👻 Un-ghosting your followers, getting rid of FOMO & why there’s no “right time” to leave social media [Listener Q&A pt 1]

Amelia [00:00:02] [Music overlapping with introduction to the episode] Welcome to Off the Grid, a podcast for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.

Amelia [00:00:08] I'm Amelia Hruby, writer, speaker, and founder of Softer Sounds podcast studio. On this show, I share stories, strategies, and experiments for growing your business with radical generosity and energetic sovereignty.

Amelia [00:00:22] Download your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig and join us as we do it all off the grid [intro music jams and then fades out].

Amelia [00:00:36] Hello and welcome to Off the Grid. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and I am so excited to be here. And here we are on Episode 17.

Amelia [00:00:48] Since I launched the podcast back in March of 2022, I think that the sentiment around social media has only, maybe I want to say, deteriorated. I hear more and more people who are more and more frustrated with social media platforms and the way they feel pressured to change their lives, their content, their habits, their behaviors to stay on those platforms and succeed there.

Amelia [00:01:18] So, if you're feeling that way, welcome to the show. Welcome back to the show. Off the Grid is here for you so that you can leave social media without losing your clients, your customers, or your business growth and success.

Amelia [00:01:32] I created this podcast so we could all learn how to grow thriving small businesses without social media. And I am so overjoyed to report how well it seems to be working for everyone [laughs]. You know, when I launched the podcast, I was one of maybe two business owners I knew that weren't on social media. And now I've heard from dozens of you about the ways that you've been implementing the 100 Ways to Share Your Work Without Social Media list and the Creative Marketing Experiments database to grow your businesses without relying on social media platforms to get new leads, to nurture your community, and to make sales.

Amelia [00:02:13] If you don't know what those tools are— highly suggest going and downloading the Leaving Social Media Toolkit. It's the free resource I put together that includes my top three tools for marketing without social media. You can find it in the show notes or just head to softersounds.studio/byeig to download the toolkit today.

Amelia [00:02:33] So, what are we doing today on the podcast? Well, as promised, I am ending Season One by answering listener questions. I have been collecting your voice memos and your emails all season and I've got a bunch of juicy questions to answer. I'm super excited and, in fact, I'm so excited that I decided that this was going to be two episodes.

Amelia [00:02:56] So, today is the first part of listener questions and we're going to talk about some really amazing questions around the fear of leaving social media, what to do if you've ghosted your social media followers, if things like Pinterest or LinkedIn are actually social media, and how we can be more intentional in our marketing choices.

Amelia [00:03:18] Then next week I will be back with a one more episode— one final episode of Season One of Off the Grid, and I'll talk a little bit more about some additional questions I got around log-on and log-off procedures, Human Design and social media, how do you invite collaborators into your podcasting process, and how you can launch a business without social media?

Amelia [00:03:41] There are so many fun times ahead. Have I said that enough? This is going to be so fun. So, I'm super excited you're here and very glad that you're tuned in for this penultimate episode.

Amelia [00:03:53] Before I dive into the questions, I do want to remind you that it is not too late to sign up to join me at The Refresh.

Amelia [00:04:00] The Refresh is a three-part workshop series for freelancers, influencers, and small-business owners who want to refresh their relationship with social media and chart a new algorithm-free or algorithm less-dependent path forward. These workshops are happening on August 23rd, 24th, and 25th. I'm thinking of it as part summer sabbatical, part fall planning. We are going to have a great time. I've got a great crew signed up already and if you enjoy this podcast, honestly, you're really going to want to be there.

Amelia [00:04:32] So, go ahead and head to the link in the show notes or go to softersounds.studio/refresh. Grab your ticket today. Get those dates on your calendar and then you can relax because you know that all of the marketing planning you need to do for the fall is going to happen with me in August. So, you can take a little breather between now and then. Again, just head to softersounds.studio/refresh or the link in the show notes to sign up for The Refresh today [transitional sound blast].

