Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for artists and small business owners who want to make money online without relying on social media. Hello. Hello. And welcome to Off The Grid. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby.

And today, I am here to wish you a happy new year. Happy 2026. Happy first workday of the year for many of us if you're listening when this goes live. I am so excited to be here with you and to bring you our second annual creative marketing toolkit. I started this series tradition of sorts last year, where at the very beginning of the year, I make a week long capsule season to tell you about the marketing tools, tactics, strategies, and trends that I think can set our businesses up for success in the year ahead without social media.

So this is going to be a social media free marketing toolkit as you might expect from off the grid. And my hope is that it will inspire you to refresh your marketing plans for the winter and spring, and maybe even help you try a few new experiments. And speaking of marketing experiments, I have two things for you. One, the free leaving social media toolkit includes a few things that might be really helpful here. One is a five step plan for leaving any social platform.

The second thing in there is my list of 100 ways to share your work and life without social media. And the third tool in that free toolkit is a creative marketing experiments database. And that is a great thing to have open or on hand when you're listening to this week's episodes because in that database, you can keep a list of different marketing tactics or tools that you might wanna try. And then because it's built in Notion, you can also, like, pop open each of those entries and take some notes on what gets said in the episode. What feels important to you about this?

How might it work in your business? And you can use the different properties to think through how much effort will this take? When do I think this will happen? What kind of priority is this for me? Etcetera, etcetera.

So if you want that totally free resource, you can find it at offthegrid.funtoolkit or linked in the show notes where it is linked every single episode. And I did make some updates to it in preparation for our 2026 creative marketing toolkit series. So if you've gotten it before, but you kinda lost the link and you're not quite sure where it is, you can also head to the show notes to grab it again. And I think you'll be very happy to have it with you as you listen to our episodes this week. Before I tell you what is going to be in these episodes and what guests I have on this week, I want to tell you about the second resource, which is that doors to the interweb are now open for this week only.

So now through the weekend, you can come on in and join us in the interweb. Now if you're new around here, you might be thinking, what is the interweb? Why would I want to join it? Well, the Interweb is our annual membership for creatives, artists, freelancers, influencers, former influencers, and small business owners of all kinds who want support connecting with your values, sharing your work, and making money online without social media. If you join this week, somatic practices for the new year class happening this Thursday, January 8.

We also have a winter reset retreat coming up this month. I'm teaching a brand new class on how to start a creative business from scratch without social media. That's happening the twenty second exclusively for Interweb members. And then we have a whole spring calendar full of classes from past podcast guests like Jessica Lackey and Melissa Wong. We have a Notion dashboard workshop.

We're doing customer journey mapping. My new friend and upcoming podcast guest, Mel Mitchell Jackson, will be teaching a workshop on how to build tech breaks with intention. There are gonna be energy clearings and pendulum practices. I will also be co leading an entire week of websites for members in May with Alex McGinnis of Arco Iris Studio. Then we're gonna have a follow-up workshop with Andy Hodges about SEO and a workshop with Jessica Ferrell about how to run your business with free and open source software.

So our calendar includes things that are very tech focused, things that are very business focused, and then also things that are just for creative fun. We're doing a week of zines with Maz George and Carolyn Yoo in June. And before then, we have classes on email automations, how to host events, how to get featured in the media, and so much more. Like, I had

to record this section, like, three or four times just to cut it back because I kept just being like, let me

tell you about this event and this event and this event. So if you want more opportunities to learn about creative small business, to learn about how to set up your tech without relying on the big tech companies to be online without being bothered by algorithms all the time. That's what we'll be doing together in our live classes in the interweb this spring. Now, of course, all of those classes are recorded and live inside our exclusive interweb resource library, which all members get access to. So if you can't come live, you get access to that portal and you also get access to our Slack work and play space, which I have to say has quickly become one of my favorite places to hang out online.

