Robby: The branded podcast with Robby Fowler, episode 90.
5 reasons you should not rely on social media to market your consulting
or coaching personal brand business.
Hi, I'm Robby Fowler, a business strategist, helping consulting and
coaching personal brands grow a more profitable business at a life-giving pace.
It's been a while since I've done a fuller episode outside of the brand ed bullet.
My plan is to do a few more of these to keep them short and
simple and sweet to share something valuable, but not super lengthy.
And also share this information with my email list in written form so you can
get it whatever way you prefer it in your inbox or you can come listen here or both.
Today's topic is five reasons to not rely on social media to market your business,
or another way to think about it.
Five reasons to at least reconsider the way you're using social media
to market your consulting business.
I'm not telling you not to use social.
I'm just going to give us five things to think about maybe to reconsider.
Social media and the way we use that to market our consulting or
coaching personal brand businesses.
Reason number one, Facebook and therefore Instagram posted its first
ever yearly decline in revenue.
That means the game is changing.
Much of that revenue loss probably could be attributed to Tik TOK,
the rise of tic What's interesting is Tik TOK would describe itself
as an entertainment platform.
And I would say Facebook and Instagram.
That's a social media or those are social media platforms.
That means fundamentally Facebook started.
As a way to connect relationally with other people, tick talk, as
it comes along later, it says, no we're about entertainment and just
providing short video entertainment.
Regardless the game is changing and when Facebook loses revenue.
They're going to do something about that.
And that's why we should reconsider at the very least using
social to market your business.
The game is changing.
It already has.
And you've probably noticed this.
The way, this changes the game is.
Just because you have more followers on Facebook or Instagram.
Does not necessarily mean you're going to get your content in front of more people.
So if you added a hundred followers this month, for example, on Facebook
or Instagram and you publish content that does not mean a hundred more
people are going to see your content.
Then the last month, the previous
Essentially Facebook is going to probably keep turning up the dial.
On profit over people, meaning you will have to pay more to connect with
more of your own followers to get your content out in front of them.
So that's just something to consider as the landscape continues to change.
It's a reason to think through, how much do I want to rely on these platforms?
Facebook's priority is going to be their own profit.
It's going to be their profit over your profit or my profit.
So even though we may be frustrated by the fact that when I post content less and
less and less people see it, regardless of the number of followers I have.
They're going to prioritize their profit over your profit.
That's something to keep in mind, as you're thinking about using social media.
Reason number two is your own personality, your own wiring, your own makeup.
Here's what I mean.
Some people love social media.
They have an affinity for it.
They're in a stage or time of life where they have the space to spend
time on social media, both creating content and consuming content.
Some people are more extroverted.
There's lots of reasons why social media is more appealing
to some less appealing to others.
So it's worth reconsidering social media to market your business.
By first, starting with you, your own wiring, your own makeup.
And not to assume just because everyone else tells you that
you must go use these platforms.
That that's what you have to do, or you have to do it at a particular pace.
Create the amount of content that other people are creating.
It's just worth reconsidering.
Pay attention to how you're wired.
Rather than one size fits all regardless, you may need to use those.
You may have to push yourself beyond your boundaries.
I'm not suggesting that, but it's at least worth reconsidering.
What is my own personality?
What do I have an affinity for?
And use that as your thinking about how you want to use these platforms and
whether or not you want to use them to market your personal brand business.
Reason number three information overload and your own responsibility.
I'm going to share a quick story from one of my favorite books, it's Range,
by David Epstein and he tells the story.
Of Don Swanson.
Swanson earned his physics PhD in 1952.
So you've got a super smart physicist.
The university of Chicago, about 10 years later, hire Swanson to be the
Dean of the graduate library school.
So now he's gone from PhD physicist.
To managing the library at the university of Chicago.
Swanson became concerned about the increasing specialization that he
was noticing because specializations were leaning to more and more
publications that catered only to a very small group of specialists.
And he thought that was stifling creativity.
Here's the interesting quote.
He says, quote, the disparity between the total quantity of recorded knowledge.
And the limited human capacity to assimilate it as not only enormous
now, but grows unremittingly.
In other words, here's Swanson back in 1963, looking at the library at
the university of Chicago and saying there's already too much information
in here for anyone to assimilate and therefore make it useful.
I think that's very analogous to we're in the information age.
Social media.
Ask us to just be constantly posting stuff.
Adding to just the information overload.
And I think maybe.
As we reconsider this it's maybe analogous to your responsibility.
In relation to the environment and relationship to our planet.
And that is what is your responsibility just for your small part.
To say.
Do I need to push this out on social or am I just adding to the already.
The information overload that's out there, which.
Entices people to come consume that information.
Perhaps we would be better served if we publish less curated more and said,
rather than publish 15 things today, maybe I only published two things this
week and those two things are going to be the best of the best of the best.
It's just worth reconsidering, how we're using social media.
To say, do I want to continue to contribute to the pollution?
The information pollution that's out there.
And is rampant on these platforms--it's just something worth considering.
Reason number four.
Reframe the way you think about.
Email.
What if you used your email list a little more, like you use social media, that
would be emails that maybe are shorter.
Maybe they're lighter and tone.
You send them out more frequently.
And when you hit send.
You know, they go to every single subscriber.
When you publish on social, like we mentioned earlier, Fewer and fewer of
your followers actually see the content.
And most of us think that email is something completely different, but
we could reframe the way we think about email and use it a little more.
Like we use social media it's worth considering.
Reason number five.
Consider your answer to this question.
How much would you love it?
If you did not have to rely on social media, but knew you
could still grow your business.
I've heard a, several different people in the last week or two.
Hint at some form of that, something like, oh man, if I didn't have to use social
media, To grow my business or my brand.
Oh, that would be such a relief, such a weight off of my shoulders.
So, if you've ever felt that way before, I would say that's a production issue.
It's the demand you feel as a consultant or a coach or a personal brand that you
have to go produce social media content.
It's like another job description or expectation that's been put
on you that feels many times overwhelming, very demanding.
Well consider this.
If that's the way you feel like, oh, I just wish I didn't have
to do that or worry about that.
Then it's worth asking.
I wonder how many of my followers.
I would also love to be able to connect with me.
Learn from me, have some sort of relationship with me.
Without having to go to social media.
In other words.
If I'm feeling that way, I I wonder how many of my followers feel the
same way that they also would like to be spending less time on social in
order to be able to connect with me.
So there are five reasons to not rely on social media or at least reconsider
how you rely on social media to market your business, to run down through those
again, real quick, Facebook is declining.
And so they're going to put the squeeze on your content, getting to your followers.
Reason number two, your own personality may make it not so enjoyable to constantly
be pushing content out on social media.
Number three, what is your own responsibility and your contribution
to the information pollution and the quantity of information that's out there.
Maybe you need to dial back on social media as part of
your own stewardship, reason.
Number four.
What if you used your email?
Email more like you use social.
And reason number five.
How fun would it be to rely less on social?
To grow your own business.
If you're inclined to say that would be such a relief, perhaps
your audience would agree.
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