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EP 17: Pros & Cons of Using Social Media for Your Business
94 Plays11 months ago
Welcome to our first episode of 2024! This week, Lindsay and Betsy dive deep into the dynamic world of social media for business. Discover the pros and cons of leveraging social platforms to boost your business.
We share our unique perspectives on this hot topic in this candid discussion. Spoiler alert: we have a few very unexpected viewpoints. Whether you're all-in on Reels or taking a different path, we believe the best way to market your business is through authentic marketing tailored to you and your business goals.
Stay through the end for a bonus behind-the-scenes chat that's an absolute MUST-listen! Tune in now and revolutionize your social media game (or maybe don’t?)!
Follow The Business Playdate online & come say hi!
- The Business Playdate Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebusinessplaydate/
- Lindsay White's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindsaywhite.co/
- Betsy Moorehead's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betsymoorehead.biz/
- Learn more about Lindsay's marketing program here: https://lindsaywhite.co/
- Learn more about Betsy's marketing services here: https://betsymoorehead.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Business Playdate, a podcast hosted by Lindsay White and Betsy Moorehead, two internet strangers turned business besties. We're two marketing professionals living across the country, raising our kiddos while running our own individual businesses. We built these businesses based on our experiences working in corporate management roles with the end goal to be able to show up for our families first. And we did it. We're so happy you're here with us. Now let's get into this week's episode.
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello and
Time Management Strategies
00:00:31
Speaker
welcome back to the first episode of the Year of the Business Playdate. 2024, here we are. Here we are in all our glory coming right off the holidays. To be honest, Betsy is crushing 2024.
00:00:46
Speaker
Thank you. You're crushing it. Every time I talk to her, she's like, I can't listen to Voxis right now. I'm in the middle of a work time block. I won't respond for another five hours. And I'm like, oh, dang girl. I know. And bless you. You're like, I need a response right now. I am really trying to stick with it. But one thing about me is I go all in for like a week and a half. And then I totally fall off the wagon. I am too. I'm pretty much everything.
00:01:16
Speaker
I literally have it written in my planner above like the week for my like time block. It says one day
Personal Anecdotes and Challenges
00:01:21
Speaker
at a time. So that's what we're going to do. There you go. Take it a day at a time. You got this. So far, so good. I do love like the time blocking. So it's working well for these last four days. Look at you go four days in. They say it takes about 21 days to make a habit. There we go. I'm almost there. What about you? What's going on? How's life?
00:01:45
Speaker
I think my kids are back at school, so that's refreshing. I was able to get some things done yesterday, so that was nice. You have an invasion of ladybugs in your house, too. You were telling me that's fun. Yeah, I have a... Just keep finding these ladybugs everywhere. And as Betsy just informed me, there's actually another kind of bug that looks like a ladybug, but it's called a lady beetle.
00:02:10
Speaker
And the lady beetle is invasive, so now I'm not going to sleep for the next four nights googling vividly what the difference between a lady bug and a lady beetle is. I'm just here to make your nightmares come true. Sorry about that.
00:02:25
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Speaking of nightmares, last night I was sleeping and my son like crawled into our bed in the middle of the night. And at one point in the middle of the night, he like tossed his whole body and his scalp, like his head slammed me in my cheekbone. Oh no. And it was the most... I like shrieked.
00:02:48
Speaker
And I woke up the whole house. Oh my gosh. Everyone had to get back to sleep. But I was like, oh my gosh, I've never had anything hit my cheekbone. And let me tell you, I almost thought it broke. Yeah, that's crazy. Nothing is more strong than a child sleeping in a dead sleep. Tossing and turning in a dead slumber.
00:03:08
Speaker
Ellie, if she gets in our bed, she ends up like sideways. So it's like an H, it's like me and Ryan and Ellie's like the middle part of the H and Ryan eventually just gets up and like goes and sleeps in the guest room. And I'm like, cool.
00:03:20
Speaker
More space for me. Not really. Cause then she just sleeps right up under me. You're half of an age. I'm hoping that Maggie doesn't get this way. She's a very good sleeper. She loves being in her crib. Like she even like has started telling us when she's ready to go to bed, which I'm good. Okay. Let's knock on wood. Like the first rule about kids sleep is you don't talk about it, but I'm hoping she doesn't end up being a in the bed sleeper too. Ellie does it every now and then, but
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah, we definitely, we definitely have a in the bed sleeper. I've seen people that like put like two King mattresses together and like, I could never be that person. And then like their whole family sleeps together, which like not, not judging. I swear to God, I'm not
Social Media in Business
00:03:59
Speaker
judging, but like two King size, like where do you have more room for like your other stuff in your room?
