Likes Don’t Pay the Bills—So I Quit Social Media (Issue 141)
If you want to grow, less is more
Last year, I deleted my Twitter account (I will never call it X).
Soon after, I deleted WhatsApp, stopped posting on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, and removed those apps from my phone as well.
I had a decent number of followers on those platforms. At times, I also had pretty good engagement. I have been committed to posting on social media since 2007!
So, why did I quit using them?
Low ROI
The return on my investment of time, energy, and even money (i.e., ads) wasn’t significant enough to justify how much time social media sucked away from my day.
Likes and comments don’t pay the bills. Very few people on those platforms ever turned into subscribers or paying customers. What a waste of energy!
Of course, you need to market your business. But you’ll get better results if you focus your time and energy on a few platforms that work best for you. And, check your metrics and verify that these platforms are actually driving the results you want.
For my businesses, the only channels that have good ROI include:
Networking and referrals
Substack (especially Substack Notes)
Medium
LinkedIn
No other platform converted well for my business, despite taking marketing courses, following the best content recommendations, posting at all the right times, using scheduling tools, and responding to all comments.
Did I meet new people and have some fun? Sure. But I also encountered nasty trolls and sometimes felt anxiety and depression while scrolling through the feeds.
There are better ways to meet new people, have fun, and invest my time into activities that return value for my business, make me healthier and happier, and introduce me to cool folks.
Focusing your energy on a few platforms allows you to put your weight behind growing your following, engagement, and conversions there, rather than spreading it thin across multiple social media services. For example, my followers tripled in just a few weeks when I focused my time on Substack Notes!
So, how do you choose where to focus for your business? Here is what I recommend.
Choose a media format that feels good for you and that you enjoy creating (e.g., short posts, long-form writing, audio, video, live video, photos, illustrations).
Of those formats, be brutally honest about which ones you’re great at creating, and the outcome is high quality and engaging.
Choose two platforms that feature your best formats and seem to reward them well (e.g., Substack is great for long-form writing).
Learn how to post on those platforms (e.g., the best structure, when to post, how to engage, how the algorithm works).
Post on those and monitor the performance.
Likes and comments are beneficial (e.g., they help increase the visibility of your content).
Re-shares are an even better signal of quality and help expand your reach to new audiences.
Conversion is king! Are people signing up for your newsletter, purchasing your products, and paying for your time?
You’ll be surprised by how much time you recover when you stop wasting your days on social media platforms that aren't delivering value for you.
One quick check you should do today: Look at the time you’re currently spending using these apps every day and week. To do this, you can check the Screen Time setting on iOS or Digital Wellbeing on Android.
Before, I was wasting 2-3 hours a day on Instagram! It returned nothing for my business. Nothing! Now I invest those daily hours in writing and building content for my businesses.
You may also be surprised by how much better you feel when you focus on higher-quality relationships with nice people. At first, the addiction withdrawal symptoms are quite unpleasant. I had to delete the social media apps from my phone to stop feeling the urge to check them. A couple of weeks later, I felt a sense of relief and a weird feeling of having an abundance of time in my days. Pretty wild!
It’s difficult, but it’s worth it. You can break the social media addiction and reinvest your time and energy into better ways to build your business and feel happier and healthier, too!
Want to chat with me about how I use day theming and time blocking to run my businesses more effectively? You can book a free call! I promise I won’t hit you with a sales pitch.
Larry Cornett is a business coach who works with ambitious professionals to help them reclaim their power, become more invincible, and create better opportunities for their work and lives. Do more of what you love and less of what you hate! Check out his new Invincible Solopreneurs Daily Journal!