848: Why Social Media Can't Be Your Safety Net Anymore

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2:01Now, when I saw this story, I'm like, dang, like this is a clear reminder. Social media is such a powerful tool, but it's rented space. If you're building your business exclusively on platforms that you don't own, you're leaving yourself so vulnerable to situations like this. I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a$300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven-figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency.

2:42We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality, and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered.

3:18This is the Gold Digger Podcast. Have you ever stopped to think about how much control you really have over your social media presence? I'm talking one algorithm change, one expected glitch, or even a hacked account could leave your content and your connection with your audience hanging on by a thread. Social media is an amazing tool for sharing, connecting, and growing your business. But here's the truth. it is not yours. It is rented space. And when you rely solely on it, you are building your business on shaky ground. In today's episode, we're talking about why social media can't be your safety net anymore.

3:55We'll dive into how shifting algorithms, unpredictable trends, and platform limitations can hold your business back. And more importantly, what you can do to safeguard your success. I'm going to tell you, this is not about ditching social media altogether. It's about learning how to leverage it smarter so that your hard work leads to sustainable and secure results. So if you are ready to take back control of your business and stop relying on platforms that you can't control, you are in the right place. Now, before we dive in real quick, I promise you by the end of this episode, you are going to want to learn more about the strategy I recommend to use as your safety net, which is an asset you own and can control.

4:36And so if you want to get a head start and learn more about what I'm talking about right now, head to growanemaillist.com. That's growanemaillist.com. I have a free training to teach you how to leverage the strategies we're going to be talking about in today's episode. And I'm going to show you how to go from zero email list subscribers to an engaged list of buyers in just three easy steps. So again, save your seat. You're definitely going to want to after you listen to this episode, but head to growanemailist.com. And without further ado, let's dive into today's show. Growing a business isn't for the faint of heart.

5:10It's a whole lot of everything, building an audience, nurturing leads, managing channels, tracking metrics, and juggling all the moving pieces of your strategy. And let's not forget those late nights, long days, and working weekends. Sound familiar? Sometimes it feels like you're wishing for just one thing to make it all a little bit easier? Well, meet Breeze, HubSpot's brand new collection of AI tools built specifically for marketers just like you. With Breeze, attracting the right audience, increasing leads, and turning those leads into loyal customers just got faster, and dare I say, easier than ever before.

5:46Imagine less stress and more success, more wins and fewer all-nighters. With Breeze, you're not just keeping up, you're staying ahead and pretty soon your business is going to have a lot to celebrate. Check out Breeze at HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. That's HubSpot.com slash marketers. Let me first preface this episode in saying, I love social media. I use it all the time. I am not anti-social media, but I want to make sure that as we are leveraging this tool, we are doing so with the understanding that it cannot be our safety net. It cannot be the only place we are building our businesses.

6:26So why am I so passionate about this? I have talked about this for literal years on this show, and yet so many people do not pay attention. So this is the biggest thing we have to understand when it comes to social media. Social media is rented space. place we do not own it we cannot control it we cannot ensure the experience of the people that follow us heck we don't even know if we're reaching the people that follow us in fact as i was preparing for today's episode i put up a post in our gold digger podcast insiders facebook group and i just asked our audience this community here like what are you struggling with with social media right now brit nicole one of our gold digger listeners she had been planning the launch of her first ever workshop retreat for literal months.

7:15And she was so ready to share with her Instagram audience, the platform where she had been building this business and engaging with these potential attendees. But then on the day of her big launch, Instagram shut her account down. Like suddenly the main tool she was going to rely on to promote this workshop was absolutely gone. And despite her efforts to get her account reinstated, it took her three days for Instagram to just bring it back online. Three critical days of her launch. Now, what I love about this community and Brit is that instead of giving up, she found other ways to get the word out.

