#015 - Marketing Without Social Media

Hey, friends. Welcome back to this episode of Hit Splits. And today I wanted to talk about the benefits of spending less time on social media. Now, I think most of us already know these things, but it can be such an addiction and it's such a pull that it's hard to pull the plug or to spend less time or have those boundaries. And I have struggled with this since 2015. I hit a wall, and part of it was because I was way too connected. I was checking social media and email constantly all through the day. You know, all day, every day. Like, it was just. It was too much. And so I've really changed the way I use social media and have a lot of boundaries, but I still find myself getting sucked in, and it really affects my mental health. I notice an increase in anxiety and if I spend too much time on social media. And so I had recently.

Went through a training. It was all about marketing without social media. And. Oh, it was just. It was really interesting, but I just sensed God nudging me of like, okay, Shelly, it's time to make some more changes. And honestly, I've been wanting to make some changes and move our group from first for Christian Book Academy to somewhere off of Facebook. But also, honestly, because you're here, Hit Splits. This is behind the scenes. This is a little more raw and real. I really believe I've been allowing fear to keep me from doing it. And the fear was I tried to move our group off of Facebook.

Within the first year of the membership. So it was 2015 or 2016. And I tried a forum, and it just bombed. I mean, people just did not even log in and come in and interact and all the things. And so we moved it back to Facebook and. But now this is like seven years later, and there's better technology. And I ended up being able to get a lifetime subscription.

For an app called Heartbeat. And I. I purchased it in June, and I was really. You know, it's similar to Circle or Mighty Networks, you know, those. That type of thing. And I was really hoping to move our paid group for Christian Book Academy there at one point, but then I just. I just got cold feet. I wasn't sure. And then after I took this course on marketing without social media, it's like, this is possible, and it might actually help a lot of people in our group too. And, you know, to not be so distracted, you know, because it's so easy when you come into a group, when you have paid to be part of it. You come in, into it on Facebook, it's easy just to get sucked into the notifications, the scroll, all the things, and then an hour has passed and you could have been writing, you could have been marketing, you could have been doing something more productive with your time. You could have been playing with your kids or grandkids. So I just decided, I felt the Lord give me the nudge. And I put a survey up in our group yesterday and well, when this goes live, it'll be different. But at the time of recording this, it was yesterday. And I was actually kind of surprised. Most people were very open to moving. And then there were actually quite a few people that commented and said, the only reason I'm on Facebook, Facebook is so that I can be part of the Christian Book Academy group. So I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. I spent just about all day yesterday learning the platform, setting it up. It's super easy to use, but you know, just for me, like, knowing how everything works and trying to set it up in a way that would work well for everyone. And I opened it up for some beta users to come in to help me learn it and it's been fun. And almost everyone I have, nobody's complaining that it's hard to use. You know, it's been easy to sign up and then it just gives me a place where I can interact with my people. You know, you are my people and I get to interact with you here. But, you know, if you want more interaction, you know, two way with me, Christian Book Academy is the best place to get that. And so now in this new group, I will feel more free to be more active there or. Whereas, you know, I've really been trying to, you know, set boundaries on Facebook, which, you know, I'll still be setting boundaries with my time, but I put a post in the group today and I wanted to share it with you as well. What are some benefits of spending less time on social media? Especially we're talking here, Facebook, number one, you get more time to write, right? By spending less time on, on social media, we can free up more time to focus on our writing, which helps us improve our craft and produce higher quality work. And that's really, at the end of the day, if you're a writer. That's what it's all about. And we have to have that button, share time. Now I'm going to start to preach. So I mean, you all know this, but it's so easy to get distracted. So that's one number two, improved focus and concentration. So social media platforms can be distracting and make it difficult for us to concentrate on a single task for an extended period of time. So by reducing the amount of time we spend on them, we may be able to improve our focus and concentration, which helps us get more work done in less time. And number three, this is the big one for me is better mental health. Spending too much time on social media has been linked to a range of mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and low self esteem. For me personally, it tends to be anxiety, but for cj, and he's talked about this openly before on other like podcast episodes on our public podcast, but he tends, it tends to affect him more in depression. And so we, we have different things that we struggle with. But he's no longer on social media. I mean, he left Facebook years ago and he hasn't missed it. The main reason I've been staying is our paid group. So anyways, you know, by spending less time on social media, we can potentially reduce our risk of developing these mental health problems and improve our overall mental health. Number four, we can go deeper with others in relationships. Now, if you're a Christian Book Academy member or, you know, if you join us in the future, um, in Heartbeat, they have a matchup feature and I just set it up today. So I'm really curious to see how our beta group does with it. But basically I set it up to match people in groups of three and then, you know, when you sign up to Heartbeat, if you're a Christian Book Academy member, there's a link in our Facebook group right now that you can find to join us, you know, during our beta testing period, if you want. But when you sign up, there's a link on the side that says matchups and then you can choose, you'll just automatically be opt in out, but you can choose to opt in, like if you want, weekly, monthly, you know, whatever schedule you would like. But then you'll have control of, you know, how often you want to participate and when. And you can always opt out at any time. But then this platform, it's really cool. It will automatically send out matchups and I have it sent, sent, set up to send it out once a month. And so once a month it'll send you your matchups and there's a feature inside the app where you can do an audio or a video call right within the group, or if time zones or, you know, schedules are conflicting, then you can do a group chat and you can do that right within the app. So I'm just really excited about it. I think, you know, I was really, really hesitant for so long to make this move. And now that I've been decided to do it, I'm feeling so good about it. And of course, there are people that would prefer us to stay on Facebook. I get it. You're, you know, you usually are already on there and so it's easy to check in, but I'm going to be doing some fun things to try to get our members moving into it. And we're going to do it in a, in a transition. We're probably going to do like three to six months. So our Facebook group is not going anywhere. If you're a Christian Book Academy member, you know, don't panic. I mean, it's still going to be open right now, and yet we're going to be transitioning to having most of the conversations and everything over on Heartbeat. And I think it's going to be good for all of us. I think just having more space from social media, it's only going to be, you know, good.

