Episode 128: Five Ways to Make Sure Social Media is Not Stopping You from Being Social IRL
Have you ever felt too overwhelmed with what you see in social media? It’s normal and in this coaching episode, Fiona shares her experience and the five things that you should really consider if you're finding that social media is kind of taking over your life. Listen now to find out what they are and apply it to your life to have a less stressful time looking at you phone.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
Five Ways to Make Sure Social Media is Not Stopping You from Being Social IRL
#1 It's not 100% real
#2 Schedule your posts.
#3 Understand your triggers
#4 Turn off your notifications
#5 Value your time
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Links/Resources Mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
The best best conversations and the connections that I've had have been when I meet with these people face to face, or jump on phone or like a zoom call. And I'm not saying like, you should just remove social media altogether, but rather I guess, in today's episode, is really about being aware of the addictive nature of tools like social media, and just ensure that it's not negatively impacting on your real life.
Hello, and welcome to Episode 128 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. Today I'm talking about social media. And I know that can be such a triggering thing for small business owners. I know many of you are like me, you have a love hate relationship with social media. So definitely stick around because I'm going to talk about five things that you should really consider if you're finding that social media is kind of taking over your life is stressing you out in any way or kind of just giving you concerns. So before I get stuck into that, I just wanted to as always pay my respects to the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, the traditional owners of the land and which I am lucky enough to record this podcast, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. And just kind of let this be your little sign today to do whatever you can to really be there and champion equality for all.
All right, so let's get stuck into today's poaching episode. So a couple of years ago, a friend of mine who also runs his own business, confessed that he'd had a really lonely year. And this was well before COVID-19 hit us because I'm sure lots of people are having lonely years this year, and last year, but back then it was before COVID. And to look at this person, you would not, I don't know. I don't know what lonely looks like I guess all of us get lonely. But it was a bit of a shock for me.
And from the outset, he kind of had everything that you seemingly need as like a successful inverted commas. small business owner, he had like engaged email subscribers, he had a really high volume of traffic to his ecommerce site. He had a constant flow of paying customers, he had the lifestyle to like literally work wherever he wanted. And again, his pre COVID he would travel all the time, a really hefty social media following. But as he said to me, he was like, throughout this entire year, I felt like I was being like more social on social media, and this whole online world then really making any time to be social offline. And I realized at the end of the year, I was just really incredibly lonely and kind of depressed. Now, part of my business model is running workshops that I will be running them again, once we can just get out of like continuing lockdowns here in Melbourne. And I run them just like my courses mainly on marketing and business strategy and kind of planning and, and also, you know, stuff like getting published and launching your own podcast and things like that. But the one question that I have heard throughout every workshop that I've ever run every speaking gig, pretty much the most common question over the six years, no matter who the audience is, is do you think I need more followers on social media? Like still in 2021 this is still what people will ask me. And as a society, I feel like we just become obsessed with social media.
Like I'm definitely someone with a love hate relationship to it. And my husband who is rarely, rarely on social media. He suggested once years ago that it was kind of like smoking was in the 1940s. We just accept that everybody does it. But we'll look back one day in like decades to come and wonder why we didn't notice the severe damage that it was doing sooner. And don't get me wrong. You know, social media definitely helps businesses connect and, and collaborate and kind of grow brand awareness and sales for each other. And it's a normal part of being in business today. I'm not like here to hate on it completely. You know, social media can be an incredible source of inspiration, especially for those Most of us in the creative space or creative field, and like anyone else, I've dedicated a portion of my time to engage with other folks and like build my following, particularly on Instagram, which is a key channel. And I regularly post what I hope is like useful content to my Instagram account.
And if you're not connected, go and connect with me, I'm at @mydailybusinesscoach. But I'm also aware of the damage that social media can do from like comparison through the self doubt through to feeling like we have to be on there all the time, just to stay front of mind. And it's all too easy for like small business owners to just get caught up in the kind of fame game and equate followers with self worth, or followers with success. And as I always bang on about on this podcast, in any kind of work that I do, social media is simply one of many channels to connect with your audience. It is not the only channel. And I guess it should be balanced out with like nurturing audiences into your own space, the space you are in, which is like your email, your website, your events, if you're lucky enough to be running physical events, or your events, you know, onto a zoom link on to a webinar, things that you can control, as well as kind of offline activities such as you know, like I said, physical events, panel discussions, meet and greets lunch and learns whatever they are.