7:48So she leaned on her network. She asked people to help her out. She found creative ways to promote her workshop outside of Instagram. And the coolest thing is, is that her workshop sold out within 24 hours, not because of social media, but because she didn't rely solely on it. Now, when I saw this story, I'm like, dang, like this is a clear reminder. Social media is such a powerful tool, but it's rented space. If you're building your business exclusively on platforms that you don't own, you're leaving yourself so vulnerable to situations like this. And I'm going to share like why I think we have to focus our efforts and our attention and just the way we approach social media in a different way.

8:29But we have to figure out like what is actually essential to our business and how do we put our time, energy, effort, and money into things that we actually own. It's the difference between renting an apartment and owning a home. And when it comes to your business, I want for you to have total control. Something tells me you became an entrepreneur to have total control and freedom. And you might not be realizing that if social media is the only place that you're building that audience, you do not have total control. So when I like to think about social media, I think of it like a billboard. It's awesome for visibility, right?

9:06It's so good for us to be out there, to get our work seen, to have people kind of understand who we are, how we serve, what we create, what we sell. But again, we have to understand that even in growing our following, while it feels like it's ours, we don't own it. We don't own our account. We don't run the rules. We don't know the backend of the algorithms. And what's interesting, and I think a lot of times we can often forget, and I often hear entrepreneurs grumbling about this, is that we forget that like Meta, who owns Facebook and Instagram, is a business. It's an insanely large business.

9:43Like Mark Zuckerberg is doing just fine. And so when we understand that Facebook is a business, just like we have businesses, we have to realize that that business probably has different goals or goals that might not be totally aligned with your clear path for your business goals. And so when we recognize that Meta is this business, and we know that as business owners, we have business goals, platforms are going to prioritize their business goals, not yours. And I think that's a really important thing to note. What I know about Meta is that they want to keep people on the platforms. their number one goal in the metric that they are looking at in terms of their performance of their platforms is how long are people staying on them?

10:30So they're not super keen on sending people to your sales page. They aren't super excited when you say, click the link in my bio. They're not really thrilled when you have the sticker link to click out of the platform and onto a website that is not aligned with their goals. And guess what? The way they set up their app, the way the algorithms work, the way that they unlock their features is prioritization of their business school of just keeping people on those platforms longer. And so what's interesting is, is that when we understand that and we just acknowledge it, like, Hey, Meta is a huge business and I can play by their rules and I can do the best I can on it, but I am ultimately not in control of it kind of changes the game, right?

11:14Because there are always going to be algorithm changes. Let me tell you, like when Instagram did the big push towards video or when Facebook's focus turned to ads, that can dramatically change your strategy and impact your reach literally overnight. I mean, so many of us have experienced it, right? What worked yesterday no longer works today. And I don't know about you, but like, I'm not a young spring chicken anymore. I'm tired of figuring out the algorithm. But when I understand that, hey, they've got business goals and they are business. And if I can try to figure out and establish what are their goals and help create content and show up on that platform in a way that helps them with their goal, then we're all going to win.

11:56And so we just have to understand what are the rules and are we willing to play by them, but also come at social media with this clear understanding that, Hey, I'm renting this space and I can't complain about it. I'm not the landlord and I've just got to do my best to follow their rules and play by them if I want to be successful on this platform. Now, there's so many different risks when it comes to social media, like getting your account hacked, having your platform shut down. I mean, remember when Vine was like the biggest thing and then the next day it was literally gone. And a lot of times what I see, even when all the TikTok stuff is happening, people are freaking out, right?

12:36They've created these accounts. They've grown these followings. Some people have millions, millions of TikTok followers and they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait. If this goes away, what does this become? And we've seen creators time and time again, scramble because they recognize, oh my gosh, I have all these followers, but I have no direct way to communicate with my audience. That is a very sobering realization when something happens and you need to get the word out. I often think back to 2020 when the world shut down and so many business owners were trying to get the word out about the changes in their business.