00:04:06
Speaker
My bedroom barely fits my king size mattress. I had to do all these calculations to figure out how to properly fit my king size mattress in my room. I have exactly 18 inches for nightstands. I'm like, whatever. I'd rather have the king size. Right? Oh, God, yes. Over the holidays, we were at my mom's sleeping on a ... I think it's a full size. Maybe it's a queen size.
00:04:27
Speaker
Anyway, I ended up sleeping with my mom in LA because Ryan was like, I cannot sleep in here with you and this bed and this, you know, like when you're somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, but I'm happy to be back at it. Me too. I'm very excited to be recording a podcast today. I'm excited about this topic. It's a little, uh, we're going to see where it goes. Yeah. It's a little informal, but you know, that's what we do best. So we'll just see what happens with it. But today we want to talk about
00:04:55
Speaker
of two topics we're going to be breaching into. And I think each of these topics could be their own podcast episode and stand alone on themselves. But I like the introduction of both of them together, which is social media for business and why to do it and why not to do it, as well as a personal brand versus a business brand. We'll see where the conversation goes. It might lead one way or another, but we'll see. Yeah. We talk about this sometimes often.
00:05:20
Speaker
Just like sometimes often, I feel like we talk about this almost every day. Almost every day we do. I want to burn it all down. I don't want to be on social media anymore, anymore. Yes, we do talk about this often. I have personally and professionally a very love-hate relationship with social media. Same.
00:05:42
Speaker
Especially in 2024, it's like, new year, new me. No, it's like new year, same me. But I have always felt this overwhelming urge to just be off of social media. Just get off of it. But it sounds so hard. It does. Yeah. Anyone who knows me, if they hear me say that, they probably just laugh because I am definitely personally the person that's
00:06:07
Speaker
doing it for the gram, got to like post these pictures or it didn't happen. And Ryan gets like so annoyed. He's like, can't you just like enjoy the moment? I'm like, I can, but I really want the pictures. And then I have the pictures and I'm like, well, I need to share them so that like my friends and family can see
00:06:23
Speaker
these pictures and so on that note like I think it's kind of innocent because it's like personally I'm sharing pictures of my kids mostly like it's never really me or my husband for that matter and it's like my mom and her friends and my sisters and like all the people from my hometown and my friends like they see it all right and like I've made everything private and I'm like locked down on Facebook where like random people can't just see my profile but
00:06:46
Speaker
I don't know. There's just something about it that's like, wouldn't it be so nice, especially like the influencer front. I know we've talked about that a lot and I've done a lot of like purging, you know, my personal page, but when it comes to business, it's just like, there's just such a like overwhelming, like you said, sense of like, I just want to burn it all down and get off of it. Yeah. I,
00:07:09
Speaker
taking a personal side out of it. The business side is so overwhelming. It's scary to put yourself out there in that way because I feel like business in this space that we're in, this freelance online business owner, marketing service provider, we are supposed to be
00:07:27
Speaker
expert marketers for our clients. And so we're supposed to be these thought leaders or authorities on marketing. I hold all of my clients' materials up to the absolute highest standard to the point where my clients sometimes think I'm nuts because I'm like, absolutely not. You guys can't be posting that because that is not professional enough for your business. And they're like, can you just simmer down a little bit? I'm like, no. You hired me to make sure this is good and this is not good.
00:07:55
Speaker
Um, like I don't love when my clients go rogue on things like that and I will happily push back. But nonetheless, I feel like I hold my clients to such a high standard. And then when it comes to my own social media, where I am marketing the director of marketing program, I am like, none of this is ever good enough for me. Like none of this is to my standard, but I don't have the
00:08:20
Speaker
It's like the accountability or the time or what it is, but it's, it's a time suck and you can sit there and you can overthink your own stuff a billion times over. And I'm sure you look at, you know, I put a carousel out the other day that I thought was looked nice, but I could sit there and scrutinize it over and over and over again. Absolutely. We are our own worst critics. And like that's, I think what holds me back a lot from putting anything out is that
00:08:45
Speaker
I, I'm not just a like, put it together and let it, let it be like, I have to like sit there and like,
00:08:54
Speaker
go over it completely and make sure it's perfect. And that's just not possible with social media. Like something's always going to be wrong. It's not possible with a lot of things, but, um, and I heard a stat the other day that made me want to just blow it all up again. Um, and it was saying that the organic reach of social media is like 5% or maybe it was like 2.5% was something very small within like that range. And so if you have a thousand people on your social media account,
00:09:22
Speaker
Like think about your posts that you put out there and how many people actually see it. Like when I put a story out there, I probably get like a hundred views. And that's about 5% of my following. And that's like really small. It is.