So guess what, if you're listening to this, and you're like, well, what can I do to ensure that I somehow strike a balance between cultivating this community on social media, which is important for your business, you do want to grow your audience, you want to have a community around you. But how can I kind of balance that with getting so caught up, that I forget to nurture what exists offline, and it kind of goes back to the story of my friend at the start, where he felt really lonely because he'd been really social on social media with all these strangers, but he hadn't been social in real life. So I kind of put together a list of five things to kind of think about, if you are finding yourself in that same position.
And I know, again, a lot of us are on our screens more because of lockdowns and pandemics. But I do think that these five things might just give you a bit of fuel for thought, and something to kind of, maybe be the catalyst to change some of your behavior.
#1 Remember it's not 100% real?
And I know that seems really like yes, obviously, Fiona, everybody understands that. But I don't think that they do, because I'm still getting the same question. And I still get people really caught up on comparing themselves to other business owners. And maybe even people that even though they know that their life is a complete mess in the background, but on social media, everything's glowing. So I years ago, I watched this film, Brad status, and it's with the guy Oh, my God now forgot his name. The zoo lander guy. And it's a pretty interesting film. It's like a feeling good film. It's called Yeah, Brad status. I'm not sure which streaming service you can find it on. But we'll link to the trailer in the podcast show notes. And it really highlights this point this remember, it's not 100% real brilliantly, like, it's so easy for us to get caught up in the small percentage of life that people highlight on social media, rather than understanding the full picture. You know, few small business owners will regularly post like an argument that they had with their significant other, you know, they won't show you the tears of stress that they cried because tech broke down at the 11th hour when something's supposed to go live, or a customer complaint or kind of the guilt that they feel putting the iPad on for their kids so they can get this nice and this down in the business or, you know, just send that last email, get the landing page set up. And yes, we should congratulate and celebrate the wins. And I really stress that with my clients. I'm always like, how are we going to celebrate this. And we want to do that. And we want to celebrate the wins that we see other small business owners having on social media. But we should also remember that this is not what life looks like for them. 24 seven, it doesn't look like that for anyone. 24 seven, since the first one, just really, really remember, this is not 100% real.
#2 Schedule your posts.
Now I know that many people, particularly people who are kind of social media strategy advising sort of Instagram strategist, specialists type people will disagree with this, but I am standing my point like I've lost track of, you know, people saying this is the worst thing to do for the algorithm and so on so forth. I actually think you know, your mental health is more important than an algorithm. And if you want to schedule a post, you schedule them. I stand by that. Scheduling social media posts allows you to control the time that you're going to dedicate to this channel, whether it's instagram, whether it's Pinterest, whether it's Facebook, whether it's tik tok, whatever it is, if you can schedule these things, then it forces you to kind of batch create the content which increases productivity as well as consistency in your message. But it also kind of allows you to really think about Okay, I'm going to batch this and then maybe I'm going to put a 20 In a block on a particular channel, like Instagram, so that I'm not going down a rabbit hole. And you know, scheduling doesn't mean you can't go in and edit and tweak before posting. And nor does it mean that you're going to fail to show up and like engage with your people at the time of posting, but it just means that you are not on the platform for hours on end, you've thought about what are we trying to do with our marketing? Okay, what's the message we're getting out there? What's the medium? Alright, what's the connection channel? Okay, one of them is Instagram. What are we going to talk about an Instagram? How can we schedule that? How can we batch created and put it up, and it's kind of done, it's out of our mind sort of thing. So time to schedule posts.
#3 Understand your triggers.
