Could shedding your social media skin rejuvenate your sense of identity and invigorate your business strategies?
We discuss this compelling concept following Mark Groves' recent announcement to delete Instagram and Facebook as of June 1, 2024. His decision ignites a deep dive into the impact these platforms have on our personal and professional lives. This episode peels back the layers of our online presence, examining whether the accolades of exposure and community building on social media are truly the cornerstones of the success they're made out to be.
When the relentless hamster wheel of content creation starts to creak, it might be a signal to glance at the road less travelled.
Could shedding your social media skin rejuvenate your sense of identity and invigorate your business strategies?
We discuss this compelling concept following Mark Groves' recent announcement to delete Instagram and Facebook as of June 1, 2024. His decision ignites a deep dive into the impact these platforms have on our personal and professional lives. This episode peels back the layers of our online presence, examining whether the accolades of exposure and community building on social media are truly the cornerstones of the success they're made out to be.
When the relentless hamster wheel of content creation starts to creak, it might be a signal to glance at the road less travelled.
So I have a question for you, Ryan.
Speaker 2:Yes, you have a question for me. Perhaps I have an answer, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, I have a question for you, but it's also a question for the whole audience too. Is it multiple choice?
Speaker 2:I prefer multiple choice questions.
Speaker 1:No, although it could be a yes-no question, it could be considered a yes-no question.
Speaker 2:The close, the sister of the true-false question, the yes-no question, yeah.
Speaker 1:So have you ever considered?
Speaker 2:False.
Speaker 1:True. Have you ever considered giving up on specifically Instagram and Facebook and just completely deleting your account and sourcing business from other sources?
Speaker 2:Considered is an interesting word. I've thought about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And certainly like many people, I think I've gone through phases where I've done a lot less social media. I didn't post on Instagram for all of January, and that was a conscious decision, right? So I don't know. I mean, I don't know. The answer is I don't know. I've thought about it. I haven't really considered it, though.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What about you?
Speaker 1:I've definitely considered it or thought about it, but then quickly been like that's crazy, because I think that you know it gives you so much exposure and you know it allows you to create community and get your stuff out there. Otherwise it would be maybe a little bit more difficult. But yesterday I was listening to Mark Groves podcast. He's a big Instagram dude. He's got like a million followers and he's announced that he's deleting Instagram and Facebook as of June 1st of this year and he went on to explain you know the reason behind that and it just he brought up a lot of like interesting points and you know a lot of interesting questions that I hadn't really considered before.
Speaker 1:But one of the questions that he asked at the very beginning was who are you without social media, specifically social media being meta like Instagram and Facebook? And this is a question that his like strategic marketing person or something asked him and he was like feeling super, super burnt out by, like you know, eight years of grinding away on social media, posting like one to three pieces of content every day for eight years, basically, and and he was just like pretty much done with it and he was like how sad is it for me to think like, who am I without Instagram and Facebook? And that got me thinking like we kind of have got to this place in our culture where who we are is based on how many followers we have or how big our social media community is or how much clout we have in the social media world. That's usually one of the first things that people are gonna look at right To see how worthy you are. But could you not be worthy without an Instagram or Facebook following?
Speaker 2:I would argue we all are. You can't be worthy without an Instagram and Facebook. You need both. Yeah, you need both, unquestionably yeah, I mean, I think, of course, I think everybody could agree. You don't need social media.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Need Instagram or Facebook. There are a couple of tools that happen to be highly effective for connecting with other people. Yeah, hence, you know, I mean it sort of reminds me, like you know, people, that poo, poo, pop culture, pop music, popular because a lot of people like it, right. Social media is popular because a lot of people like it, right, but by no means does that mean you have to listen to pop music just because a lot of other people like it, right. So I mean there's a lot of anytime something's big, anytime something's popular, there's gonna be dissent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:The most popular bands in the world have more haters than anybody else. The most popular means of communication in the world have critics right, just like television did, just like newspapers did, just like books did. And I'm not implying that the criticism is wrong, all right, I'm just saying that. You know, it kind of makes sense. So I get Mark's point. Mark Grobes get what he's saying. There's also a lot of pushback against Instagram and Facebook, specifically because they're owned by Metta.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're just run by Zuckerberg and his peers, colleagues, cronies, call them what you will and a lot of people have real objections to Metta and or Zuckerberg's philosophies and or politics. I get that perspective too. There's a lot of sides to this equation, but I mean from a coaching and entrepreneurship perspective. Can we have a successful business and a happy business life without them? The answer is yes. Spoiler the answer is yes, but is that the right choice for everybody?