Amelia [00:05:02] Alright, ya'll, let's dive into these questions. I've got a great mix of voice notes and questions that were emailed in, so I'm going to kind of sprinkle them throughout and we'll kick things off with a really special question from Nedra, who I am hoping to have on the podcast for Season Two. Hi, Nedra. But this is a great question so I'm going to read what she wrote. She wrote in and asked:

Amelia [00:05:27] How do you deal with the emotional stress and the fear of FOMO of completely shutting down an account such as Instagram? I know I want to, but I'm nervous that I'll be missing out.

Amelia [00:05:42] [Breathes deep] I just want to start by affirming this question, y'all. The fear is so real, and I hear it from a lot of you. Like, there is so much fear of, like, if I shut down my account, what am I going to lose out on? What am I losing out on if I'm not there? And how do we handle that emotional stress?

Amelia [00:06:03] So, I want to offer a couple of resources for this. The first is a potential reframe. It was a huge shift for me when I realized that I actually felt fear on social media all the time. When I thought about quitting, I'd be like, "Oh, I couldn't quit because—" and then I'd have all this fear of what I was missing out on.

Amelia [00:06:24] But I realized I was already living that fear every day on the platforms. Any time I was off for a few hours or a weekend or, you know, even if I just missed a story, I was regularly living in FOMO. And also, the platform was creating more FOMO, more fear of missing out as I watched other people take part in opportunities or events or promotions, or even just like friend hangs that I wasn't a part of.

Amelia [00:06:51] So, when I think— when I reframed this question, it wasn't like, "Oh, how will I handle the FOMO that I'll feel if I leave?" It was like, "Wait, how am I living with so much FOMO right now? And do I want this? Would I feel this if I wasn't on social media? Could I get rid of FOMO in my life if I left Instagram?"

Amelia [00:07:10] When I started asking myself that question, it really unlocked a lot for me. And as you might have heard in the first few episodes of the show where I talk through my leaving social media journey, it was those types of reframes that eventually gave me the courage and the power to leave.

Amelia [00:07:30] So, that's just a gentle suggestion that maybe there's something deeper here, which is like instead of being afraid of the FOMO we might experience when we leave, maybe we need to look at the FOMO we're experiencing on the platform already, and if we're handling that, we can probably handle the FOMO [laughs] that comes if we leave. And if we really want to get rid of FOMO, we might have to leave to get rid of that feeling.

Amelia [00:07:51] Now, if that doesn't resonate for you, I want to offer something else.

Amelia [00:07:56] Here's how I like to handle fear. I've got a couple steps for this process.

Amelia [00:08:01] So, the first thing I have learned if I'm feeling fear— learned that I need to engage with it. So, often my response to fear used to be to push it away or to repress it or to ignore it [laughs].

Amelia [00:08:15] But now I've realized that I have to face it head-on, perhaps. I like to do that gently, but I still need to be able to look at my fears clearly. So, if I'm feeling fear, the first thing I like to do is— is make space to sit with that fear and to engage it in a curious conversation. I will often personify my fear and try to talk to it or at least talk to myself. Sort of like, "Amelia, what are you afraid of in this?"

Amelia [00:08:43] And often to figure that out, I have to really sit in it, and I have to allow myself to feel the fear. And as I feel it, I can start to untangle what is causing the fear. Now, this is a great thing to do with a therapist or with a trusted energetic practitioner, even a partner or friend, if you're comfortable. I think having support in this process can be really, really helpful, and sometimes necessary.

Amelia [00:09:09] For me, it's about creating the space to feel the fear and to sit with the fear. And when I then can engage it in that curious conversation, what that allows me to do is to name it.

Amelia [00:09:21] What am I actually afraid of here? What is the fear? How can I name that fear? And for me, once I've named the fear, once I've felt the fear, I've named the fear, then I can release it. And there are so many different ways to release fear from your body. You can do visualizations, you can do breathwork. You can have a movement practice. You can do a ritual. You can cast a spell. You know that is up to you how you like to release and clear fear, but that's what I do when I'm dealing with fear. I make space to sit with it. I feel it. I engage it in that curious conversation so I can name it. And then I choose a release practice, and I work on releasing it.