00:09:39
Speaker
Am I trying so hard for such a small grouping of people? And granted, those are people who are probably most engaged in my stuff, and they're supposed to be seeing it. But are they your target audience? Or are they like your peers? Or is it my mom? Yeah. My sweet, great aunts are always commenting on my stuff. Right. And I think one thing that has held me back in the past or been a mindset hurdle is,
00:10:09
Speaker
I didn't like, I still don't like marketing the director of marketing program because I don't like selling so openly on social. To me, I really enjoy the space of social media being like a fun playground and like for building connections and like sharing pictures of my kids with my grandma. And I like live in that space. And I think there's a hard mindset of like putting yourself out there on social media from a business and selling standpoint.
00:10:39
Speaker
And there are some people who are really good at it and have like the time and the energy to put into it. And love it and are so good at it. And I like give major props to those people because I'll tell you what I like, this is so funny, but like I like filmed some content last night of me cleaning up the kitchen and I was like, Oh, I'll just body double and put my phone up so that I'm not distracted. And I just sort of like knock out cleaning the kitchen and then maybe I'll have like some B roll to use for something.
00:11:07
Speaker
And then it took me, it took me 20 minutes to clean the kitchen. And that took me almost an hour to just like edit it down. And I'm like, how do people have time for this? And it's a huge time. It is, it is. And like for me, I know we've talked about this a lot, but like to get to like the meat of this conversation. So like, are the reasons why or why not to have this social media for business? Like for me, when I first started my business, social media was a place where like,
00:11:33
Speaker
I was still working a full-time job and I was in the middle of taking a course on how to start my own business. I just felt like if I want to get my name out there and I want to figure out what my business is going to be and what I want to do, let me just throw some things out there and see what sticks.
00:11:54
Speaker
And so I did that for a little while and then I got clients and then it became, I can't keep up with my social media and the client work. And then after like I left my full-time job and was working my own business full-time.
00:12:08
Speaker
I had so many clients that like, I just was like, I don't even have time to like get more clients, you know, like try to find more people to kind of help recoup the income. So that's my whole business model changed after that. And I basically took like a whole year off of BJM creatives social media account. Cause I was like, I don't have the energy to put into this. I'm not actively trying to get more clients. I'm not actively trying to market. Let me ask you this.
00:12:35
Speaker
How many of your clients came from your social media account? One. Really? It was like somebody randomly saw a reel or something and it was me marketing my VIP day. It was just the most random thing. Was it a VIP day client that ended up coming on or are they a retainer? No, it was just like a once, one and done one.
00:13:02
Speaker
I'm going to get on my soapbox for a second. But if you're listening to this and you want to be a marketing service provider or you want to be a freelancing service provider of some sort, you don't have to be on social media. You don't. You're testament to that.
00:13:23
Speaker
never once posted on my personal Facebook page, my personal Instagram page about starting my business. And when I started my business, I never created a social media account for it at all. I never posted about my business on social media, including LinkedIn, which is actually where my audience would be, like my clientele would be. And all of my clients have come to me through
00:13:50
Speaker
organic networking opportunities, like talking to people, talking to my past connections, talking to people I used to work with, um, talking to new people I met, like talking to just random people and just letting them know what I'm doing, but doing it in a way that felt authentic to me rather than the inauthentic way it would have felt for me to be putting it out on social media. I think that's the nail on the head right there. Like ultimately do what feels authentic to you and to your business, because if your clientele is
00:14:19
Speaker
on Instagram, and they are really attracted to people dancing on reels, then by all means, get after it sister. But if your clientele is local businesses, then get your ass out of the house and go network in the local businesses. And so that same, same for me. It was like,
00:14:41
Speaker
I, I did, I did post about starting my business on my personal network. And then I think it just kind of muddied the waters a lot because then I got like a lot of people following me that weren't my target audience that were personal connections. And a lot of people like reaching out, do you do this, this, and this? I have a side gig that I need, you know, a logo for, or do you do? And I was confused. I was like, okay, maybe I'll just take this work on because I need money and I need clients.
00:15:06
Speaker
Right. But it wasn't until I really removed myself from social media, even looking at my business account, I think I popped on a couple of times just to say hi to people and answer some direct messages. But it wasn't until I, I think it was after my second kid was born,
00:15:23
Speaker
I decided, okay, I want to get back on. I'm like, now just my business 100% again. Like I didn't have my part-time ad agency job, but then I changed it and I didn't make it. I changed the handle. It wasn't BJM creative anymore. It wasn't my, my business account. It was just a, it became betsymorehead.biz and it was an Instagram account for me to talk about anything that I wanted.