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably not, yeah, yeah there you go. And he was very deliberate with the way he was talking about it. Like he was like I'm in no way poo-pooing Metta or being the victim here and saying because he was also kind of relating Instagram and Facebook to an abusive relationship because of the algorithm and how they're always changing everything and how they've engineered it to keep people on the platform.
Speaker 1:So even if you're getting people to go off the platform, then you're being kind of penalized for that because, they don't actually want you going to the Lincoln in bio because that takes you off of Instagram or it takes you off of Facebook. And so then there's like no renumeration or like reciprocity when it comes to Facebook and Instagram, because they just want you to stay on the platform. And there was also like a whole conversation around like censorship and how like if you say anything that's against their policies, then you get shadow banned or you get canceled or you, you know, or your whole account gets shut down, right, he's basically. He was basically talking like I don't want to be in a relationship like that anymore, Like I don't want to be in a place where I feel like I have to silence myself or, you know, not fully express what I want to express. And you know I was like yeah, you know, like there was like parts of me where I was like yeah, Mark, I'm with you, I'm deleting Instagram, I'm out of here. But then there was also bits of me that were just like well, maybe I could just revisit my relationship with the platforms, right, and you know, I can limit how much I'm consuming. I only use it as like a creation thing. You know, like my brain started working on all these things no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Also, on the flip side of it, too, he's got 1.1 million followers on Instagram, but he's got a very established business. So he's got a YouTube channel, he has a podcast, he does live events on a regular basis. He's got probably I'm assuming a pretty big email list. So for him to say I'm deleting Instagram pretty easy because he's got all of these other spots to go strategically you know what I mean To keep his business going. And that was the other thing that he said too in this kind of tell-all was it's like leaving an abusive relationship.
Speaker 1:If you're in a relationship where, say, you're financially dependent on your partner, you don't just leave. Right, you build a strategy to make the exit. So how are you going to make money? How are you going to earn an income? Are you going to do this? Are you going to like all these things? And it's the same thing, Like he's kind of saying the same thing If you're going to decide to exit the exposure that you get from Instagram and Facebook, you need an exit plan, you need a strategy that goes along with it, so you can't just like up and delete it, which is also why he's probably not deleting his until June, right, he's like building this momentum so that there's going to be other places for people to find him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of things. A couple of things. I didn't never heard of this Mark Groves guy until you mentioned him today. I got to say it's an interesting way to present an argument to first say I'm not poopooing something and then to make numerous comparisons of that thing to something that is obviously wrong, like abuse. Yeah, again, I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm not poopooing him, I'm just saying it's interesting to be like oh, you know, to each their own. Nothing wrong with this thing, it just reminds me of an abusive partner and it's horrible. I'm just pointing out that's linguistically interesting to me. But again, not necessarily.
Speaker 2:Like I see the similarity, I see the similarity here, I get it. Yeah, but yeah, you know that point is true. Like, yeah, you know, if your main source of revenue is from clients that are finding you on social media, probably you don't want to just delete your social media presence and disappear, is you might just turn off your?