Amelia [00:10:04] And sometimes I have to do this many times [laughs softly] with the same fear. It's not necessarily, like, a one and done process, but that's how I like to move through it. If you're feeling a fear around leaving social media or changing your social media presence or changing your marketing practices, I highly suggest joining me at The Refresh because podcast guest and dear friend of mine, Mary Grace Allerdice, will be leading us in a visualization and embodied activity to clear our fear around doing business differently. That will be happening in the first workshop on August 23rd. So, I think you're definitely going to want to be there, and I highly suggest joining us.

Amelia [00:10:40] And if you can't make it to The Refresh or it's not a good fit for you, you can also listen to Elle Bower Johnston's episode of the podcast that's about embodiment, nervous system regulation, and social media.

Amelia [00:10:52] So, that can help some too, I think, for thinking through this question about FOMO and the leaving social media.

Amelia [00:10:59] Okay. Let's move on to the next question. This question comes from Alissa, and it's about ghosting your followers. She left me a voice note. So, let's listen in.

Alissa [00:11:12] Hi, Amelia, this is Alissa, and I'm really excited to leave a voice note. I often listen to your podcast when I'm driving in the car, and so by the time I'm home, I forget about it. And so, today I was finishing up this latest episode with Elle. I loved it. And I'm at home and I was like, "Wait, did you still have that voice note thing?" Which you do, so I'm leaving you a message and what my burning question is:

Alissa [00:11:44] Like, Elle, I suddenly departed my social media a year ago, unintentionally. I just was like, “I think I'm going to take a break.” And then I just kind of never went back and ghosted [laughs]. And I know that that is something you don't recommend. And I wondered if you have advice on whether it feels [exhales deeply] like should I go back on to be like, "Hey, I'm leaving." Or do I just sort of leave it and then use the toolkit of your fabulous ideas, just kind of move forward. It was really interesting to kind of think about the nervous system and it's like, how is that still— how is my body still holding that energy of just leaving? So anyway, thanks for your podcasts and your wisdom.

Amelia [00:12:36] I'm going to be honest with ya'll, this might be my most asked question [laughs heartily].

Amelia [00:12:43] What do I do if I ghosted my social media followers? Do I go back and tell them I'm leaving or do I just move along?

Amelia [00:12:53] So, I have found that people tend to ghost their social media followers when they get into— when they feel a lot of overwhelm from social media and it enacts a flight response. This like urgent, got to go right now response and you just like quit, you're off. You're like, done.

Amelia [00:13:14] As we learned in our episode with Elle, that can be a nervous system response, our body is shutting down, and we have to learn to reengage if we desire to.

Amelia [00:13:23] But I don't recommend [chuckles] getting into that flight response and just leaving and ghosting for two reasons.

Amelia [00:13:32] One, because I find that it leads to a cycle that I hear about from a lot of people of getting overwhelmed, leaving, and then coming back. And then getting overwhelmed, leaving, and coming back. And there's nothing wrong with that, you know, in one sense that can be a really healthy reaction to like, "Okay, I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to notice my limit. I'm going to take a break. I'm going to go back into it."

Amelia [00:13:59] If that's how you feel, I fully support, you know, that healthy cycle.

Amelia [00:14:04] But when people tend to ask me this question, like, what do I do if I ghosted? It's less of feeling the limit and more of being like, "Wow, I went way beyond my limit and now I'm so overwhelmed. I'm in total shutdown." And when you enter that cycle over and over again, it's a really disempowering cycle for you.

Amelia [00:14:22] And it's a way that social media takes away our energetic sovereignty when we're constantly in that cycle of overwhelm and shut down, we're losing our power to make choices, to engage the ways we want to, to have sovereignty.

Amelia [00:14:40] If you want to hear more about that phrase, energetic sovereignty, I explored it in my episode with Mary Grace Allerdice. So, highly suggest listening back to that one. But that's, I think, like one reason I don't recommend ghosting your followers [laughs].