So I'm as guilty as the next person of like scrolling through social media, instead of spending time with loved ones, or like getting stuck into a book that I've been meaning to read for like the last month. And I find that my triggers are definitely boredom, and bedtime. And they have been triggers that I've had for years in terms of social media. But I and I've talked about this before, as well, I now have a block on my social media accounts, so I can't be on them. I think Facebook have like 15 minutes a day, and Instagram is 30 minutes a day. And I literally, I stretch those minutes out, like quite often I'll see my thing pop up saying you've been on there for 30 minutes, at the very end of the day, like sometimes doesn't even pop up. And so I've had to kind of work out ways to identify my triggers are boredom. So like, Okay, if I'm going to go and be somewhere where I know, I'm kind of waiting around such as you know, getting a vaccine or something else like that, then I might bring a book with me. And it's a physical book. So I'm not actually on my phone, reading nor anything else. Or I might, you know, bring my headphones and listen to an audible book. So again, I'm not, you know, tempted to to start scrolling. And putting these blocks on has been really, really helpful as well. And to help with this kind of stuff, I also leave my phone outside the bedroom. So I try not to touch it between kind of probably eight o'clock, sometimes it's 10 o'clock, if I'm, if I'm going to bed late, but I try and charge it overnight in the kitchen, so I don't have it in my room. And this isn't always possible. But most nights I achieve it. And I feel so much better. Because my head isn't being blasted for like 10,000 different messages, right before I hit the pillow, or I'm not seeing something that's going to trigger me right before I go to bed. And then you know, I can't sleep because I'm thinking about it. Now, those blocks on social media apps have really, really helped. And if you want to go deep into that, then I did do a whole episode on how to set that up. And I think that was Episode 99 on how to set limits on Instagram. But the other thing that I'll do is that I often put my phone on airplane mode when I'm working and when I just need to get stuff done, or I will turn it off completely, because then I have to wait for it to start up. So it's not like I'm just gonna scroll once I have to, you know, press it to start up, I'm like, Okay, come on, you don't need to go on Instagram and ship this right now just get this other stuff done. So I know that that trigger of boredom is something that I need to be aware of. I also know that one of my triggers that I've had is, I will, you know, do something mindless when I'm procrastinating getting something done that may be tedious in my life or my business. So for instance, checking something, or maybe going over something with my accountant, as much as I love my accountant, you know, like some things like that I'll put off and I'll find myself on a tool like Instagram scrolling. And so I know that I've got to be really conscious of that. So if I'm feeling like, Okay, I'm just trying to avoid this, what I'll do is usually put music on, and I'll have a bit of a dance around the study. And I have different lists on Spotify, we'll link to them in the show notes. And yeah, I'll have a dance around the study. And I'll kind of be like, Okay, this just needs to get done. So like get over yourself and have fun now for the next five minutes, and then sit down and get it done. I use things like tomato timer.com, and other things to help me get it done. But it's also helping me Be aware of like not just grabbing my phone and just starting to scroll because that is, you know, something that I used to do in the past. So I guess understanding your triggers is really, really important. One of the activities that I mentioned in the book, passion, purpose, profit, that could be something that you want to try if you're in this particular element thinking yes, I do have a lot of triggers, is to really sit down and map out what are your helpful habits. So the habits that are really helping you with your business or your life? And then what are your hinda habits. So these are the habits, like for instance me scrolling stuff, instead of getting the job done, that is hindering my business or you know, you might have your life so you literally it's just a piece of paper, you can create a table of some sort, and you're going to have hinder habits. So what are the things you're doing that are hindering you and maybe social media comes into that. And then on the next column, you would put helpful habits so what might I do instead of that, so for instance, you know, if you're someone That checks your social media and scrolls mindlessly, when, say the ads are on, if you're watching, like free to air TV, then you might change that and be like, okay, when the ads are on, I'm actually going to, you know, set up some little dumbbells and I'm going to do some weights or when the ads are on, I'm going to go and get a glass of water and go to the toilet and do whatever else. Or when the ads are on, I'm going to read a couple of pages in my book inside of my book sitting there, whatever it is, you might figure out, what are my hinder habits, and then what am i healthful habits. So that's kind of comes into number three, which is to understand your triggers.
#4 Turn off your notifications.