Some social media is fine and I actually learned some really good, great things and I meet great people and I don't know that I'll completely remove myself from social media, but I would love to not be checking in every day, like, if I can have my main thing that I'm doing.

Over in the Heartbeat group and then I don't have to even check into Facebook if I don't want to. So that's really exciting. But if you want to join us, I would love for you to join us at ChristianBookAcademy.com be part of our community, be part of what we're doing and get the training, the content, the community and the coaching that you need to move forward in your call to write and also just meet new writing friends and, you know, have, have that, that chance to connect on a deeper level with people who get you. So anyways, I, I hope that this gave you some food for thought. It is possible to market without social media, but if you have a great marketing plan that involves social media, social media and it's working well for you, I am all for that. I am not anti social media, but for me personally, I would just really like to have more distance from it. And then for my group, for Christian Book Academy, I just think it's going to be so much better for everyone for us to be on a different platform. First of all, less distracting for all of you, for all my members that are out there. And then also I don't own Facebook, so they could decide I'm breaking their terms of service at any time. And completely just shut, shut me down and delete everything and I don't own that platform. And then.

Third, just for, for my own mental health and just so that I can connect deeper with my members without going down that dark, dark hole of social media. You know, I can get onto Heartbeat, I can connect with people and, and I don't have to feel like, I don't have to like you know, constantly be distracted by other things. Get in, get out, offer you a lot of great content and service but not.

Not waste so much time or get distracted by all the things. So you, you do you right and that's what we always talk about here. Pray, ask the Lord what is it he has for you, what is it he is leading you to do and it's going to look different than other people. But no, like if you are not someone that wants to be on social media to market your book, there are 102 million and two. I mean there are hundreds of other ways to market your book so you can do it without social media if you want. But anyways, I hope this was helpful to you. Just got some, something, you know, got you thinking about some things and I have no idea exactly how everything will go for us in the future. Right now I'm keeping my free group open. We may move the free group over to Heartbeat at some point as well. But for now you can still join us in our free group@trainingauthors.com forward slash group. And if you're on our email list, we'll keep you up to date on how things are going and, and what we've decided to do. But we are in the process of moving our paid group for Christian Book Academy over and so far loving it. And so I will talk to you all soon. Bye bye.