00:15:49
Speaker
And it almost became like a creative outlet, a creative outlet. And so that's kind of how I see it now. I'm, I really don't like actively promote what I do every now and then I'll mention like a couple of things, but now I use my Instagram account mostly for the podcast benefits and to like push up stuff about the podcast. So I think like for me, the wise and why nots of social media for businesses like
00:16:14
Speaker
The why would be if it makes sense and that's where your audience is and it can help drive traffic to places that you need it to for instance, like a podcast or driving to a blog and you have a really honed in following that is engaging and they're the right people. I think that's what it makes sense. When it doesn't make sense is when it's feeling overwhelming, it's not the people you're trying to reach and you just don't wanna do it.
00:16:42
Speaker
If you're doing it to keep up with like the Joneses. Yes. And also I think it's really funny when you said you got one client from social media and it was a one time project. And that's where I think the sweet spot is. Like I think if you want to be a freelancer or you want to own a business, but you don't want to be on social media.
00:17:00
Speaker
like totally great. Let's not be on social media. Focus on retainer clients like that. You just need a couple of them and then you can just keep serving them forever. Yeah. And you know, until the relationship's not serving one of you and you don't have to be like, you don't have to get clients from social media. You don't have to be showing your face on social media to be a good marketing service provider. Right. Like no one's expecting that of you. Yeah, I agree.
00:17:27
Speaker
But if you're trying to get one-time projects or you need to sell 300 VIP days a year, then okay, we have a traffic situation here and we need to increase traffic immensely to your offers. And that's where social media
00:17:43
Speaker
makes a lot more sense. Now, if you love it or you want to create an outlet or it's a passion for you and it's fun or you're testing things for your clients on your own social media platform, awesome, great. But I feel like there's so much pressure to be on social media and we all don't have to be.
00:18:00
Speaker
No, and then
Exploring Alternative Marketing Methods
00:18:01
Speaker
you're just overwhelming yourself with like, I have to do this trend and I have to do what this is. And this is the algorithm isn't working. And like, it's just so unnecessary. It's like added unnecessary stress into your life. And if it doesn't feel right, then get off of it and see what happens. Try another avenue of marketing and another avenue of networking.
00:18:21
Speaker
grow an email list, communicate with your audience in the email. Okay, Betsy, well, how am I going to grow an email list if I can't talk about it? Well, then maybe that's what your content plan is moving forward. It's not reels and whatever. It's like trying to push people to join an email list. Find other traffic avenues like Pinterest. I'm on a big Pinterest kick right now. You are on a big Pinterest kick. I'm excited to get Pinterest going for the blog. Me too. We're going to get it for the podcast blog. I think it'll be really fun.
00:18:51
Speaker
Cause we're doing that here soon. We are. It's part of our goals. If you listen to our goals episode, the last one episode 16, I think it was. Um,
Branding: Personal vs Business
00:18:59
Speaker
we talked about some big goals for the podcast and that's one of them.
00:19:04
Speaker
What about, so like the second part of what we want to talk about today was like personal versus business branding. And I think it goes hand in hand with social media, which I kind of mentioned, like I went from my Instagram in the past and my social media presence overall was on a business side was like BJM creative, which
00:19:22
Speaker
I don't even really go by that anymore. I think I told you this like BGM creative is my LLC. It's who sends the invoices. It's what it says on my contracts, but when people work with me, they're working with Betsy Moorhead. Yeah. You know, they're working with me, the professional, but they're getting a personal, my personal brand basically. Um, so like, what is that like for you? Cause you, you have two business avenues, right? So you're the white label creative is,
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, so the White Label Creative is my agency. And that's been the White Label Creative from day one. I knew when I started freelancing, I wanted to have flexibility and freedom. And I didn't know what that was going to look like. And I didn't know what it was going to means. But I wanted to make sure that I was setting myself up in a way that no matter where life took me, I had that flexibility and freedom behind the business that I was starting to grow. So I didn't want to go with a personal name.
00:20:18
Speaker
And I think that I am one of these weird people who just get in my head a lot and I get a lot of anxiety. Well, I know I'm one of those people. But I was like, if I put my name on it, it's mine. If I'm the white label creative, and my last name's white, so I mean I've still got my name on it.
00:20:37
Speaker
Um, if I am the white label creative, then I'm operating under this business. That's like more than just me. And it made me feel like I could accomplish more or do more and serve as the relationship person, but where I could eventually have a team that supports me, which is now what I do. Like now I have a team that supports, you know, my agency clients and we have, you know, account manager and we have a creative person. We have a designer and they all are.
