Social Media Truth Bombs You May Not Want to Know

Hey Friend!

I can’t believe how many people I speak to who are still focused on building their business on social media as in curating organic posts, trying to create 100 different variations of some piece of content, recording reels, messing around with threads, trying to grow a viral video on Tik Tok.  

Social Media Is Not the Place to Build a Scalable Business

Today, we dive deep into social media with five truth bombs that you need to know. I want you to understand the science behind why I do not believe that organically building a scalable business on social media is possible anymore. Unless you have got money to pay to play, it is a waste of time and you are much better off podcasting instead!

Podcasting is a long form outlet that is going to mean that you have no shelf life. It is going to allow you to build a business from behind a microphone that is going to live on and grow for you in an evergreen manner. It is such a beautiful way to create trust with your listener.  They go deep with you. Your content is seen by them every time they log into their podcast app. Your smiling face is right there and they listen, get to know, like and trust you and ultimately buy from you.

Testimonial – How Jennifer Got Great Results Without Using Social Media

Hey Stef.

Thank you so much. After taking Podcast Pro University to learn all the tech for podcasting because I hadn’t used a computer in 10 years, I joined Podcast to Profit and my podcast has not stopped growing. I pray over each episode before recording, asking God to speak through me. And the SOS Mom podcast is ranking top 2.5% globally and is close to 100,000 downloads without using social media. I had less than 200 friends and family on Facebook and most of them don’t listen. I rarely share my show there and I still don’t use Instagram or any other socials. This is purely God-given growth and I couldn’t have done it without Podcast to Profit and Podcast Pro University. I can’t even believe how many countries it ranks in. It’s mind blowing. Also, I haven’t had a kid free day in over a year. My house is never quiet and 90% of my podcast is recorded on my iPhone in my car. So, throw out all those excuses mamas. Throw them in the trash and get started on your podcast today.

Hugs, Jennifer McDaniel, the SOS Mom.

The Addictive Hole That Is Social Media

This testimony is so great! Jennifer was at almost 100 000 downloads when this testimony was recorded so is probably past this by now. And she has been doing it exclusively without social media. This is why I truly believe in podcasting for you. I want you to open your heart and your mind today as we discuss some of the reasons why social media has shifted.

You are doing nothing wrong. You have been doing everything that you have been taught and told to do and that other ‘successful’ people are doing. However, I will tell you that for me, I quickly found that social media was an addictive hole where over the course of about four years, I started to grow my social addiction. I found myself, at its peak, spending between five and six hours a day on Instagram. Instagram was a big one for me. I was posting organic content, recording my kids, creating stories, editing, adding the links, adding the music, trying to constantly live my life through this filter of how this social media presence could make a difference for my brand and my business.

My Journey Out of My Social Media Addiction

And I was hugely anxious. I was completely burnt out. But I felt I had to do it. Until God told me otherwise. If you want to hear more about my story, I really encourage you to go and listen to the episodes around this where I detail out for you how I first did a detox on Instagram for 30 days, then six months, then a year and a half. And then two years later, what that has looked like for me and my mindset, and most importantly what it has looked like in my business. Here are the episodes for you to go and binge on:

• Episode 320: I’m Stopping Instagram for 30 Days Social Experiment
• Episode 331: No Instagram for 30 Days Update
• Episode 338: Six Week Instagram Update
• Episode 407: 6 Months Without Instagram
• Episode 580: One and a Half Years Instagram Free

Check these out once you have finished reading this. I think you are going to really enjoy them!

From Organic Growth to Paid Advertising, Including Social Media

I was able to grow organically before we ever started spending money on any type of advertising, which we now do. I think there is a point in your business where it makes sense to spend money on advertising, including social media advertising. But I was able to grow past a $500,000 revenue business completely organically from a podcast without a social presence other than my Facebook group!

What I really want is for you to think about whether this is truly what you want to be spending two or three or six hours a day doing. Or is there something else you could be doing in lieu of wasting so much time on a platform that is not returning the data?

Social Media Truth Bombs

So here are the truth bombs that you probably don’t want to know but you need to know!

Social Media Truth Bomb #1: The Algorithm Is a Deceptive Game

According to a study by Hootsuite, organic reach on Facebook dropped from 16% in 2012 to just 5.5% in 2019 and has since dropped even further. So, our organic reach is now being limited by this platform which makes it so difficult for us as content creators to be seen at all.

