off a week. Maybe it’s the weekends. Maybe it’s you take the actual week off and you catch up on the weekends.
Maybe you take off an entire week, each month to give yourself a little bit of a refresh, or maybe you take an entire month off every single year to just really kind of reflect on your purpose and what you want to leverage and use social media for, to build your business. So the first step you can take is to D decide what it is that you want to do. The detox level that you want to take in your business.
Okay, so next step is Divulge. So this is essentially where you can and should manage the expectations of the people that are already following you on these platforms that you’re planning to take a break from. Now, if it’s just for a day or a week, I don’t think that’s a big deal, but if you are planning like me to take an extended period like a month or like I’m doing now, kind of an indefinite detox from these platforms.
You want to let people know your heart and your why. So what I mean by that is like Jennie Allen, when she shared that she had taken off an entire month off her business to take time to rest and reflect. It was so inspiring to me.
As a follower, I mean, certainly she’s not a personal friend though I do want to be her friend, she’s amazing. But when I read her posts, it was so inspiring to me. Your story and your reason for deciding to take a break from social media can impact others in that same way. So you sharing your heart and the why behind taking a break, however long you’re doing it can number one, managing expectations for when someone’s like, wait, where did, where did Heather go? What’s going on? But two, you could connect with and inspire the people who are following you. And that you have an influence over because I’m telling you my experience in this is there are other people who are feeling exactly the same way.
And it’s a great way that you can connect with others who are on that journey and who want to take that digital detox to build a deeper relationship off of social media with you.
And because building trust and creating that relationship and connection is the number one thing that’s going to make someone want to purchase whatever it is that you are selling or sharing. For example, I’m much more likely to purchase Jennie Allen’s latest book because I’ve connected deeply with her story and her vulnerability and sharing her heart. Right.
So you might find that you can build a deeper connection and relationship with someone who is going to become a customer of yours or a business partner. I know my last two artists or business partners that have joined me in my journey. Share with me that one of the factors of them deciding to link arms with me in business was because of the fact that I had shared my heart in that. So that’s number two is divulge.
So the third D or step is direct. So it’s really important, especially if you are running a business to direct people, to where the alternatives are, where they can find you and reach you. Because we are all just a little bit used to leveraging social media like the DMS. The inbox or even just a comment on there to connect with other people. And if you’re not on those platforms, you need to direct people with how they can connect with you. And this was super powerful for me because obviously I directed people to the podcast and I directed people specifically to telegram.
Which is where I’m actively running my business. And for me, telegram is an awesome way to stay in communication and connection with the people that I know and love, particularly in business.
And so for me, I directed people and I’m continually directing people to telegram, to connect with me.
So do you keep in mind that when you are taking a break from social media, you still have a business to run. You still need to be consistent in the way that you communicate with your customers. So this is where if you’re not going to be sharing certain updates on social media any longer, you need to lean into things like email campaigns and text campaigns. To again, connect with your people to let them know what’s happening and to stay connected with them and an alternative way to Facebook. So again, number three is direct.
Number four is delegate. So. Do you have someone that you work with who can maybe check in on your messages or even post on your behalf?
So a lot of businesses that you know, require a social media presence, it doesn’t necessarily have to be you as the business owner showing up and being the one, doing that. So, perfect example, when I had my bridal shop I would delegate the social media to one of my employees or to someone that I had on staff. And it was just such a refreshing break for me because it wasn’t like it was one more responsibility. Again, I wasn’t trying to show up as this social media influencer. I was just trying to share things like the newest dresses or the trunk shows and events.
And so that was something I could easily delegate to an employee. And likewise actually just hired an incredible VA, a virtual assistant, that if I were to continue leveraging social media, this is a perfect person that I could, if it was for a week or for a month, I could have to check in on those messages or respond to comments or even post on my behalf.
So a virtual assistant is an awesome option that you can use to delegate to someone else to kind of run your social media for you. And if you can’t necessarily afford, say a virtual assistant, or maybe you don’t have employees, you are a solopreneur. You can even leverage technology where you can batch out content. So you can make a group of content. That’s typically what I do with my podcasts is I will batch them out and schedule them and record them.
And you can do the same thing with social media. So you can use an app like Later. Or there are a million other ones out there, but that was the one that I used to use because you can import images, you can even import things like your stories to schedule out to post on social media at a later date.
Another favorite is Vizzlie. So this is one that primarily is for Facebook and it’s something that I have used so often with Facebook groups and especially online parties and classes where I’m sharing you know, consistently the same information about the product that I sell, which is makeup, of course.
And so Vizzlie is incredible because you can create these templates where you can share the same information, you can schedule it out over a period of time. And I even have a 30 days of content that I have used when I want to batch out or schedule content into my Facebook group over say a period of about a month.
So Vizzlie is incredible and something that you can absolutely leverage, especially if you have a network marketing business. They also Vizzlie is another favorite because they have texting capabilities. You can even do a text campaign capability in there, and they recently have integrated posting to Instagram. So I have not tried that myself. But if you want it to look into it, I think it could be something awesome.
So I’ll share. link to Vizzlie in the show notes. So you can check it out and find out if that could be a good way to implement batch scheduling and delegation in your business.
And a fifth and final D that you can take. If you want to do a digital detox is delete. So, what I mean by that is we can be super tempted. Like, for example, if you have a sweet tooth, if you have sweets in your house, guess what? You’re going to eat them. So just like you would not add those sugary options to your grocery order each week. You might need to take some permanent steps to delete the apps that are problems for you.
So, you know, for me, I am currently praying about deleting permanently Instagram and Tik TOK, because again, they are a little bit more of a time-suck and to be honest, the only reason that I feel that I need them is to be able to keep up with my friends and family. And I think I can effectively do that by setting some time limits and boundaries on Facebook and let that be the place where I can kind of stay connected.
And so even if you don’t delete the apps altogether from your phone, you can also make them harder to find. I have done this for a long time. Like they’re currently hidden deep down in some random folder. On my phone. So it makes it a little bit more difficult to, to find those apps on your phone. So you can hide them.
You can also, and this is what I probably will do as I really do feel like I need to be a little bit more connected. And so I’m think my plan is to delete Instagram, delete Tik TOK, but keep Facebook. And I’m going to limit the amount of time daily that I will be able to use Facebook. So I’m not tempted to get lost in the scroll. Right. So you can do something similar. If, for example, you find a little bit of joy in TikTok say. You can limit it to maybe 15 or 30 minutes per day using the screen time aspects of your phone.
So regardless, if you are wanting to take a digital detox, you might need to set some boundaries in place and you might need to go ahead and delete them. And that is the final step for you guys. I hope this is helpful in terms of how you can still prioritize your business, but still take that digital detox away from the social media apps that might be creating more of a negative mental health headspace for you.
So your homework is just to go through these five steps. Maybe write them all down and just take some time to reflect on whether this could be a temporary or a permanent solution for you and your business.
And also don’t forget to search up and join the Scale Without Social for female entrepreneurs, Telegram group. And you can also text the word podcast to 9124058912. If you want to learn more about that. And so I hope you guys have a fantastic week I hope this was helpful and I’m so thankful for your time thanks for listening!
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