00:21:08
Speaker
in, you know, they're in the meetings with my clients, um, and we'll have kickoff meetings together, but I'm generally the face person, um, and lead that strategy. And so it kind of gives me the autonomy to feel more comfortable in the flexibility that I'm given. Like if I, when I had my child, you know, I had someone on my team who was able to step in for me during maternity leave and that didn't feel like I still was had a lot of
00:21:38
Speaker
I had a lot of mindset hurdles around that, but the company knew they were working with the white label creative, not just Lindsay White. Whereas me, when I went out, I didn't have anybody to handle client work, but my clients, thankfully, were all
00:21:58
Speaker
Like, oh yeah, take a month. Like that's fine. With your second kid, I didn't need like more than a month not to like check some emails, right? Yeah. But yeah, no, I totally get that. And two, I mean, this is kind of silly, but like when I, when I first heard the white label, like when you white label something, that's kind of like a marketing term too. Cause like you, um, when you white label something, you make it your own.
00:22:22
Speaker
And I think that was always I always thought that like, was really cool. Yeah. And oftentimes I think about like, I'm like, what if I just do a little pivot here? Because my agency is very, very bespoke, like very bespoke. Like what if I did just create these pieces that everyone could white label and throw their branding on their own and sell digital
00:22:45
Speaker
Something's something or another. Um, but that, that was, I was like, this is a fun little, like my husband actually came up with it. Yeah. No, I love it. I've always loved it. And then my main was available. So, you know, I'm actually shocked by that, that that domain was available. I think I tried something else at first too. Like white label marketing maybe, or I don't know. Lindsay white certainly was not available. So, uh, but then there's also said like,
00:23:14
Speaker
So for you, like your agency, which makes total sense, has a business brand. And then you started a new avenue with the director of marketing. And I remember when I first got to know you was when you were just in the beginning stages of starting the DOM program. And I remember being like, Oh, like she has another Instagram account, but you were, it was so much more you, it was like, you're, I wouldn't say like,
00:23:40
Speaker
The Lindsaywhite.co is more of a personal brand, but it's still a business avenue. Yes, yes. Are you talking about my personal Instagram account? No, no, no. It's where I showcase my daughter being a chicken for Halloween, that one.
00:23:56
Speaker
No, the lindsaywhite.co. The one that you talk about the POM program on and all of the... It's where you're really relating with your target audience more, but on a personal note. It feels more personal than an agency because you don't really have an Instagram for your agency. 100%. I mean, I... And I feel more
00:24:19
Speaker
authentic to who I am on my lindsaywhite.co Instagram account, but it is still a business and, but it is, it's one of those places where it's more fun because of the people who are in the director of marketing program are, you went through it, you know, like my, I have friends in business who have gone through the program and I'm talking to people who are super similar to me or where I've been in the past, you know, they're building,
00:24:46
Speaker
a business to work with clients rather than talking to my agency clients type of thing? I don't know. Yeah. I think someone has said this to me before. I use Instagram and I relate with this, this person said, I use Instagram to talk, not to talk to my target audience, to my target client. I use it to talk to people who are going to refer me to my next client.
00:25:12
Speaker
And I would say that is probably similar of the audience that I have on Instagram because none of my clients, like yes, my clients, like my current clients follow my Instagram account, but like, I'm not talking to.
00:25:28
Speaker
a boutique, right? I'm not talking to a real estate company. I'm not talking to the people that I ultimately am going to be working with. I feel like I'm talking to people like me and you who are also service providers who are on this journey and we can relate to them like you were saying. And so for me, it's like,
00:25:46
Speaker
I've had people then say, hey, I have somebody looking for X, Y, and Z. Is this something that you'd be interested in taking on? So it's more like of a referral tool and a creative outlet. And in that sense, I feel like I've kind of made it like a personal brand. Like it's me coming on stories. It's not my business. Right. No, exactly. And I mean, I primarily work with financial services firms. I work with
00:26:12
Speaker
a lot of 65-year-old men, if I'm being realistic. And that's not to say I have taken many a call with children screaming in the background and Peppa Pig going on, and just like all of the things, right? And my clients could care less. They totally get it. They have kids. They love it. They think it's so fun. But I don't think that they want to see what vegetables I got in my CSA basket this week. Yeah, like the massive fennel.
00:26:40
Speaker
Yeah. I threw in a soup. Yum. But no, I agree. I totally agree. I have a dear, dear friend who is in real estate and she has actually been talking a lot about branding. Her target audience, all her people are other real estate agents. I've loved watching her talk about it because she has said some things that I'm like, yes, yes. I'm like, preach it from the rooftop.
