January 18th, 2023
Today's marketing impulse for you:
I'm pivoting my business
Learn how I'm moving it to joy-focused marketing that leverages your strengths and talents
Hi and happy Wednesday,
this week, I have several things I want to share with you about the business and about marketing.
You'll hear from me:
- today with information on how I'm pivoting the business and
- tomorrow on how I've upgraded my 1:1s to serve you best
- on Friday, when I will share a blog post with you on why content marketing can feel so messed up and how to fix it.
Where applicable, I'll also briefly let you know about services I offer in the business that may be helpful to you in these emails.
Please give this email your consideration, so you'll know what I'm changing and can decide if you want to be a part of this improved course of action I'm taking with the business.
I'm Pivoting the Business - For Something Even Better Than Saying Bye to Socials: Joy.
A little over six months ago, I started Bye, Social Media! to share what I've learnt in my journey of marketing myself with as little social media as possible.
I had struggled so long with marketing myself on socials without any success. When I finally made the decision to leave, I felt such a relief! I knew other entrepreneurs were struggling with this, too, so I thought it would be a good idea to help them out with my learnings. And thus, the company was born.
Ever since then, I've had profound realizations about marketing that led me towards tweaking and changing things up with the company - for the better.
Realization 1:
Saying "bye" to something is not enough motivation for change
What I realized in the process of setting up and running this business, is that
a vision of leaving something behind isn't enough of a motivator. Nobody changes their habits to just lose weight, stop smoking, be on their smartphones less, or to never have to make a Reel again.
We need more than that to get ourselves out of bed and going frequently. We move for what we think we'll get once we've accomplished the thing: feeling good in your body, calm, more time for life, and a sense of joy in how you market yourself. You want to feel good about how you share your work with the world, not just say "bye" to the pesky thing. Feeling good is powerful motivation, not doing the annoying thing anymore, isn't.
Realization 2:
People thrive using certain marketing channels because they match with them and LIKE to use them
The most important thing in small business and solopreneur marketing is this: if you do your marketing yourself, it serves you to choose a marketing channel that matches with your strengths and talents and that you actually *like* to use. Then you build your strategy around that.
Look at the people who naturally master socials. They actually like being on there and sharing about their lives, their work, or their thoughts. They might still be doing things to further their talents and get better at their craft. And their enjoyment of the medium creates an allure that's way, way different to pre-scheduled posts and the bland sea of graphics in the same five shades of beige. One is enticing, the other falls flat.
I realized this early on, yet didn't find adequate words to break this concept down. If your marketing rests on something you resent doing, you'll struggle to get anywhere in business: social media for a lot of people, for example. If the channel matches your strengths and what you like to do, your marketing becomes SO MUCH EASIER and you'll feel more genuine in the process.
Realization 3:
The way people teach marketing online is broken, because people are all different but we treat them with a cookie-cutter approach.
If you've been around here for a while, you know how little I enjoy online gurus and the recipes they sell. I even wrote a blog post about it.
A lot of people on the internet teach business, marketing, and personal development with a formulaic approach. Meaning: this is the way to do it, here are the steps, now get motivated. The people who leave them with glowing testimonials are those who are a match for the method and/or the person teaching them.
I remember taking a sales class with somebody two years ago. She meant well, but essentially only taught us how she was selling. In the end, all our socials posts looked the same and only one person out of the entire group made a sale. Why? We were emulating her way of doing it, instead of finding our own.
People are different. Yet, in large parts of online education, we treat them the same. One recipe, one model, one course. That's it. You've just got to want it enough. I think this is borderline toxic, because it puts all the blame on the customer without verifying first whether what you're teaching is applicable in broad strokes (especially when you sell it like that!).