13:15There were shops that were brick and mortar shops that all of a sudden had to go to online shops and they recognized, oh my gosh, I could put up this Facebook post and 3 % of my audience is going to see it. And that doesn't even guarantee it's the 3 % that live in my town that could actually shop at my shop. I have no way of telling people or this service-based industry where everything was flipped on its head who couldn't reach out and tell people how to help them keep their business afloat or to share what was actually happening with their services during COVID. And so it's so interesting to me because it's five years later, which is honestly shocking when we think about it.

13:522020 either feels like yesterday or it feels like a lifetime ago, but the fact that 2020 is five years ago is wild, but it's five years later. And a lot of you still haven't taken what we learned back then and really applied it to your business and really understood the fact that you are spending so much time and effort and energy growing on these platforms that you don't own and can't control. So here's how I want for you to think about it. I want for you to think of social media as your front porch. It's where people discover and connect with you. But here's the thing. The goal is not to keep people on your porch.

14:29It's to invite them inside into your home, a home that you own onto a platform that you control. And this is why today I'm actually going to talk a lot about email list building, the power of it, and why if you have not started yet, or if you have not been consistently serving your list, it's got to change for this year. So you can use social media and I encourage you to do it. You see me doing it. I'm not anti-social media, but I want for you to think about using your posts, stories, and reels to drive traffic to an owned asset. Again, owned asset. And you can do that so easily using really clear calls to action.

15:12And so as we start to think about this conversation today, we need to understand the power of having ownership and the power of having control. And that's why I am obsessed with email list building. It's not just smart. It is literally essential. This podcast is brought to you by Mercury, banking that helps entrepreneurs do more with their money. Okay. I remember in the early days of my entrepreneurship journey, clients would literally mail me checks and then I would have to drive all the way to the bank to deposit them. It took me literal years to make things go digital. And I am ashamed to admit I still have a filing cabinet with paper contracts because I'm way too afraid to throw them away.

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17:09Shopify also makes it simple to run email and social campaigns so people can find you. And if you ever feel stuck, their award-winning 24-7 support is always available. Turn those dreams into and give them the best shot at success with Shopify. Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash gold Digger. Shopify.com slash gold digger. Okay. So now that I've brought up the topic of email list building, which I've literally talked about since the very beginning of this show, 800 episodes ago, is I want to walk through the key differences between social media and email.

17:53And again, I want to preface all of this saying I use both of these mediums. I use both of these platforms, but I leverage them for a very specific reason. So when we think of social media, again, social media's main goal is to keep you on the platform, right? Just to keep you there. Social media basically is for entertainment. People scroll for inspiration and connection, not necessarily to buy. Now, let me tell you, I'm a good sucker for a great Instagram ad, but we also have to understand that that's usually a paid thing, right? Somebody's paying for an ad. And the other thing that we have to understand is that with entertainment comes engagement, but engagement likely and probably won't always translate into sales.

18:37And I can tell you thousands of people who will back this up because they had a post go viral, whether it was millions of views or a hundred thousand likes that never actually led people off of the app and into a direct result like sales. And so the problem that I have with social media and the way that small business owners are trying to use it is they're trying to game so hard with the system and the algorithm for engagement sake. And they're only caring about those vanity metrics like likes and comments. And they're not actually translating the work that they're doing into tangible results.

19:19I'm talking email subscribers, website views, podcast subscribers, sales, new clients, new inquiries, all the different things. And so my problem with that is like, we are already stretched thin. I don't know about you, but like people are exhausted. The average entrepreneur is spending 20 hours a week on their marketing. And I would argue that a good majority of that marketing isn't actually leading to sales. And our time is so stinking precious. Our time is this non-renewable resource. We cannot get it back. And so when we think of that, my goal for you, my dream for you is to be spending your time in the places where you know it will lead to a direct result.

19:58You can so clearly say that last hour of my time was so worth it because I know it's going to lead to X, Y, and Z. And we just simply cannot do that with social media. And so if we think of social media being for entertainment, what is email for? Email is for selling. Subscribers opt in. They literally raise their hand and give you something of value, access to their inbox for something of value that you are offering them. They want to hear from you. They have already raised their hand and said, I am actually in alignment with the thing that you're selling with the offer that you have. And I want to learn more.