00:27:09
Speaker
When it's you, I'm using real estate as an example, but you are the brand. No matter what brokerage firm you work for, as a real estate agent, you are the brand. If you're just slapping something together and putting your colors on it and using a script, that doesn't feel authentic to who you are. I think
00:27:32
Speaker
to wrap like this up in a bow here, your personal brand or a business brand, either way, they still need to be authentic to what the bottom line is, like what you're trying to get across. It needs to feel authentic. It needs to feel right. It needs to feel like who you're talking to is totally understanding what you're trying to get to them. And at the end of the day, like
00:27:58
Speaker
Either is great, but you just kind of have to do what feels right for your business and your situation. Yeah. And your business is going to grow.
00:28:10
Speaker
whether you're on social media or not. So spend your time where it's most authentic to you because your people, your ideal clients, they'll see that and they don't want to work with someone who's uncomfortable in whatever they're doing. So you don't use this as your permission to get off social media if you're not enjoying it and you don't really feel like there's a purpose to it. Maybe that's one of your 2024 ends is no social media or less social media.
00:28:39
Speaker
or more social media and by God, go for it. Do what feels right. I mean, they say
Listener Engagement and Social Media Impact
00:28:45
Speaker
to do things that make you feel uncomfortable, but I think that there's like, you know, you got to figure out what's right for you. Yeah. So if you're listening to this, don't be surprised if one day Lindsay and I both just vanish from the face of social media, but you can follow us at the business play date because we'll probably always have an Instagram. Yeah. The very least we'll be on Pinterest.
00:29:08
Speaker
Social media though, it's more of a search engine. It's a search engine. It's not social media, it's a search engine. That's why they can find us there because it won't be social media. It won't be. Maybe we'll be on X, who knows? Just what is it? Is it called tweeting still? I don't know. We'll ask my husband, your husband. Well, it is wonderful to be back.
00:29:32
Speaker
at the mic with you. It is and we'd love to hear from you guys. We would love to hear what you're up to this year, what your goals are this year. We actually posted a
00:29:43
Speaker
Instagram real yesterday around what are your three kind of like focuses this year? Would love, love, love, love to hear what everyone's are because I'm always inspired by them. Yes. It's a great little clip from Jen's episode on chronic stress, but in it we were talking about
00:30:03
Speaker
the new year as well. Yeah. And also we have gotten some really amazing reviews come in lately and I love reading them. They have been so fun and exciting to hear. So if you haven't left us a review, we read every single one. We voxer each other immediately like, Oh my gosh, did you see the review we just got? It just made me so happy. So thank you to all of those who have given us a review. We really appreciate it. Yes. Thank you. And we will see y'all next week.
00:30:29
Speaker
Okay. Well, hang on. We're back because we were talking off Mike and it just got so good. So we started recording again. So we're talking about the addiction. We're talking about the addiction to social media. And so I was listening to a podcast last night. It was the skinny confidential.
00:30:44
Speaker
is something I don't really listen to, but it was a fascinating podcast. And they brought Michael Easter on and he wrote the book, The Comfort Crisis. And I might totally be botching this, but this is what I personally got from it. So he was talking about how it's so easy to get in these situations where you're constantly looking at your phone or constantly that I really resonated with was like,
00:31:07
Speaker
the host on the episode was like, I'm constantly pulling my email down to see if I have new emails. And it's like, why are we constantly, like when I get an email, it's not like a feeling of like, Oh, yay, I got an email. It's like, Oh gosh, going on. I have to do this fire drill for a client right now. Oh, I'm having a visceral reaction to thinking about my corporate days and getting emails and just being like, Oh, but do you remember doing that in your corporate days, like checking your email and it's like nothing?
00:31:35
Speaker
Good is actually coming from checking your email nothing but you're doing it and it's because the body is program back to like when we were.
00:31:43
Speaker
cavemen or whatever. We would be doing something good. Maybe you would find some food, right? And you'd find some food and be like, okay, great. I have some calories for the day. And as soon as you're satiated, your body is now like, okay, what's the next problem I have to face? And maybe it's like, you need shelter or you need to find water now. Or to survive, you're in this, I have to find what's next. And so your body
00:32:07
Speaker
And now we're in a place where we don't have to do anything to survive. We have a kitchen full of food, I have a bed, I have a shelter, I'm good. So what we do is we find these vices or these things to give us that, what was the way he said it? It was unexpected surprises. And whether it's a good surprise or a bad surprise, your body, your brain craves that.
00:32:33
Speaker
And so we're constantly looking at Instagram or constantly checking your email or whatever your personal thing is to get that chemical reaction in your brain is something you're going to do. So this is going to come back full circle to a Taylor Swift moment where on antihero, you know, the phrase where she goes, I should not be left to my own devices. They come with prices. I think crisis. Oh my God, I'm totally butchering that.
