Johanna Renoth - 📣 Why I Write this Newsletter

Hi!

I'm stoked to be in your inbox.

As you're starting your journey deep into the magical lands of marketing yourself without social media, I want to take a moment to share with you why I do what I do here.

I'm a serial entrepreneur. That doesn't mean everything I've touched has worked out - I do have the business bug and I have it big-time, so new things are coming from me quite regularly. Call me Johanna Branson with a growing empire of sparkles.

My First Startup

My first business was packaging pebbles in the garden of my grandma's BnB and selling them to her guests at a solid margin. From nothing to snack money felt like magic to me as a kindergartener. Grams called it naughty. I still prefer to call it alchemy :D.

Since then, I've loved bringing things, projects, and businesses into the world that make a difference. It took me a couple of deviations to get to this level of clarity - and now that I have it, I want to do things that help people in a way that is really fun, because I get to be in my zone of genius: starting sh** and bringing ideas to live.

My Story with Social Media

I'm in the finishing stages of writing a PhD on Instagram that explores the cultural, social, and political consequences of social media. There's a lot going on with that - and a lot of it could be going a lot better.

Reading study after study how bad socials can be for our mental health is quite depressing. So is learning that our attention spans are deterioriating.

I wanted to make a difference and started a company called Log Off - Live More that helps people cut back on time on their phone and live deeper, more fulfilling lives IRL.

You can learn more about it here.​

When you tell people to disconnect, you can't really market yourself on social media. That would be...incongruent or very meta. So I decided to make myself really happy and market myself off socials. With that, a very interesting, winding journey began into the wonderful world that is marketing outside of the Gram, Tok, and Bird.

No Instagram - "But How Did You Do It?!?"

And then people started asking me: "But how did you do it? That sounds so good. I wish I didn't have to make Reels. Sigh. I just don't know how to market myself in another way."

Over the past 10-ish years, we've gotten so used to socials as the go-to option for marketing ourselves that we seem to have forgotten that there were successful businesses and freelancers in the pre-Instagram age.

With my entrepreneurial itch, I started another project. Ha! And here we are with this newsletter and more offerings that will come out in the second half of 2022.

I'm really excited about this project, because I want to give others what I would have needed at the beginning of my journey with this.

But What If I like Socials?

Good for you! You should do more of what lights you up and move in that direction.

Even then, it's great to think of other options of promoting yourself. It can be as simple as a monthly newsletter.

What you truly want to avoid with socials is to rely almost entirely on a platform. Remember when Facebook was down for hours in the fall of 2021 and small businesses lost a lot of money because they couldn't reach their clients? That's why you need an alternative way to talk to your community.

Okay, now that I've taken you behind the scenes a bit, we're back to regular programming.

Sending you glitter,

Johanna 💎