20:32And I'm willing to let you enter into my inbox, which is a very intimate exchange. And you are being way more poised in a position to make a sale when it comes to email. Email offers a more focused, distraction-free space where you can build trust and make offers. And so you have to understand the differences. And again, when we're thinking about it as like Meta is a business who's going to prioritize their business goals, email is specific to you. It is an asset you own. Therefore, you get to prioritize your business goals. So one of the things that I think we have to bring up, and I think this is probably one of the most important stats that you will hear today.

21:17So if you're drifting off, come back because this is so important, but email marketing delivers the most insane return on your investment. Let me give you a really quick scenario that will just help you understand how powerful email marketing is. So you're listening to this show and I said, Hey, if you give me$1 today, just give me$1. I will hand you over$40 tomorrow. Does that sound good? I think any wise person, any person, they don't even have to be an entrepreneur would say, heck yes, I will give you a dollar. You give me 40 tomorrow. Oh, you better believe it. So let me give you kind of another stat that will just help you hedge your bets a little bit, because I want to treat you like the brilliant CEO you are.

22:01I want to just sell this to you. And if you are wise and understanding. And if you're like, Hey, this makes sense. You're going to be ready to like dive in to get going. So here's another stat with email. So open rates for emails range between 27 to 48%. And so that means that 30 to 50 % of your audience that you are sending something out to is going to open your email. Not only are they going to see your email, they're going to open it. And so unlike social media with algorithms where people might not even see your post, even just landing in an inbox and letting somebody see your name and your subject line, that's huge.

22:41But around 50 % of people can open that email and can see what it is you're talking about and get access to it. Now, on average, click-through rates, meaning the people that click from your email to your sales page, to your shop, to your products, to your offers, is around 2.5%. Now, Facebook's average click-through rate is under 1 % at 0.9%. So we're talking almost triple the click-through rate than Facebook. So again, when you're looking at being a betting person and you think that on average, 3 % to 5 % of your audience even sees what you're posting, would you take the 3 % to 5 % or would you take the 30 % to 50 %?

23:21That's the first question. And then the second one is if you're wanting people to click to a place that you own, like your website or your shop or your offers or your services, are you more likely to pick something closer to 1 % or 2.5 %? Now, if you're picking the later versions, you're saying email is a smarter strategy, which I would argue is correct. We see it all the time. We see it all the time. We leverage social media for awareness and to get people onto our email list. I often break it down in this way on the show. And if you haven't heard this yet, this is for you, but people are overworking their marketing strategies and they're overwhelming themselves with what they think they need to do.

24:03There are only two main priorities you need to have as a marketer. The first one is to grow and prioritize your email list. And the second one is, is that any additional efforts that you make are in the effort to grow your list. If you're blogging, the goal is to grow your list. If you're showing up on Instagram, the goal is to get people off the platform and onto your list. If you are podcasting, the goal is to get people off of your podcast and onto your list. If you have a website, the goal is to get people off of your website and onto your list. And so when you look at business in a simplified version of just two main priorities, you can understand how you're going to leverage these tools differently.

24:41Social media should be a gateway or a bridge. It should not be the end destination. And so you have to figure out, okay, what is something of value that I can offer my audiences on these other platforms, the platforms I don't own and can't control that will address a specific need of theirs? And then how can I promote it on those platforms to invite people off of the platforms and onto a place that I own? Once people are on your list, you get the opportunity to serve them so well. You can share exclusive news. You can share high value content. You can continue to build trust and nurture relationships.

25:15And you have to do it in five second looping videos on Instagram. Like you get to do it in a much more intimate way. You get to open up a conversation, but more than that, you also get to make sales. Email is the number one way we drive profits in my business. If somebody said, Hey Jenna, you can either choose between an Instagram post or an email, and you need to make X amount of money. Which one are you going to pick? Email all day. Even one of my friends the other day, he's a really brilliant businessman. He used to be a mentor of mine. he has a book coming out. And I asked him like, Hey, how can I support you?