Let’s look at the example of a boutique clothing brand who are creating content. They have to take a photo and create a post. There is a strategy around the post which they turn into a reel. They add music to it, figure out the link, and end up posting it in a few different places. This takes them an hour, if not more.

The boutique has 10,000 followers but because they have less than a 3% organic reach opportunity, less than 200 people even get to see the post that they spent an hour creating. This is the algorithmic restriction on this company and I think that this is really unfair and eye-opening.

Social Media Truth Bomb #2: The Unseen Cost of Addiction

Let me introduce you to the dopamine loop: You go on social media and you hit the like button or you scroll down and see a new visual or watch a video. There is a dopamine hit in your brain. And as you continuously feed that dopamine hit again and again, your brain begins to crave it at a higher level, as with any other addiction. You are continuously needing more and more of those dopamine hits which are provided by different social platforms to keep you satiated.

Just imagine what that is doing to your focus, to your productivity and to your presence. I think you already know this to be true! If you are anything like me, my discernment alarms were screaming. Holy Spirit was shaking me. I was very aware of my addiction yet I was unwilling to look at it and I continued to hide from it. I made excuses around why it was ok or why it made sense or why I had to have it for my business. But God continuously convicted me that this was not truth in my life and that He had a better way for me to build.

Get Out of the Addictive Hole So You Can Be a Kingdom CEO

Here is a surprising, sad statistic. People spend an average of two hours and 25 minutes on social media every single day according to Global Web Index. I was spending five to six hours a day. Do you know how long you are spending on social media? If you don’t know, go into your screen time on your phone. It is absolutely shocking when you really get serious about inventorying where you are wasting your time.

The only way we can become more intentional and rise in our own capacity as Kingdom CEOs is to get control of every single moment in our day and make it intentional. Make decisions to stop wasting time and begin putting the time that we do have to work. I teach my students in Podcast to Profit to spend roughly 30 minutes a week on social media! Yes, I did say a week, not a day! That is truly what I believe is necessary when you are getting started in online business. We don’t need to spend time pouring out and creating and cultivating because it’s not going to get seen.

The Warning Signs of a Social Media Addiction

Imagine Sarah, a girl who found herself trapped in the endless scroll. Her addiction led to severe procrastination which affected not only her work but her personal relationships too. She couldn’t have a conversation or go for a meal with a friend without touching her phone. She could not control herself. Does this sound familiar? Do you see any of the warning signs that this could be your story too? I know it was for me but I was able to break free and I know that you can too.

Social media does not only impact our productivity and our relationships. A study published by the Journal of Science and Clinical Psychology found that if you limited social media use to just 30 minutes per day, it resulted in a significant reduction in depression and loneliness. What an incredible step you could take just to reduce your usage to 30 minutes a day. I could not do this. I was so addicted that I couldn’t limit myself so I had to completely remove this idol from my life for a certain period of time for me to break the addiction and find a healthy headspace.

Social Media Truth Bomb #3: The Illusion of Success Versus Reality

We know this but we don’t really admit it. What we are seeing on social media are curated feeds. We see these seemingly perfect people but we don’t know that maybe Mia’s luxurious lifestyle on Instagram is masked by mounting debt and she has all these payments coming off to pay for this lifestyle. No shade to the influencers out there. You rock if that is what you are called to do!

But for me, when I look at these people who are presenting this unrealistic expectation of what motherhood should look like, I am constantly training my brain to believe that I am less than and not enough. It believes that I have to compare and I have to judge my own life because I have created this story in my mind that this is how it should be. Social media is amplifying the inner pressure that we’re putting on ourselves to create this Instagram-worthy life. All this is doing is perpetuating the stress that we already have. It’s increasing our insecurity and it’s tripling our inauthenticity because we now feel that we have to show up that way.

Everyone Is Struggling as a Result of Social Media

There was a survey done recently by the Royal Society for Public Health that revealed that Instagram is the most harmful platform to young people’s mental health. Another survey by Later revealed that 67% of influencers felt pressure to maintain the perfect image and then found themselves burnt out. So not only do all of us who aren’t influencers feel this mental health struggle, this increased pressure, the stress, insecurity and inauthenticity and comparison and judgment and all of these amplified things that are happening by looking at this illusion of success versus reality. The people that are actually showing up and creating that illusion of success are struggling. There’s struggle on struggle on struggle here. Why are we continuously showing up in a place that is perpetuating this?