Amelia [00:14:54] The second reason I don't recommend ghosting is because it's not good relationship behavior with your community and it harms the trust that you've built with them. If people have grown accustomed to you showing up on social media with a certain frequency or in a certain way, and then all of a sudden, you're gone and you said nothing about it that breaks that trust they had in you, or it harms that trust. And that's something we don't want to do with our communities, especially as business owners, where we're trying to always nurture the community so that we can eventually, like, offer them something and they'll purchase it from us, and we can all support each other in that relationship.

Amelia [00:15:31] So, I've said those two reasons now, but of course this question wasn't about like [laughs]— Alissa didn't ask me, why did I ghost my social media followers? You're like, what do I do? So, let me get to the what do I do?

Amelia [00:15:43] My answer to this is, as always, to empower you to make your own decision. I would recommend going back and telling them that you're leaving and then making really clear where people can find you going forward. I think that that re-opens communication and allows people an avenue to reengage with you and to find you elsewhere if you don't intend to be back on the platform.

Amelia [00:16:06] But I also empower you if, you know, that's not possible for you. We're all doing the best that we can, and I'm not here to shame anyone or say you're doing it wrong or something's not good enough. At the end of the day, it's up to you and you know your capacity and you know what's possible for you.

Amelia [00:16:24] I'll mention again the episode of the podcast with Elle Bower Johnston because Elle talks about doing this [laughs]. Elle, like, peaced out, left social media, was like, "Bye."

Amelia [00:16:34] And then, shortly before the podcast came out, she actually got back onto social media, and did a really beautiful kind of exit process, again, kind of said, like, "Hi, I've been gone, I'm not coming back, but I'd like to tell you where you can find me in the future. I'm going to set up my story highlights. So, it's all very clear. I'm going to put a post on my feed that says I'm not coming back."

Amelia [00:16:56] And so, I think that's a great example. You can go look at her Instagram profile to see that at @an_otherpractice. But that's what I would recommend. If you ghosted, I would recommend going back onto social media and still using the five-step guide for leaving social media that I shared. Like, go back with the purpose of sharing that you're leaving. You know, don't go back and feel like you have to do a month-long, like full content cycle with you used to, and then you can finally leave. Just go back to leave. You know, if this is a party, you were standing outside for a while, you were catching your breath, you were doing what you needed to do. Now you're going to go back into the party and say goodbye and leave, instead of just like calling an Uber and going home without telling anybody. Party etiquette. That's what we're doing here. It's just party etiquette all around [laughs].

Amelia [00:17:41] Okay [breathes deeply]. Thank you for that beautiful question, Alissa.

Amelia [00:17:44] The next question comes from Alex, my dear friend from RecCenter. Earlier in Season One, we hosted or co-hosted a squishy social media conversation you might have heard me mention on the pod. The conversation happened at RecCenter, it did not happen on the podcast, but it was such a fun conversation about social media and fear and doing business differently.

Amelia [00:18:06] And after that, Alex wrote in and shared this question:

Amelia [00:18:09] Aren't things like Pinterest, social media? You left social media, but I noticed you use Pinterest. So what's the difference in your mind between Pinterest and Instagram? They both get likes, track views, and have an algorithm.

Amelia [00:18:22] This is a great question, and it's definitely one that I've come up against regarding Pinterest and also LinkedIn, as I've thought about, you know, what does it mean to be somebody that doesn't use social media and talks about having a business with no social media presence? But I do have a Pinterest and a LinkedIn.

Amelia [00:18:39] So, do I think Pinterest is social media?

Amelia [00:18:41] Well, if you listen to my episode with Brooke Basso of Embody Socials, you know that we agree that Pinterest is not social media.

Amelia [00:18:50] So, in that episode, we talk about how Pinterest is a search engine and it's the most effective when you use it as a search engine and don't treat it like a social media platform. So, as Alex very rightfully points out, Pinterest and Instagram both have likes, track views, and have an algorithm.

Amelia [00:19:08] But in my view, the emphasis on Pinterest is not about social behaviors, it's about search behaviors. So, on Pinterest your profile is not a core focus point of what you're doing. It's actually the pins themselves. Like, I think I shared in that episode [laughs] that I got an email from Pinterest that day that was like, "OMG, you've gotten ten followers." Like, your follower count on Pinterest is not something— is, like, not the metric that the platform is promoting or working toward.