Speaker 1:revenue Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And so I you know I was telling you this before we hit record, and we've talked in the past about the difference between a therapist or a hypnotherapist and a coach.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And these, of course, are general differences. This is not universal truths, but, you know, my observation is the people who identify as like a coach especially if they're a business coach or a life coach or a performance coach they tend to thrive a little bit more on social media than somebody who identifies as a therapist or a hypnotherapist or you know somebody that's more like session work kind of person versus coaching work kind of person. And so I think there's a kind of probably a lot of people that are going to listen to this episode and say first opportunity I got, I'm leaving social media and what I told you before we had record was just you know, as I do in my, I have a free Facebook group for hypnotherapists and coaches and people like that to learn how to attract clients more. I put a little post in there saying hey everyone, I'm putting together a resource. It's going to be a mini training and PDF on my top three ways to get clients without using social media, and it's shaping up to be the most popular resource I've ever announced in the group. But that you know, right now, two days after posting that one post, which is just one sentence, I've already had 118 people opt in asking for it, right, which is a lot. And I think you know, I think there is a, you know, a large number of people who, whether they just don't like it or they have values level objections to it, don't see social media as the way they want to be conducting their business and are waiting for an alternative, a viable alternative, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just you know. I wanted to bring this topic to the podcast to discuss because I think it's interesting and I'm not planning on deleting my Instagram or my Facebook. Oh, you didn't want it.
Speaker 2:I already did it for you. I assume that's what you want. I just went ahead and deleted all of your social media accounts ever, Somehow somehow I did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, somehow you got in there. But what I am going to do and actually this is something I've been talking about recently to just people in general and like other people that I've been working with is I want to put more of an effort into podcasting and YouTube on top of my social media, and that just means that I just have to read jig, kind of like, where I'm putting my efforts, because I think that, well, we've talked about that. I mean, we're doing our podcasting class tomorrow, but there's a lot of value in also having a podcast right Because it's your own entity. Like it's your own thing. It's not ruled by an algorithm or owned by anyone else. It's like you own it and you can put whatever you want up there and talk about whatever you want and that's your thing.
Speaker 1:Same thing with YouTube. Like, even though I know there's an algorithm with YouTube, like, it's still your channel right. Like it's very different than, like, putting up content on Instagram and Facebook. So I think just having this discussion and listening to this whole thing that you know Mark Groves has brought up has just made me reevaluate where I want to put my effort and like do I want to, like you know, put a little bit more effort into like actually starting and being consistent with like a YouTube channel where I could put my meditations and hypnosis stuff up there maybe little trainings rather than putting like all my eggs in like the Facebook Instagram basket, which is basically what I've been doing. Like, yes, we're podcasting, but like for the most part, I'm all in on Instagram and Facebook and maybe I don't want to be like. It's made me question how much more content do I want to fill in there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Also. I mean there's different way. We probably should have defined social media a little bit at the beginning of this episode, but that ship of sale. There's also different ways to be on social media and not be on social media, Because, like in my mind, even like, let's talk about Facebook for a second. There's Facebook, but you're not just like on Facebook or not on Facebook. Right, there are many different degrees of being on Facebook. You could be somebody who's on Facebook and post lots of content on Facebook and your content is on Facebook. You could be somebody who's on Facebook and utilizes the DM function to communicate with many people on Facebook.
Speaker 2:You could be somebody who's on Facebook and utilizes Facebook ads to reach a new audience. And then there's a bunch of other different ways to be on Facebook and everybody's some combination of these right. And I think you know a lot of where the objections lie is in that first one of being a content producer on a social media platform like Facebook and the pressures of producing content and producing quality content and engaging with people via content and being at the mercy of an algorithm that may or may not drive traffic to your content, regardless of how good or not good it is. I think that's where a lot of kind of the stress and the difficulty and like trying to market a business via content on social media is extremely challenging for a lot of people. But then, on the other side of things, it's, like you know, facebook, the Facebook ads ecosystem. A lot of people are still mystified by it, but I'll tell you, you know it's given people access to advertising at a level that was never available in the past right, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, pre-social media and pre-internet advertising was a totally different monster than post-internet advertising, and in the past it was, like you know, it was just inaccessible to so many more people. And now, like you, can be like Nana's knitting club and you know, put 20 bucks in a Facebook ad and get you know five or 10 new Nanas in your knitting club right, which?
Speaker 1:I think is great.
Speaker 2:I think that's great for those that want to embrace it. I'm not saying you have to do that.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I think it's a choice, it's a choice.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of new ones, totally you know.