And I was resistant to Slack for a really long time, but the interweb Slack has totally changed my mind on this. We have over 200 active members in the community right now, which is really the perfect size to always feel like you're meeting someone new without feeling super overwhelmed by the pace or amount of conversation happening in our asynchronous space or at live calls. So if you're feeling sick of social media, if you're feeling like this is the year that you really clean up your systems and build the foundation of your creative business, if you're feeling like you are ready to scale, you've been trying, you've been toiling, and this is the year it's all gonna come together and make it work for you online, the Interweb is for you. We do all of that stuff in there. There are people from all stages of business, all stages of life, folks from different parts of the world in our community.

So I got a little swept away into my Interweb promo right there. But if you want to join us this year, the doors are open to the public right now. This may be the only public open I do in 2026. There are opportunities to join from the wait list later, but let me tell you, now is your moment. So if you're interested, head to the show notes to grab the link or go to offthegrid.fun/interweb to learn more.

I highly recommend going ahead and getting in with us because I will also be hosting little mini conversations in Slack about each one of this week's episodes. So you can listen from home and try to figure out how to do it on your own, or you can join us in the interweb and actually be in a group of people implementing this stuff and ask me directly how I would do it in your business. Cause I hang out in Slack and offer support there all the time. So thank you in advance for considering joining us. And now shall I tell you what's coming up this week in your creative marketing toolkit?

That is what you've pressed play on today. So let me give you a sneak peek of what is coming up this week. As I said at the top, our creative marketing toolkit series is a capsule season. So it's five episodes that come out in one week starting with today where I give you this intro to the series. Then tomorrow, you are going to get your first marketing strategy episode.

And that episode is going to be about searching the new web, SEO, AI, and blogging in 2026. So tomorrow, we are diving deep on all things SEO and how the rise of AI platforms and AI summaries in search engines has changed SEO for the year ahead. So if you are somebody who has a website and you create content for your website and you hope that search engines or now AI tools will send people there, you really, really, really, really, really wanna hear tomorrow's episode. And I am not an expert in this, so I invited an expert in this to educate me about it and all of us about it. So tomorrow, I will be joined by Meg Casebolt of Love at First Search.

She is an SEO expert as well as a podcast host and even a romance novelist. And I really respect Meg's approach to SEO. I think that she has a really measured way of understanding how AI is changing search while also being open to, you know, decisions like mine to pretty much opt out of using it. And so wherever you're coming from with SEO, with AI, with having a blog, this episode will really set you up for success in how you organize your digital presence in the year ahead. I learned so much while recording it.

I can't wait to share it with you tomorrow. Then on Wednesday, we go to my tried and true all time favorite marketing strategy or tool, I guess. I think it's both, which is email. And I am going to share a short solo episode on my three rules for email marketing and newsletters in 2026. We've talked about email on the podcast before.

I had a great conversation with Holly Wilkoszewski of Daypack Digital about the sort of basics of email, how to choose your provider, how to set up your first automation. That's a great episode to go back to if you're just starting with email. Last year for the marketing toolkit, I also talked to Ali Grummert of Duett all about why email is such a great marketing channel for small businesses. And we really went into the weeds of nurture sequences and welcome sequences. So if you want more intermediate and advanced strategies, go back and listen to that episode with Ali.

And then this week in our 2026 creative marketing toolkit, I'm just gonna talk you through the rules that I have for this year specifically. Because like everything else online, email is changing. And I learned a lot when I talked to Dawn from Flodesk last fall. That's another great episode to listen through and think about if you're focusing on email this year. But basically, I'm gonna kind of sum up what I've taken away from all those conversations in this episode about my twenty twenty six rules for emailing people.