So I talk about this a bit, because I've done it in my own life. And I think it's really, really helped. So anyone who's ever kind of dabbled in buyer behavior understands that, like, say, the color red is used for urgency. And you just think of, you know, any sales period in retail, you will see a lot of red, red, red. And it's because you know, you see stop signs, it's red, you see fire engines, red, it's very attention grabbing color, which is why it is used. But red is also used today, for app alerts to like signal, you know, you've got 573 emails that have not been read, or you've got, you know, five DMS that have not been read. And we are so used to seeing that color and just kind of being like Pavlov's dog just reacting, that we don't stop to think. So one way that you can do is just take those notifications off, so that you're not seeing every single time someone does something. And I used to do when I was first trying to grow my Instagram, I had Instagram notifications on I had so many notifications on. And you know, you do get this sort of validation, like oh my gosh, this person is coming to this person is coming to this person is following you. But when you really step back, you're like, do I really need to be pinged every five seconds about something that doesn't concern me right now and is actually interrupting my attention on the things that do concern me such as being with my kids, or getting through this big task in my business or, you know, responding to something that's really important in the business, not just urgent. So I've turned off virtually like all notifications on my phone. Now I think I've got text messages. And that doesn't actually say what what someone said, Oh, no, it doesn't. It just has like their name. And then I have WhatsApp and WhatsApp is because we've got like family groups on WhatsApp. I have nothing to do with work on WhatsApp, so and in stuff like my son is on WhatsApp. So yeah, I kind of turned off all the notifications. And instead of allowing them to interrupt my day, like they used to, and kind of pull me into the vortex of particularly social media, but other other apps as well. I now like scheduled time to check in on the apps that I want to check in on. And I've also moved them to the fast screen on my phone. So I actually have to go flip, flip, flip, flip to get to them, and then even then they are inside a folder. So I'm trying to make these things a bit more difficult. So that can be more conscious of mindlessly scrolling and kind of wasting my time in there.
#5 Value your time.
And I guess this last point is to just ask yourself, what is my time worth? You know, most of us feel like we don't have enough time. You know, if you talk to most people you like how are you even during COVID when people are, you know, a lot of the time locked at home. And in these restricted kind of situations. People say I'm busy, I'm busy doing this, I'm busy doing that I'm busy doing this, that and everything. And we feel that we don't have any time. And yet we're spending hours on platforms like social media, instead of getting off those and potentially phoning someone reading a book writing a letter or going for a walk doing something else. And so I guess like even though we do feel like we don't have enough of it, we seem to happily give it away for free to to these apps, which are making bazillions of our attention. Our attention is currency. And that's what they're selling. And you know, I'm trying to not get on my high horse. But one of the best ways to kind of value your time, I think, is to kind of set a weekly plan and a guess people will be like, well, I can't plan that much these days, you can still plan out, you know what is really important to you. And that might be on a Sunday evening or like a Monday morning and kind of stick to it, you know, stick to it and really think about it. I often talk to clients when they're starting out. And I was just talking about this in group coaching recently, the kind of rocks in the jar philosophy.
So if you haven't heard of this, it's a really old tale. I don't know where it originated from. But it basically talks about this teacher and he was saying to his students, you're showing them a jar and it had rocks, it had pebbles and it had sand and he was full. And he emptied the jar out and he said put it back together and so most people tried to put the pebbles in the sand in and then the rocks wouldn't fit. And they were like, well, the rocks don't fit, like how can I get the big rocks to go back in. And what he said is these big rocks, they actually represent what's most important in your life. So instead of filling the jar with like pebbles and sand, so like your work or other stuff, that's not as important to you, he put the big rocks into the jar first. And then you'll have space around those to fit the other things rather than putting the sand and the pebbles in first, in which case, the rocks don't fit. And I guess that is kind of where I come to the kind of planning your week to sit down and sort of think about what's most important in the week ahead. And maybe it's that you're out of lockdown, and you want to go and see elderly relatives, or maybe it's, it's really important for your mental health, or your physical health as well, to go for a walk every day. And so that has to be factored into your plan, maybe you're thinking I'd really like to spend some time on something creative, that's not on a screen. And so again, that needs to be factored into your weekly plan. And of course, you've got work and some other stuff in there. But it really is about looking and thinking, Okay, if I have, say a three hour chunk of time on Tuesday, to get X, Y, Z done, maybe to start on that website redesign or to, you know, create a pitch deck or to do something else in your business, then switch off your phone, during that time be like, okay, Tuesday at three o'clock, I'm going to put a reminder, and I'm going to say from three to 6pm, my phone is not on, and I'm going to tell people that absolutely need to know like your partner or your children that, hey, I'm turning my phone off, there's no emergency, I'm just turning it off. So I can get this stuff done.
