Social media marketing and the true costs for small business (with Stacie Mitchell)
Welcome to this special collaboration between myself, Jenna Hellberg from the Building Balance podcast, and Stacie Mitchell from the Something Even Better podcast.
We decided to split our conversation into two digestible ones, because well… we have a lot to say about social media, and it felt like there were two distinct themes we wanted to explore within this conversation.
In this first part, you’re going to hear us talk about the ways that social media may be costing you more than just your time, and in part 2 we’ll be talking about how you can figure out where your marketing time is best spent, whether that’s on social media or elsewhere.
Listen to part 2 on the Something Even Better podcast, or read on Stacie’s blog: How to market your small business without social media
Alright, let’s dive into this first piece!
Introduction
Jenna: The other day, I was thinking about Instagram and whether or not to post something beyond "here's this week's podcast ep", when I had a realization: Not only are we creating content for free for social media platforms that benefit from it, but WE ARE PAYING FOR IT. We are paying for it not just with our time, but with our money, too.
So I immediately thought of you, Stacie, and sent a message your way thinking that we *have to* talk about this, since you’ve drastically minimized the time you spend on social media *and* are experimenting with other ways to build your business
Stacie: And of course, my immediate response was, “Let’s talk about this on our podcasts!” You know I absolutely agree that social media has big costs – to our time and energy for sure, but also to our mental health, our ability to focus, and so much more, so I’m really excited to have this conversation.
The cost of creating content for a platform that doesn’t really care about you as the creator
J: So let’s talk about the cost of creating content for a platform that doesn’t really care about you as the creator. As I already alluded to in the beginning: we aren’t just creating content for free for these big platforms, but we are also paying to create that content.
We are definitely paying for it with our time. But I don’t think there’s enough talk about how we’re also literally paying for it with our money. Many of us also invest in brand photo sessions, designers, templates, strategists, memberships, video coaches -- the list goes on -- to create great content.
BTW, we’re not dragging on the service providers that sell the above. Social media has created so many creative jobs, and those services and resources are important for making social media more purposeful and effortless for business owners.
But the thing is, that it's us little people paying for those jobs. The platforms rake in the cash as people interact with the content, while (let’s be honest!) not everyone sees results from bettering their social media content. We keep creating for the sake of the promise that if we just work at it hard enough, if we’re strategic enough, if we create valuable enough content, it’ll pay off. And that if it’s not paying off, it’s because we’re not leveraging the platform correctly (or have mindset issues.)
S: Yes, I think it’s great in some ways that we’ve created so many jobs around this, but I agree – it’s interesting that we’re sinking so much money and time into something that doesn’t always have a high return on investment. And to be clear, I’m not saying it NEVER gets you results. It can. However, in some ways, I think there are lower-cost opportunities we overlook because it seems easy enough to create social media content.
The platforms are free to sign up for, there are loads of free tools to help you get started. But because it’s “free”, 99.9% of businesses are there. It’s competitive. And honestly, even if you have really valuable content, if you don’t play the game – meaning engage enough with others, and use all that platform’s many different tools, like polls, or reels, or stories, etc…
And many of us never signed up to make social media our part-time jobs, and yet we become convinced that we have to do this to have a business. Not to mention that the longer you're engaged, the more data they can gather, and the more ads they can show you. So you become convinced you also need more “stuff” too!
J: Ok yes, LOVE that point about social media as part-time jobs. We did not sign up to become social media influencers. I mean –– it’s hard because I really *do* enjoy sharing my thoughts, and if I only waited to share my thoughts with clients I’d never get to share enough. But of course, in the past year, I’ve been able to share my thoughts on the podcast, so that helps!
S: I totally feel that. I actually also loved sharing my day-to-day thoughts on social media. The struggle for me was getting my attention stolen from under me every time I went on to share. I’d go to share something to my story, and then I’d end up in a scroll for 30 minutes to an hour that I definitely hadn’t planned for.
And I think the more you hang out on social media, the more you think you have to do well on social media to have a successful business because you’re too in it to see clearly. When I stopped being on social media so much, I realized there are so many more options available. And that there are loads and loads of businesses and entrepreneurs that get clients in other ways.
J: Gosh yes, it’s funny how I see some people who on IG aren’t that active, or maybe they share mostly just stuff from their life and it’s not this strategic content; they maybe have fewer followers than me (and hey, I don’t have many!) – but they are still making what’s enough, or even “abundant”, for them. They’re just busy working with clients behind the scenes – they aren’t on IG matching content to whatever is trending right now.
There’s the argument that as long as you create content that people want to consume, the algorithm will prioritize your content. Buuuut… I don’t think it’s exactly true.
I only need to watch one reel about a certain topic, or start following one account, and suddenly that’s *all* I see in my newsfeed. What about the 100+ other accounts I follow that are creating amazing content, but I don’t get to see? Even if I go into their accounts and engage with posts, I don’t seem to see their stuff in my feed.
S: And one of my biggest worries is that talented small business owners are wasting so much time and energy that could be spent on making the world a better place. On innovative solutions to problems. Instead of doing deep work solving big problems, we're spending an hour creating reels – and what is that doing to our collective society?
J: Yes! I legit worry about our collective society. Sometimes I imagine highly intelligent alien life forms out in space watching us, wondering why the heck we’re all just doing some dancing and pointing to the same audio snippets. I mean, I understand there are psychological reasons why we want to jump onto what works. We want to be part of something, to feel like we belong, and to have something to share that people can relate to. And it can be scary to do things in your own, original way! But gosh we need more of that, and I’m feeling like *anything trending* takes away from our creativity. Or well – it can sort of create a container that pushes creativity, but on the whole I think innovative, original thinking suffers.
