 Is it possible to build your business without social media? Now, what's interesting is I was tagged in a post of a Facebook group that was discussing this. Ironic, right? A Facebook group discussing is a possible build business without social media. And I'm gonna be real honest with you. These days when just about everyone's attention is on social media of some kind, Facebook is the biggest. It still is the biggest at the time of this recording. Others are using Instagram or YouTube or Twitter or TikTok or LinkedIn is getting increasingly popular these days as people find it an alternative to Facebook. I think I mentioned TikTok. TikTok is not something that I enjoy using, but some people do. So it's like, if you wanna build a business without social media, basically you either, if you truly wanna build a business without social media, you either have to have a large network already of people that you can contact through what? Email, through text messaging. Why are you gonna go door to door? What are you gonna do, right? Okay, so without social media, right? Let's say you're not gonna use Facebook or any social media, what are you gonna do? Email, text message, go see people in person, call them, right? That means you already need a large existing network. Some of you do, congratulations because that large existing network, which by the way is easier to organize when you have social media, right? Come on, LinkedIn or Facebook friends, right? Like, why would you not use a tool that's meant to help you reach the people who already like and trust you in a quick and easy way? Well, I don't understand. When people say I don't wanna do it without social media, there's either philosophical difference they have with it like, oh, social media is evil, bad for democracy, blah, blah, blah, blah. So political philosophical reasons maybe, we'll talk about that. Or they have a more of a productivity reason, like, oh, I get sucked into social media. That's a separate conversation too, because you don't have to get sucked in. I don't really use social media for personal use. I don't, I don't just, when I'm trying to have fun, what do I do? I either play a video game or I look at the news or I look at links I've saved. I don't really serve social media for fun, but I use it for business, very actively for business. Anyway, so it's like, if you don't wanna use social media for great business, you either existing network, you have to be willing to just email or call or text them. Yes, then they might refer you business, but eventually you'll find that it probably runs out after a while if you don't keep growing it, because that's the nature. You might say, well, network effects, right? Like it doesn't keep growing with word of mouth, not the way you think, because there's always attrition with network effects too. Meaning people have already heard about your thing five times this year. If you've already emailed them or texted them three times this year, you're not gonna text them another five times because then they get annoyed. And they've already told you, talked about you to all their friends. So there's an attrition with network effects too, not only growth. So number one, number two is if you don't have, either if you don't have a large enough network to give you enough business or you've gotten to the point where you've tapped out on that, then what do you do after that? You essentially then have to connect with people who have an audience for them to promote your work, right? So people go, well, you could speak on podcasts. You could be interviewed on a YouTube channel. You can guest write for people's magazines, okay, or online publications. All right, fine. But to speak on someone's podcast, how do they promote the podcast? Well, they have an audience of podcast listeners. Yes, but they probably promote their podcast on social media. Oh, I'm gonna go on someone's YouTube channel. Yeah, but how do they promote their YouTube? Yeah, maybe SEO, SEO is another way that's aside from social media, SEO is really, really difficult. I've been doing it for 10 years and it's the hardest marketing method that I do. Social media is way easier, like 10 times easier than SEO, right? So YouTube, SEO, maybe tough, but usually much easier to build YouTube if you also use social media to continue growing it. Okay, you wanna guest write for an online publication? Wonderful, but how does the online publication get traction? SEO, yes, is one way, but also they hope people will share it through social media. It's like, however you get to it, eventually you are working with somebody and a very experienced marketer commented on that thread. When I said, really, how do you really do it? SEO, joint ventures, eventually you're gonna have to work with somebody who uses social media, right? And they agree, yeah, you know? Yeah, if I don't like social media, I don't have to use social media, but yes, I can partner with others who love social media. But that's kind of hypocritical. I mean, what are you gonna do? You're using somebody who likes social media, like eventually it's still social media that's these days, having a viral effect of growing one's audience. So yeah, I don't really buy it. I don't really buy the can't use social media. I'm like, you're either doing it yourself or you're using someone who uses social media. And at that point, you're still hoping that they will promote you and they will probably promote you on social media because that's the easiest way of doing it. So anyway, I hope this is interesting and Sarah, thank you for saying, yeah, what are you gonna do? Go have a stall at the local market? Sure, that's one way of doing it. I go to the farmer's market every weekend. But I always am so sad for the people at the stalls because most stalls are doing quite poorly even at a busy farmer's market like San Francisco. Still many stalls. I'm like, wow, they just spend 30 minutes. People just walking by and nobody stops. You know, I'm like, I just feel bad. So listen, you don't have to say social media is evil or that it's a time suck. You can learn how to use it productively and you can learn to just use it. Anything, it's just like social media is a neutral tool. It could be used for evil but it also has done tons of good. People forget about that. They don't even say all the people that get to reunite on social media or all the causes, the charities, the good businesses, the good ideas, the life-giving ideas that are shared every single day on social media that makes a difference in someone's day. My God, it happens millions of times a day. So you too can be, no matter if you leave social media or not, people are gonna be surfing it. Doesn't matter if you leave or not. People are, more and more people are scrolling, right? So you might as well be there and be a positive difference. So hope this helps.