00:32:59
Speaker
But I think about that all the time. Like they come with vices and prices. I end up in crisis. It's like, Oh my God, that's, I feel like she's talking about like her devices, like her phone and social media and the internet and all these like things or whatever devices. And to bring it back to what we were talking about, like, yeah, I don't love showing up on social media. Like it doesn't feel super authentic to me, but what I really don't love is my like addiction to this little device. Like I.
00:33:26
Speaker
And during the interim break, we were talking about how there's so many addictions that are really visual, right? Like you can, like alcohol addiction, drug addiction. Like it's a lot, I wouldn't say it's like completely out in the open, but people notice those a lot more frequently. Like I don't think many people are really out there noticing
00:33:48
Speaker
device addictions or social media addictions. Yeah. Yeah. And we were also talking about if you do give it up, because we both were like, let's just do it. Let's just give up social media. What's the worst that could happen, right? I mean, we'll find another avenue of way to communicate with our audiences.
00:34:06
Speaker
Like, what happens is, is like, then you're left alone with your own thoughts or you have to like find something to fill that time that you were using to spend scrolling or creating content or whatever, like content for Instagram or whatever. And I was telling Lindsay, I'm just putting it all out there today, but I was telling Lindsay like, in my 20s, like I used to smoke cigarettes and it was mostly like,
00:34:29
Speaker
something to do while I was out with friends or drinking, having a beer. It was always like a social smoker situation. And when I stopped, it was very uncomfortable because it was like, what am I doing with my hands down? For me, it wasn't like the addiction to the nicotine. It was like, I felt like this addiction to keeping my hands busy. And I know there's like
00:34:50
Speaker
biblical references to all of that too, but you have to find something to do that isn't a detrimental to your mental health as well. Right. I know when you give something up, like when you gave up smoking or if we give up social media, when I get in an elevator and I'm not with my children, I'm on my phone, growing. I'm not making conversation with a stranger.
00:35:18
Speaker
looking around, just observing, listening to the music, taking a moment. I am scrolling my phone. When I'm sitting in a doctor's office room, waiting room, I'm scrolling my phone. Like I'm not doing anything productive. And if I gave up social media and got myself off of it, I would have to find something to fill those voids of time, whether it's relaxing with my own thoughts. Great. That's productive. Or it's, you know, doing something that's like writing a long form blog post or
00:35:48
Speaker
I don't know, but the thing about like sitting and relaxing with your own thoughts though is like, then you got to face those thoughts and then you got to have feelings about it. And then it's like, Oh God, what do I do with this? And it is, I wonder sometimes like, you know, you like, I watch like old movies or like, um, this is so silly, but like home alone or like, um, even love actually, like love actually was like, I think in like the 2000s, you know, but like I watch these and it's like, Oh,
00:36:17
Speaker
like people connecting and of course like if that's a movie, right? But they didn't have phones or social media or TikTok or doom scrolling to keep them busy. So like, sure, like every day and age, every generation has their vice. They have their thing, right?
00:36:34
Speaker
For me, I do feel like there is definitely an addiction. I've been trying to be very intentional lately about not having my phone out when my kids are around. Granted, this morning the baby woke up at six and I was like, play. I'm just going to look at
Rethinking Social Media Dependency
00:36:48
Speaker
my phone for a hot second. I've had my four-year-old be like, please get off your phone, mommy. Oh my gosh. My gut punch. Absolute gut punch. My two-year-old started saying it, mostly because she copies everything my four-year-old says. Yeah. She's like a little parrot. But it's like, ugh.
00:37:04
Speaker
That's horrible to hear. I know. I know. But I think that it's totally possible. It is. It's an addiction. It's something that you have to work really hard at every day to stay social media sober or just device sober. It is. It's hard. I'm very, very
00:37:25
Speaker
Curious. Curious about doing it. I know it would be probably one of the harder things I could do. Isn't that wild? It's so wild. But I 100% agree. Yeah. Give up my evening wine, sure. Give up social media way harder.
00:37:43
Speaker
That's crazy. Coffee might be hard to give up, but I could probably give up coffee easier than giving up doom scrolling. I know. We need to get Jen back on here or somebody that is maybe a psychologist that specializes in social media addiction. That would be crazy. I've been intrigued, but there was
00:38:06
Speaker
Netflix documentary around social media recently. That was very fascinating. It was like called The Social Network or something like that. It was like about the movie kind of. Yeah, something like that. And I've been intrigued about this for years and I never pulled the trigger on it. And I feel like it's coming. I feel like my time to give it up is coming quicker than I realize.
