Social Media Cleanse
Social media has been what majority of our conversations stem from and where we tend to spend a lot of our time. I have contemplated it for quite some time now and concluded that I am going to do a 6-month social media cleanse come the 1st of January 2017. Now that I have shared this with a handful of people I always get the question, “do you think that is a smart move for your business?” my answer is this- I understand that I will lose out on some opportunities being that I have access to groups and potential clients, butI believe there is a bigger picture and gain stepping out of the social media world. With that said here are the five reasons why I am opting out of Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat (I don’t use twitter).
{5} Challenge
Every year I come up with some form of diet challenge for myself where I will not consume that particular food/drink for the entire year. Some of these have included- pop, candy/cookies, and french fries!! I know, I know, what am I thinking right? I do this literally for the challenge to see if I can complete it. Setting goals for the new year has been a great drive for me and SO rewarding knowing that I can complete it. In addition, I have actually learned a lot about myself and what works for me and what I need to improve on. I have used the acronym S.M.A.R.T. (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely) to plan out both personal goals and business goals each year. Because I am always up for a good challenge, I thought a social media cleanse would genuinely be a difficult task and take a lot of effort on my part to not cave and start browsing my news feeds.
{4} It’s a distraction!!
I cannot even begin to tell you how many times I get on my computer to get work done and the next thing I know I’m not even doing work!! Who is with me?!?! Only then to find out I forgot what I was doing in the first place and/or got side-tracked by another item in my news feed that led me to something totally different than what I was originally looking at. The same thing goes when I am having a conversation with someone and start browsing my Instagram feed; I have found that I will say something like this- “oh my gosh, so sorry to interrupt BUT LOOK AT THIS!!!” —UGH I HATE THIS!!! I am so fed up with not being fulling connected and in the moment with the person or group I am with because it has become just a habit to click on my social media apps. This leads me to my next reason.
{3} To not make it a habit anymore
The first thing I naturally do when I wake up in the morning is check all of my social media apps and same goes before I fall asleep at night. Having the apps on my phone, I do turn off ALL push-notificaitons for social media. Therefore, for me, it has become so routine for me to constantly check and see if I have gotten a message from a potential client or even a current client. In addition, It’s like I am so engaged and caught up in what people are posting or what is “new and exciting” that I somehow feel I missed out on something between the two minutes from the last time I opened up one of my social media apps. HA! Also, to reiterate, it has become so routine that I am mindlessly looking through my feeds just to look because its what I habitually do throughout the day.
{2} Shift my focus
Being that it is a habit and distraction, I want to really take the opportunity to focus on things that are more beneficial for my business and for me personally. I know that there are a lot of opportunities for potential clients to see my work via Facebook and Instagram, but I feel for me, putting my effort more in blogging, having more enriched relationships through phone calls/emails/in-person meetings and more emphasis on the little aspects of my business will help it grow a lot more. Sure there are people who do a great job of managing all of these platforms, however being a mom of two and a wife I want to focus more time on family as well. This leads me to my number one reason.
{1} Time
This social media cleanse is ultimately because of the amount of time I spend on it. How many of you have sat there and started scrolling through your Instagram feed, clicking on tag after tag that when you get off you realized you have literally been browsing for an hour or more? *raises hand* It blows my mind how long I can just sit there, doing nothing, but scroll through my feeds. Most of the time, for me, that was an hour of browsing that literally did nothing for me other than view a handful of items that I now want to buy OR see a bunch of amazing other creatives who are thriving! Mom’s out there, have you started browsing your Facebook groups or news feed and realize that you have told your kid- “one second hunny, mommy is doing something” or totally get frustrated because you wanted to finish watching one of the videos that automatically plays when you scroll over it? ha-ha-ha I am totally guilty of this!!! I am so tired of wasting my time on social media when it can be better spent elsewhere.
All-in-all, I am a bit nervous to give up a very accessible tool for my business, but super excited to see where this leads me and how it will help me both in my personal life and on the business side. If you are sad to not see my work in your news feed anymore, be sure to join the newsletter to stay up to date with everything that will be going on during those 6 months HERE . Also, you can check my TRAVEL DATES to see if I will be near you and we can meet up for coffee/drink or schedule a session!