Social Media Truth Bomb #4: The Money-Making Mirage

According to a report by Influencer Marketing Hub, only 2.4% of micro-influencers earn more than $500 a month. I hear from clients and students all the time about the amount of time and effort and energy that they have to pour out to create a sale. It’s nauseating. And this statistic confirms this. You are not saving time trying to build a brand on social media. You are selling your soul to make a few dollars.

And you can’t be there for your kids or your business because you have to create social media content that is not going to get seen anyway. And you are chasing the $500. I was like this and I think that my priorities were completely screwed up. I was doing all of this and that’s why I can speak to it now when I’m on the other side of that clarity.

There are other ways that you can build a scalable passive income revenue business and brand that’s going to make you $5,000 a month or $50,000 a month. I’m talking about true scalability here. We don’t want to create something complicated and hard that takes up hundreds of hours. Instead of relying on social media, whether it’s threads or Instagram or Facebook or Tik Tok or Twitter, we have to diversify the way that we build a business and we have to commit to long form.

Social Media Truth Bomb #5: The Only Way to Play Is to Pay

Because all of these social media platforms are for profit, they have advertisers and engineers behind the scenes to sell to you. I know we are all in the business of selling but this does not play in your favor as an organic content creator. It does if you want to go on social media and shop for an outfit. This is where people are in the mindset of a quick fix.

But it does not play in our favor for those of us who are trying to market what it is that we do in an organic fashion because we get shoved to the bottom of the barrel. Our content is not getting seen until we have the money to spend on it. We can be strategic in how we grow into paid marketing. I think that when you reach $200 000 to $300 000 in revenue with a 40% profit margin, that is a great place to being exploring paid advertising.

Paid Advertising Has a Place When You Are Ready

When it comes to paid advertising, you can play with Facebook ads, Google clicks, paid Pinterest posts and all sorts of others. I have tried many and some have been an epic failure while others have been extremely successful.

But 99% of you are not here yet. You are trying to get your first $1000 to $10 000 a month. We have a few multi six or seven-figure business owners here but most of you are trying to get that first breakthrough. So where can you spend your time without having to spend exorbitant amounts of money?

What to Do Instead of Depending on Social Media

You have to build a long form content strategy. Period. End of story. Non-negotiable. Must happen. Episode 646 talks about the three different methods of long form and which one you can pick. They are YouTube videos, podcasting with audio or blogging with writing.

If you decide that podcasting is the way for you and you want to follow in my footsteps with my simple sales method, here’s how it works: You start a podcast and learn how to do it strategically. You do it well and make it professional without spending a lot of money. You learn from people who have done it and had success. If I am that person for you, incredible. If there’s somebody else, fantastic!

A Strategic Way to Build Success in Your Online Business

But you have got to know what you are doing. You can’t just throw some art up that has no strategy and not have any SEO in there. You have to have a content plan and be strategic. If this is for you and you need help with your strategy and if I am the person for you, go and invest in Podcast Pro University.

If you already have a podcast but maybe it’s not growing the way you want it to or it’s not making money or you think you still have to be on social and you can’t understand how Jennifer was able to leave a testimony like the one in this post, you need Podcast to Profit.

This is going to take your podcast and optimize it. I’m going to help you create a foundational show that’s going to actually scale. We’re going to build your coaching or course offer or both. I’m going to teach you how to sell. I’m going to teach you how to market. We’re going to fix all the different places that your brand shows up. We are going to talk about freebies and other bonuses like podcast pitching and Pinterest marketing. We cover all of this in this six-month group mastermind program.

Build a Business and Make an Impact

These are the methods that are going to teach you how you can actually make money from an online business without relying on social media. I don’t want you to build your business on social media. I want you to have your hours, your time and your life back. To be able to pour your time into something that’s actually going to make a difference in the world, something that is actually going to change people and help them so that you can be the salt and light in whatever niche it is that God has planned for you.

I believe in you. I believe in this method of building a business with all of my heart and with all of my soul. And I know that if you trust me enough to invest in you and show up for this and actually do the work, you are going to see crazy incredible results. I’m so excited for you to see what you’re capable of. It’s going to be so great.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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