Speaker 1:And at the end of the day, you choose to post content like whenever you want, like no one is telling you either like how much content you need to be posting. But I will say it does like. It does feel like this never-ending like at least from my experience it does feel like this never-ending race. That it's like where you're just like never enough, like it's never enough, like you can always just keep feeding the beast more and more, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I really like I've been on social media with both of my business like my fabric business, and then now once coaching for the last 10 years and I've been like showing up online pretty much consistently every day for 10 years and I had never felt burnt out. But when I exploded on Instagram in November or whenever that was September and gained like 60,000 new followers pretty much, you know, over a couple of weeks, that burnt me out.
Speaker 1:That really burnt me out because I was so invested in that growth and then wanting to continue to feed the beast and get you know more likes and more direct messages and more follows and all that stuff. I didn't realize like I just got back from holiday and I didn't realize how burnt out I was until I was away on holiday with my family and I was like, wow, because I'd stopped. And I was just like, screw it, I'm just gonna have fun and go snowboarding and hang out and like not worried about posting too much content. And it wasn't until that moment that I was like wow, I've been like so so stressed out and like high strung about creating content. I didn't even and I didn't even notice it.
Speaker 1:Well yeah, and now I'm kind of like, so it was interesting to come back from holiday and then like this whole thing with Mark Groves, and then I watched this YouTube and then I was like, yeah, you're right, I don't need this. It is an abusive relationship.
Speaker 2:I am feeling burnt out and like it's never enough and yeah, I think you know, as we get closer to kind of wrapping up the episode here, I think you know I like to think of the average person who's a, who's the coach or business owner or whatever. Right, because this, this podcast, is not really just for, like, general public. This is for like people who are entrepreneurs online. Right, and I think the natural progression is you start on social media for your, for your marketing and having a presence and you really hustle to get your first clients and grow your business to the first one or two mile steps. Right, because that's a great way to get started. Right, you can get feedback. You can see what works, what messaging works, what doesn't. You can connect lots of people for a low or no money, no money at all, and I think for some people, that's going to be their marketing and business strategy and online presence permanently.
Speaker 2:And for other people, and probably for most people, I think, once you pass the first couple of milestones in business, it's time for your social media to be less the workhorse that does everything from discoverability, client attraction, nurturing, like all these things, and you know you need to transition it to just. This is like here I'm documenting my business journey, because I've set up systems to automate or system systemize client attraction. I've set up systems to automate or systemize nurturing leads, etc. Etc. Because it really is. If you're trying to do all of that just through social media content and we're moving away now from some of the kind of like philosophical conversation that Mark was bringing up and I'm talking about business now, you know it almost feels unsustainable.
Speaker 2:Yeah when you're doing everything through content, all the steps of the client journey. You're trying to handle it through content. Yeah, you know, it's like trying to build a house with just two tools a hammer and a saw. Yeah, you could do it. But if you're building a new house every month, eventually you want to, like, you know, get a table saw, get it, you know, some other tools and get some prefab parts and get some more people on your team, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and I think that doesn't make does that make sense, when I just said yeah, it totally makes sense, and what it makes me think of, though, is sort of like, because there is this whole movement around like organic marketing, right, where you don't have the funnel or you don't have the system set up, right Like you're just growing your business through organic marketing. And, you know, I'm wondering is that a bit of a facade, right? Like you know, I can think of a couple of specific coaches you know that I'm thinking about right now who claim that they're making all like millions of dollars and they're just using Instagram. Is that? I think it's possible.
Speaker 2:I think it's possible, but don't think it's the most efficient way.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think it is either.
Speaker 2:And I don't think it will work for a lot of for everybody.
Speaker 1:No, it probably can work, for you know a few people. But the other thing that I was thinking when you were talking about that too, is it you know, yes, you, you start off with the client attraction thing and you know building the community and putting yourself out there. But once you've sort of like created a bit of a foundation for yourself and you have those systems in place, it always comes back to authenticity, which we've talked about a couple of times already. But I think it's just like how are you using the platform that serves? Like you and and like your goals and all that stuff. Like, do you know what I mean or do you want?