And btw, I have totally created a reel or two to trending audio. Tho I don’t think either of us actually would feel comfortable addressing these issues if we hadn’t tried and experienced them ourselves 😂
S: Absolutely! And the alien imagery is just too perfect: “What are you all even doing down there!?! Don’t you see you’ve got more important work to do!?” Ha!
The costs that come when platforms make big changes – like Instagram is right now.
S; I also think these platforms can cause whiplash for us business owners, because they are all constantly changing the rules of what works and what doesn’t…
Every single time a social media platform makes updates to its platform or its algorithm, business owners who use those platforms have to adjust. That can mean loads of time and mental energy relearning a platform, making updates to templates, and sometimes, learning something completely new. The first thing that comes to mind for me here is reels on Instagram.
I know you’ve created a few reels, and I have too, but the amount of time to create even just a basic reel is a bit ridiculous. In fact, let me tell you an embarrassing confession. When I heard that Instagram is changing YET AGAIN, I realized I was going to have to move away from static feed posts and create more video content with reels if I’m going to keep using Instagram.
And I had an idea for a fairly simple reel. And I’m not kidding when I say that I spent no less than 1.5-2 hours on this reel. Because, the first one I created and posted had weird glitches with the automated captions. And the second one I created and tried to post ALSO had issues with my manual captions. Apparently this was on a day where there as a glitch on Instagram, of course. And that’s when I realized I could have done SEO research and wrote a really good blog or podcast episode with all that lost time. I’m still kicking myself over it.
J: Oh help, I know. I think it took me a few extra days (on top of the months I avoided reels) to create my first one, just because it was glitching so dang much! There were a lot of fonts and things that got wonky when posting from my Google Pixel especially in the beginning. And well, I just don’t think that having your main marketing or visibility strategy hinge on something so volatile is a good thing.
The cost of giving your attention to social media
J: So I’ve really enjoyed following along your journey of radically reducing how much time you spend on social media. And how you’ve realized what an impact of social media has on other areas of your life, besides just business. Please tell us more?
S: The impact on my life is why I decided to pull way back from social media marketing. I’ll admit that I always felt like my phone was glued to my hand, and even my husband would make remarks that I was always on my phone. And as someone who values being present, and being a good listener, and not being distracted all the time, it dawned on me that I’d begun to go against these values in order to potentially sign more clients, and that didn’t feel good at all.
And it’s not like this was just me, there’s research that backs all of this up. Social media apps are designed to be little slot machines in our pockets, constantly driving us back for more. And this doesn’t even account for the fact that all of these algorithms reward you when you’re constantly creating and posting – to the point that it feels like your business is content creation, or like you’re trying to be an influencer, when that was never the goal at all.
There’s not enough people talking about entrepreneurs’ mental health. Unfortunately, the research shows us that entrepreneurs tend to suffer from more anxiety and depression. And when you add the time an entrepreneur may spend on social media – which also impact our mental health – it’s really worrisome to consider!
J: We just went on a mini vacation in Mendocino and we happened to have no cell reception at the cabin, and even though we technically had wifi there, it didn’t work on my phone. There was enough for my phone to say there’s no internet connection but emergency calls are possible. Even if we went into town, I still didn’t have cell reception there. We had to go all the way to the next town over, about 20 minutes away for me to have a bit of internet.
And I gotta say, it was actually quite nice. Like, intellectually I know there are no social media, or even business communication emergencies. I noticed that the only thing I actually worried about was like, something happening to my parents and them not being able to reach me. But I had zero worries about social media, which was nice. And nothing happening on my phone meant that it just sat on a side table somewhere, and I’d grab it only if I wanted to take a photo of something.
When I wasn’t checking my phone so much, I was able to focus on other things I like doing *A LOT* easier. And it’s amazing how immediate it was — I thought I’d instinctively grab for my phone all the time but instead I could just really focus on a book, for example.
Interestingly, I also wasn’t worrying about what “everyone else is doing”. I wasn’t feeling like I’m missing out on stuff, I wasn’t feeling like I should be working instead of vacationing — all that stuff. It’s amazing how being present on the platforms can cause all these extra worries just because we’re on there more.
Final thoughts and where to find part 2
I hope that this episode has helped you feel validated especially if you’ve been feeling crappy or disappointed when it comes to social media. It’s not that long ago that I realized that I’ve wasted a ton of time and energy on social media when I could’ve been doing better things – and I share more about that in part 2 of this discussion, where Stacie and I talk about what how we can figure out what the best use of our time is, if it isn’t social media. (And how to deal with social media if we still want it to be a smaller piece of our marketing strategy.)
Many of you who listen have said that you appreciate that I don’t just share things I *think* are true, but that the things that I talk about are backed up by or rooted in research or they’re things I know or that I’ve put together thanks to my education as a psychologist –– and if you also prefer that type of content, Stacie does *a lot* of content that’s well-researched and backed up by science, so I think you’d really enjoy her entire podcast.
If you’ve been feeling all kinds of ways about social media lately and this episode felt validating to you, post a screenshot and your thoughts about this episode to your IG stories, tag us at @staciemitchell and @thejennahellberg so that we see your story and can share your 2 cents!
If you’re interested in taking a different approach to marketing your business, I highly recommend downloading Stacie’s free SEO Cheat Sheet and Tutorial. This also adds you to her twice-monthly emails where she digs deeper into the topic of moving away from social media, as well as how to market without relying on it so much.
And I’ve got a Podcast Quick-Start Guide which includes my tech, software, and podcast platform recommendations so you don’t need to spend a lot of time researching and debating what you need to start your podcast.