Amelia [00:19:38] And in fact, like, likes and comments aren't that metric either. The profile, likes, and comments are all available on the platform, but they're not the focal point. The emphasis there is on searches and on how many clicks your pin has gotten and how many clicks throughs have taken people to your site from your pin. So, as we all know on Instagram, it is highly discouraged to have links that lead people off of the platform.

Amelia [00:20:07] But on Pinterest, that is encouraged to have links that lead people off of the platform. And all of the Pinterest ads that we talked about in the episode with Brooke, like the whole goal there is Pinterest is supporting you to help you get people to get to your website, not to your Pinterest profile. And the algorithm is designed for search.

Amelia [00:20:25] The algorithm on Pinterest is actually built so that you get better and better results to your searches and not singularly to you staying on the platform longer, which if you listen to our episode with Vickie Curtis, which just came out recently, one of the writers of The Social Dilemma, she talked about how the goal of those algorithms is to keep you on the platform longer, and I'm sure that's a piece of Pinterest’s algorithm, but what they are saying, what they're selling [laughs], and what I've seen is it's really focused on getting the best search results.

Amelia [00:20:55] And in my experience, Instagram always had super crappy search [laughs].

Amelia [00:20:59] So, that's my defense of why Pinterest is a search engine, not social media. But I also want to say that like the whole point of Off the Grid is to empower you to use the marketing tools that you want to use. So, if you're not into Pinterest, don't use Pinterest.

Amelia [00:21:14] There are other tools you can use. There are other search engines you can use or optimize for. And I wanted to offer a quick side note here. This wasn't Alex's question, but I did mention, like, another platform I think about in this way is LinkedIn. I've been on LinkedIn for, I don't know, over a decade [laughs], you know, like probably since high school, maybe early college. But when I think of LinkedIn, you know, I still think of it as a sort of professional resume space.

Amelia [00:21:40] I think LinkedIn is trying to transform itself into a content marketing platform, meaning like LinkedIn is actually paying people to create content there. They're trying to keep people on the platform. They're trying to get people to engage with each other. We're seeing that functionality develop there.

Amelia [00:21:56] I don't use LinkedIn in that way, so I think I am not using it as a social media platform. I do think that if you are using LinkedIn to its fullest, then you are doing many— it's a lot about social media behaviors now and I see that and I'm kind of watching that shift happen with critical curiosity [laughs] as I like to think of it. Like, "Hmm, what's happening here?"

Amelia [00:22:21] And, "Hmm, maybe I don't like this." That combo is my critical curiosity combo. But I think that there are also some ways that LinkedIn, as a professional social media network also I think could just be much more beneficial to business owners who run B2B or business-to-business businesses like myself.

Amelia [00:22:42] So, you know, it's much more acceptable to talk about business there, to share your offerings, to discuss your professional life than it is in other spaces. And I find that interesting. Not sure quite what I've made of it. I think LinkedIn is trying to be a social media platform. I don't love that, makes me want to be on it less as a person who has left social media but still leaving that one open to interpretation.

Amelia [00:23:05] Okay, let's move on to the next voice note. This is a lovely note from Brittany Marie, who is a friend that I made through Holisticism's North Node. And the note is actually just, like, really nice [laughs]. Thanks Brittany Marie. It made me feel good to listen to it, but she says something in here that I think is really important. So, I wanted to share it with all of you and then I'll talk a little bit about what I think is so important in a moment.

Brittany Marie [00:23:32] Hello, beautiful Amelia, it's Brittany Marie from Dreamstruck Studio. Just popping in [laughs] because, you know, I've got to tell you, I think I've shared your podcast— this podcast literally with everyone that I've spoken to, any coffee chat [laughs], any of my consults, I call those power hours, you know, any kind of client work that I'm doing in their dashboards, on Notion, anywhere that I possibly can, I am just sharing this— this podcast.