That's not quite the title, but you'll get to hear

it on Wednesday. On Thursday, in our fourth episode of this series, I will be talking to Arianna Smith about the power of local events and low key networking. So I think that getting offline, going analog, meeting people in person again is going to be a big trend for, I mean, frankly, just the world, but also for creatives and small businesses in the year ahead. And Arianna has been leading a very cool series called Therapist Chill Out for the past few years and comes to the pod to tell us about how it started, how it's going, and some like really great advice for how to host events that feel good for everyone. Even if you yourself are like an introvert who feels really uncomfortable at events sometimes.

Like, I think all of us can think about how we are connecting with people more online and offline, and that's a great episode for that. And then we wrap the week with a return guest. Amanda Laird is coming back to talk about 2026 marketing trends. So she did this last year, and it was super fun. It's how we wrap the toolkit last year, this year, I think every year from now on.

And then we even did actually, like, a twenty twenty five recap episode for the clubhouse. So we both listened back to the trends we predicted at the start of the year and then thought about, like, how they came to fruition or didn't at the end of the year. So if you're a Clubhouse member or you join the Clubhouse, you can hear that. But this Friday, we will be sharing our 2026 marketing trends, some things that we think are coming up and that all of us can have in mind as we move through this year. And that will be your 2026 creative marketing toolkit.

So I hope you're excited for these episodes. They are ones that you can listen to and binge this week, or you can go back to over time throughout the year as you're thinking about marketing. You know, as off the grid evolves, I find that I'm maybe more interested in having conversations about the Internet, about creativity, about how we show up online, and doing a little less of the, like, marketing tools and tactics stuff throughout the year. But this series, this annual toolkit series is where you will always get the best marketing advice I have to offer. And it's totally for free, all coming your way right here wherever you're listening to this this week.

So stay tuned for these episodes. Get the free leaving social media toolkit if you want to follow along and maybe make a plan for your marketing for the year ahead. And if you already know that you're like, this all sounds great, I don't wanna do it alone again, then join us in the interweb. You can find all the info for that in the show notes. You'll hear some more promos for it this week throughout the week because doors are open from now through the weekend.

So you have one week to join, then they close again, and we're all together for the year ahead. So thank you so much for tuning in to Off The Grid. I know that 2025 was a hard year in business for a lot of us, but I am just booing my own inner voice and vision and spirit and calling in some goodness, some optimism, some joy, some synchronicity, some abundance, some magic, probably some hard work, but equally as much good luck for all of us. I can't wait to share these episodes with you, and I hope that you will not only tune in, but also send them to your biz besties, your BFFs, your people who you normally talk to about how hard it is to put yourself out there on the Internet. Please send these episodes to them so they can get this support too.

That is also how you help me grow the show. This is an indie podcast that only grows through word-of-mouth. So literally, every time you text an episode to a friend, you are doing me such a huge favor, and I am like emotionally energetically giving you a really big hug across the airwaves every time you send that text. So please text your friends, tune in, grab the free toolkit, join us in the interweb. And, oh, one more thing, one more super fun thing.

We have a new song to take us out of these episodes through at least this month, think, maybe more of the year. But I got an email from an artist who shared a song that they had written about social media with me, and I loved it so much and asked if we could put it on the pod. So here we are. So that song is called Social Media. It was written by Surfer Boy and Julianna Zachariou and produced by Brian Wight.

It's performed by Elliot Brooker, also known as Wreck Tangle. And I will link the artist and more listening links in the show notes. But for now, please enjoy Social Media by Surfer Boy and Wreck Tangle.

Mental health. Use your product time to sell. I would rather go to hell. Do you like this? Leave a comment.

Can you share this? Will you wear this? Okay.

That was an abridged version of Social Media by Surfer Boy and Wreck Tangle. To hear the entire song, find Surfer Boy on Spotify or head to the link in the show notes. Thanks so much to them for sharing the song with us, as well as to Melissa Kaitlyn Carter, who sings our theme song that you hear at the start of every show. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby. And if you enjoyed this episode, I hope you will download the free leading social media toolkit at offthegrid.fund/toolkit.

Until next time, I will see you off the grid.