Bottom line: the majority of current business and marketing education (and the personal development world) assumes that everyone is a monkey and loves climbing trees. If you're a monkey, good for you. You'll learn how to perfect your climbing with their materials. If you're a fish or a duck, you're outta luck, because you're meant to go about things in a different way. Instead of recognizing that, a lot of the formulas push more "be like a monkey" formulas. And it's draining to pretend to be a monkey, when all you want to do is float in water.
Changes I'm Making at Bye, Social Media!
Fun changes are ahead at Bye, Social Media! I'm especially excited that I created a system to teach marketing that's a world-first and innovative and supportive in equal measures.
Upgrade 1:
My marketing education now focuses on joy and leveraging your strengths and talents
Marketing is easiest, when you do what you're good at, what you like, and when you enjoy it; like me writing this email right now. I enjoy writing longer-form texts, I enjoy talking to you, and I love when I get to share my thoughts and feelings with the world. Imagine that on Twitter for me 😅.
Joy, you feeling good about how you market, is at the core of everything I teach and share. Joy doesn't mean you won't occasionally have days, when you're very human and don't feel like doing things. Joy is a different baseline, though. It removes resentment and friction from your marketing.
If you like what you do and how you market - and I'm 110% certain there is a way to get there for everyone - you feel more authentic and proud about how you share what you do with the world. You'll also feel better about the process. It's a huge relief from the cringey feeling of writing socials posts or tweets you're not fully behind.
Joy is the key ingredient in marketing and everything we do. It's gotten overlooked up until now and I'm happy to infuse the world with more of it.
Upgrade 2:
My marketing education is socials-optional
If you signed up for my newsletter because you wanted to learn about marketing without socials, you'll still get that. I don't align with social media and for the forseeable future I don't see that that will change. If a new platform arises that's less crappy than the ones we have right now, there's meaningful change, or I find somebody who can teach socials in a way that aligns with my philosophy, I'm open to exploring that.
I still want to create a place for people, who are looking for alternatives to existing marketing education and tactics that so often push socials really hard. I also still think that you can make it without socials. In fact, I'm so happy I opted out of them. My life is so much better now.
It's only that I've moved the focus to "socials optional" in my messaging. I wanted to move away from saying no to socials and create something that feels more motivating for the people wo interact with my work: marketing you actually like to do and how to get there. For the reason behind it, also see Realization 1 above.
I know most people are involved in socials one way or another and I want my work to help them determine the right amount of socials in their lives that makes them feel good, however much that may be.
At any rate, you won't see me pushing any social channels on here.
Upgrade 3:
My marketing education is a world first, because it helps you find what works best for you. I created a method and system for that.
I'm most proud of this part of my pivot. All my personal learnings before starting this company and everything I've learnt ever since, have contributed to the fact that I was able to develop a system that teaches marketing in a wholly new and more sustainable way. It's also a world-first. Nobody's done this before.
The way I teach marketing now is firmly rooted in prioritizing your joy and using your skills and talents to pick the channels that are a match for you. Then you build a marketing strategy around that. Marketing like that is much more sustainable than forcing yourself into a structure somebody else created for you. The old way in marketing was to pick any hyped channel or get somebody else's system and then contort yourself into using that. That takes up a lot energy.
Not gonna lie: It's much better my way. That way, you can finally be a fish or a duck. Unless you're a monkey, you'll never have to climb a metaphorical tree in your life again.
I'm in the process of creating a catalog of symbiotic courses around this, so you can teach and guide yourself through the process of infusing your marketing with joy. All of them will take you further in your journey of finding the marketing plan that feels good and authentic to you. I'm also setting this up, so you can always buy whatever you need in the moment. These courses will be launching throughout spring of 2023.
***
Thanks for reading up until here. I know this email was long (I feel a little bad about it) . I wanted to make sure I gave you enough information about what I'm doing at and with the business.
Tomorrow and Friday, you'll get two more emails (shorter ones) about how I revamped my 1:1s and how to fix the very broken principle of content marketing.
I'm grateful that you're here!
Happy Marketing 📣,
Johanna