Brittany Marie [00:24:03] Not only am I just so thoroughly inspired of thinking outside of the box and really, you know, I don't plan on leaving Instagram, I do plan on ghosting [laughs] on Instagram and spending less time there. But, you know, regardless of how, you know, you want to navigate within social media or whatever, just thinking more mindfully about why are you there, and how are you showing up, and how can you do cuter things [laughs], more things that are creative or aligned to you and all of those spaces and showing up there within your marketing and present strategies. So, just thank you for this beautiful gift. I'm obsessed with this podcast.

Amelia [00:24:45] Okay. That was so nice [laughs]. Honestly, all of the voice memos I got were incredibly nice and I feel really grateful to all of you listening, and I feel like we're just all on the same, like, radically generous, super open, super appreciative wavelength. And that makes my heart feel really warm and my body feel really glowy. So, thank you.

Amelia [00:25:07] And I think this note really touches on, like, a core message of the podcast, which is that we can do everything we do in our businesses more intentionally. And for me, I'm always looking for ways that things can be more intentional and more integrated. Like, how can any one choice I make in my business be filled with intention and also, like, follow through or connect or touch all of these other choices and things I'm doing in my business. That's what I'm always working on.

Amelia [00:25:38] And as I've shared on this podcast, all I want for you and your marketing is to have fun, feel good, and get the results you want. I remember that episode way back when that was like how to create a fun, feel-good, creative marketing plan. Like, that's what I want for you. Have fun, feel good, get the results that you want based on your definition of success. And one of the reasons I made this podcast is because I think that we have all been brainwashed into believing that we have to be on social media to get the results we want. And I am out here, like, waving my arms with a giant flag that says, "We do not [chuckles]."

Amelia [00:26:12] Like, I feel like my flag is just like, "You do not have to be on social media." That's what the Off the Grid space is about. You do not have to be on social media, but if you do want to be on social media, as Brittany Marie says, it can be cuter. It can be more creative. It can be more aligned. It can be more intentional.

Amelia [00:26:31] I often find for people that when they're feeling off on social media, the first step is not to leave social media, but it's to change your behavior on, and relationship to, the platform. So, this podcast is a safe haven for everyone who has a sneaking suspicion they don't have to be on social media and has decided they want to look for other ways to market their business.

Amelia [00:26:56] But if you're still on, you're welcome here. You don't have to want to leave social media to be here. And I hear from a lot of you who are like, "I don't intend to leave social media, but your podcast gives me the freedom to choose."

Amelia [00:27:08] Because my goal is not to make you do your marketing a certain way. It's to help you make intentional, empowered, energetically sovereign choices in your business and your life. That's what I want for all of us. Leaving social media for me was a way that I claimed a lot of freedom for myself. I took so much power back from Instagram, specifically, and it felt so good, y'all.

Amelia [00:27:35] I want you to do that in whatever areas of your life or your business that you feel most called to do. Maybe that's social media, maybe that's somewhere else. But we can all be more intentional. So, thank you, Brittany Marie, for that reminder.

Amelia [00:27:50] Alright, y'all, I've got one more question that I'm going to answer today. And then next week I'll be back with more answers. So, this question comes from Cassandra, another business friend that I believe I met through the North Node. And Cassandra asks, "Are there growth points or inflection points where it makes sense for a business to leave social media?"

Amelia [00:28:10] Oh, what a great question. I really enjoyed thinking through this one, and I don't know that I have my typical, like, five-step process sort of answer [chuckles], but I do have some thoughts to share.

Amelia [00:28:24] So, the first thought is that I love a strategic exit. So, we talked earlier about not ghosting. This plays into that. Like, not only do I wish for you an intentional exit from social media, I want you to have a supportive experience leaving social media.

Amelia [00:28:41] So, I think it's good to think about the timing of what position does our business need to be in to leave social media, and how can we make sure that we have gotten to that place and created a soft-landing pad for ourself on the other side of that exit? You know, when I was getting ready to leave social media, I felt like I was jumping off a cliff [laughs]. And that's why I use that language of, like, a soft-landing pad. Like, it really felt like I was about to freefall into the abyss and I didn't know what was going to be down there. Now, on the other side, I realized I was just, like, stepping through a door and it was not a big deal. But that is not how it felt to me and my body, right?