00:38:33
Speaker
Uh, I just don't know. Well, even like some of the people that I think that we've been listening to their podcasts, like Steph gas, for example, and there was another one that I think you had told me about, like, haven't been on social media since like 2022 or something like that. I mean, it's like Shannon's good more. Okay. Yeah. Longer than that. Yeah. And like, have these great successful businesses without social media use. And I'm like, that sounds fantastic. And then you think about, well,
00:39:02
Speaker
What if I had a very successful business without the use of social media? But then you think, well, I mean, that wouldn't happen for me. I was like, why wouldn't it? Why couldn't it? And I think let's identify social media for each other, for our individual selves. For me, I think of the addiction of social media I have is Instagram and TikTok, which TikTok has gotten a lot better since I've deleted the app from my phone. I haven't deleted my TikTok account, but I don't have the app as easily available on my phone anymore.
00:39:31
Speaker
And Instagram, I'm definitely addicted to, it's the app I open the most. If I go through and look at all the apps and stuff.
00:39:42
Speaker
Facebook, I don't feel like I have as much of an addiction too, but I'm sure if I got rid of the other two completely, Facebook would become a new bias, but it's not that intense for me. Those are really the three main ones. I mean, I'm not on Twitter. I really don't read Reddit that often unless I have a question that I need, like a bro marketer to answer for me, you know? Right. That's where you find them.
00:40:05
Speaker
But I think the hardest one for me would be Instagram, but only because I also think that I'm addicted to seeing what everyone else is doing and like getting fulfillment from other people in a way, which is weird because we're all just like living a lie on the internet anyway. Right. I mean, yes. I don't, I don't know. I'm with you. I feel like I,
00:40:34
Speaker
feel disconnected if I don't know what other people are up to. So one of my best friends, he hasn't been on social media, I mean, it's high school probably. Like, I think maybe when we were in college, he had it for like a year, I'm not sure.
00:40:50
Speaker
He's completely off of it. And you know what, I talk to him more than I talk to any of my other friends who are on social, like he lives out in Seattle, so he's far away from me. And I talk to him like via text message, we'll send each other pictures of like, oh, what are you up to this afternoon? You know, like, yeah, like what was thinking about you just seeing what you're up to. And when you don't have these, like when I can't see what Betsy's up to on a Saturday afternoon, I have to text her and ask and you are actually cultivating
00:41:21
Speaker
that relationship in an authentic way. Relationship is one of the key areas that I want to focus on this year. I saw that. Yeah, so I think that's interesting. There was something you just said that made me think like I'm about to like, hopefully I don't get too emotional, but I feel like sometimes I'm doing a disservice to my kids by putting them on the internet when that's really all I do is share pictures of my kids on my personal Instagram.
00:41:47
Speaker
Not that I'm one of those people, which nothing wrong with this, that is like worried about their like digital identity or like their like consent or anything to put their picture out there. Cause I'm not like doing, there are some people who put a lot of stuff out there about their kids, whatever. But like, I just feel like too, I'm like,
00:42:07
Speaker
Am I doing it for, for them to be able to like see this one day and be like, why did you do this mom? Like, why did you put a picture of me on the internet like this? You know, or I think about like photo albums that our parents had of us. Like, why am I not just printing pictures that they can look through one day?
00:42:22
Speaker
And you know, it's funny, it's been on my list of things to do for the last two years since over, since I was pregnant with my daughter, to go through all of my photos in my phone and create, I want to create albums by year, photo albums by year, starting in 2017. And at this point, that's like, what, seven albums? That's a long time ago. And I've never done it. And you know what, if I got off of scrolling Instagram, I'd probably
00:42:49
Speaker
have an activity to do and it'd be looking at my own photos rather than photos of my friends. Yes. And people that I don't even know, but yeah, people I don't know influencers, influencers who like, why do I feel more connected to them? Someone I don't even know and don't never get any DM reaction with than I do my own friends and family.
00:43:10
Speaker
Right? We have totally gone on a tangent here, and I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. I think the time is coming. I feel like you guys are going to see Betsy and I drop off in a minute.
00:43:23
Speaker
2024. Where you can find us is right here on the Business Playdate Podcast. We are dedicated to this podcast. We will be showing up. So you can find us here if you need us. Oh, my gosh. Soon enough, we'll have an email list and a website. And a Pinterest. And a Pinterest. So you can find us on Pinterest. And we're just going to cut this in somewhere in the episode. Yeah, when this is a bit scattered, just know. We hope you enjoyed it.
00:43:57
Speaker
you