Or, hey, if you're all at home, can no one contact me like just the door shut. And I just really need this quiet time between three and 6pm. And just switch your phone off, switch all your alerts off, and just get that stuff done. Now if you need help with this part, if you're like, well, I don't even know where to start with planning out my week, I do have a free weekly planner. And you can literally just find that over at my daily business coach.com forward slash free stuff. And you can download that and just get started. And if you do wish to like jump on social, then use a tool, like I mentioned before tomato timer, which is tomato hyphen, timer calm and kind of contained the time that you spent scrolling. So yep, you can do it, you got 20 minutes. And once that thing goes off, once tomato timer finishes, then you're done. And that was the scrolling time for today.
So kind of make the most of it. Or like I mentioned before, I put on a half hour app limit on that on Instagram for me. So I only have half an hour. And then I'm literally blocked from excuse me from the platform, I'm having a bit of a giggle there. I'm blocked, my phone is blocked me, but really I am blocked. And I don't go back on it. So yeah, I really want to get across the fact that social media isn't evil, like I don't have this hatred for it. And as I said that kind of earlier, it's done wonders for small businesses, including my own. And it has connected you know, so many like minded people in ways that with no other medium could. And I've seen so many businesses start on social media and do really, really well out of it. But I've also seen so many, you know, small businesses go in there and feel like that takes over half their life and is also not making them feel that great when they're on there. You know, it's still in its infancy. It really is it feels like it's been around forever. But it hasn't, I was working for good kind of 10 years before this happened. And even when it started, like I know, when I was in London, I think it came out what 2012 Instagram, and I came back in 2013. And lots of my friends didn't have Instagram.
So, you know, like it, it feels like it's been around forever. But it really, really hasn't. And I'm sure that you know, as more people rally against it. And you know, they have to find different ways to kind of tweak it and make it more in line with humanity rather than kind of against it. It will just be a part and parcel of our life. But it is a daily part of our business. And I've met some really really, really wonderful people by connecting via DMS and like comments on Instagram. But that said, the best best conversations and the connections that I've had have been when I meet with these people face to face or jump on phone or like a zoom call. And I'm not saying like you should just remove social media altogether, but rather a guest. Today's episode is really about being aware of the addictive nature of tools like social media, and just ensure that it's not negatively impacting on your real life. You know, we are human after all, and no amount of technology is ever going to replace the connection that you feel in like real life conversations with laughter and love and eye contact and all the other things that come when you see somebody face to face, or even on like a video call. And I guess yeah, recently I took out a bunch of my clients for dinner and I just had such a wonderful night and I've worked with some of these people for years. And it was just really wonderful to see everyone in their element. Enjoying beautiful food and just laughing and getting on and chatting away. And it was just such a nice night. And you cannot, you cannot recreate that on a platform like social media, you cannot get to the same depth I do not believe. But again, just reiterating. I don't have a hate relationship. I have like a love hate relationship. And I guess these five points that I went through a really to just ask yourself, how much of social media is taking over my life? And how much time and energy Am I giving it? And where could that time and energy go? instead. So if you are listening to this, and you're like, you know, I work in that space, I can't get away from it. I'm a social media agency, I or I work at one or I'm kind of in the app development kind of space, then you might be interested in reading more about the Center for humane technology. I'll link to that in the show notes. But the Center for humane technology is really a team of like innovators, ensuring that we create devices and apps that work with not against human interests. And I just want to shout out my husband, Jerome Ribeiro, because he was the first one that got me onto those people a few years ago.
So just to recap, the five things that you might want to do or consider ff you are finding that social media is playing a bit too much of a role in your life right now is
#1 Remember, it's not 100% real, it's all not all but a lot of highlight reels that are out there.
#2 Schedule your posts, so you're actually not on the platform as much.
#3 Understand your triggers. And remember I talked about that hinder and helpful kind of habit table that you can create.
#4 Turn off your notifications and again, if you are interested in kind of really diving into that and kind of setting up limits for Instagram, I did do Episode 99 all about that so you can go back and check that one out.
#5 Value your time.
So as always, all of those everything I talked about today will be available over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/128 as this is Episode 128. That is it for me. If you enjoyed this, please hit subscribe so you get the latest episodes as soon as they published and if you really liked it, I would love love love if you might have 234 seconds, maybe max to hit the stars and leave a review. It just helps us get found by so many other small business owners across the globe and hopefully they can get something out of this as well. Thank you so much for listening. I will see you next week for another quick tip episode. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