Speaker 2:to tell me about it.
Speaker 1:It's just like how are you using it to align with, like, your values and the way you're seeing your business grow and develop? And like how are you putting yourself out there and connecting with people so that it's like true to you and you're not like putting on a show or an act or like?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's I think, after watching this thing with Mark Groves and after digesting all this information, I'm seeing social media from a different perspective now or something, and it just became so obvious to me the people who are putting on a show versus the people who are authentically just showing up to be like here. This is me and this is the content I'm producing to, I don't know, share with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I got it, I got it, I got it. You throw on a little shade, a little. It's okay, a little, I'm just like just be authentic, Like. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like I almost want to just unfollow a bunch of people. That I just can't Now that I have this different perspective. You know, when you have a different perspective you just can't unsee some things and I'm just like I don't want to watch that anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I do know what you mean. Sounds yeah.
Speaker 1:Something to keep in mind. And another thing, too, that he talked about was how can you build safety into this guy's a therapist? I think his background is therapy too, yeah, so you know he's not really. I think he is a coach now, but I think his background is in relationship therapy. But he was talking about how you can build strategies to create safety when you're navigating these platforms.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like safety for just yourself and your own nervous system.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the last thing to mention is again from a business standpoint. Remember the attention and the followers and the traffic that you have on social media. You don't technically own it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:The platform owns it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So that is another tick in Mark's column of like, building a business based 100% on social media. Traffic is inherently risky because, like, yeah, these platforms are unpredictable, the algorithms are unpredictable. Occasionally, people lose their accounts for various reasons that are either their fault or the platforms fault, or a combination of both or neither. And so an example of traffic that you own is like your email list. Right, yeah, it doesn't matter if your email provider closes your account. As long as you're backed up your email list, you can take that list to a different email provider and resume sending contact to those people. Yeah, you own that contact information. Your follower list on, let's say, instagram, for example, you can't get shut down. It doesn't matter if you have the list saved. You can't just open a new Instagram account and import that list and have all those followers back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it doesn't work Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think we should try to kind of be off social media games.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think, just like, diversify where you're showing up, you know.
Speaker 2:I think we should do a whole other episode on that. Yeah, and just what's the stuff we can do to build our business that doesn't involve social media. I think people would like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do that. I think that's important, but they got to pay for that episode.
Speaker 2:You have to send a money order for seven British pounds to Ryan Lopsis, care of my office PO Box Anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, it'll be one of the three episodes.
Speaker 1:So wasn't there like a whole thing? I think when I was away there was like a whole thing about TikTok getting shut down or something like that, or a band in Canada or North America. Was that a thing? Because I feel like I heard grumblings of like TikTok's going to get shut down, that's a no, you're thinking of Tic Tac Toe.
Speaker 2:They're going to plant and they're going to ban Tic Tac Toe worldwide. Worldwide, because of all the stubbed toe and finger injuries epidemic levels. Yeah, the US Senate or something, voted to potentially ban TikTok in the United States. I don't think it's actually been signed into law yet and then because of that, then the news in Canada was saying oh, Canada's going to follow us through. I don't think anything has actually happened yet, but they've been talking about that for years. They've been talking about that for years. And Chinese spies and all these different things.
Speaker 1:If you're going to ban it. Ban it if not. Show she Stop talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, all right, so I guess that's it.
Speaker 2:So watch out for that episode where we'll tell you exciting strategies like just going around your neighborhood and knocking on doors, leaving flyers underneath windshield wipers to talk about your business, and other ways to attract clients without using social media. That was a joke. There's much better ways than that, but anyways.
Speaker 1:Okay, good. Cool Well on that note follow us on Instagram at it's the most, he says.
Speaker 2:Best way to get ahold of us. Instagram and Facebook, for sure. Join my free group on Facebook. It's awesome. Yeah, all right Got to be in the link.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's it. Bye everyone.
Speaker 2:Ciao.