Amelia [00:29:19] We talked about fear at the start of this episode. Fear can make this choice be so big.

Amelia [00:29:24] So, I think it is good to be strategic. It is good to plan your exit. It is good to give yourself the support that you need for that and to give your business the support that it needs.

Amelia [00:29:33] So, for this reason, I often think— I see a lot of people do this, and I think it's a great idea. You know, I'll see people do sort of one last launch of a program or a course or a coaching series or a product or a spring sale or something before they leave social media. And often I think that's a way to set up some financial support so that once you leave social media, you have that income or some ongoing income, recurring income, so that you can get your new marketing systems in place and that you have the financial stability to do that instead of just, like, leaving and then being like, "Oh shit [laughs], how am I going to tell anybody about this and how is anybody going to buy anything?"

Amelia [00:30:16] So, I think that can be a great growth point or inflection point for leaving social media. It's kind of after a final launch or a big launch or something that you've done. I think another growth or inflection point where it might make sense would be to set a goal of, you know, "I'd like to have this many number of people on my newsletter before I leave because I've noticed my conversion rate is XYZ, and I think that's how many people I need there. And I've seen that, you know, social media is bringing me this many people. And so, I'll just stay on it until the newsletter grows this much."

Amelia [00:30:45] You know, I think that's a really practical, strategic reason to stay on social media. When I've seen people set those goals, what I have found is, like, as they put the steps in place to leave, they often end up leaving before they meet XYZ goal because they realize it was kind of arbitrary and they're ready to go. It's about just, like, making that energetic shift and setting, you know, a milestone that you'll leave at helps you make that energetic shift so you're ready emotionally, energetically to leave.

Amelia [00:31:10] I think that the growth or inflection points where it makes sense for a business to leave social media are the same growth or inflection points where it makes sense for us to change our marketing in general.

Amelia [00:31:21] So, if you're not getting the results you want from something you have been doing a long time, that's a good time to reevaluate it and see if either your way of doing it is not working anymore, or if that thing itself isn't working for you anymore. We do that with all sorts of things in our business, right? Like, for instance, you know, when I first started Softer Sounds, I did all my client intake pretty manually. I was like, “I've got email and Calendly and, you know, Stripe to accept payments. And that's all I needed to get everybody set up.”

Amelia [00:31:47] Over time, I got too many clients and I was like, "Wow, this manual way of working is not working for me." So, I signed up for Dubsado. I automated it. That was a great growth and inflection point. I stopped using those other services because I didn't need them anymore. So, I think that it's the same with social media. Like, at a certain point, if it's not working for you, that's a great reason to go evaluate what's happening there and then look at other options.

Amelia [00:32:10] Now I want to speak to something that I think might be underneath this question. I don't think it's necessarily underneath it for Cassandra, so please know I'm not singling you or her out, but it's something I hear a lot. And something I hear in this question is like the question of is there a point where it makes sense for a business— or for my business to leave social media? I hear two things. One is like, "Well, is there some point where I know that I'm making the right choice? Like, is there an external marker that will tell me that this is the right choice for my business?" And I think the answer to that is no. All we can do is trust ourselves and our choices and the choices we make for our businesses.

Amelia [00:32:53] That's why energetic sovereignty is so important. That's why it's such a problem that social media is constantly changing on us, telling us all— like telling us all these things, changing how everything works, making us lose trust in ourselves. Like, there's no one point I can tell you that it will always— that this is always the foolproof time to leave social media— always works great at this point. You know, when your revenues X, your offerings are Y, your email list is Z.

Amelia [00:33:18] Yes, we can set those types of metrics and milestones so that you can energetically get to a place where you're comfortable leaving. But there's no, like, you know, specific point where you're like, "Oh, this is it. This is the time. It always works." So, I kind of hear that craving for certainty in this question and as I've learned from my friend Taylor Elyse Morrison, who was also on the podcast [laughs softly], in our lives, we can't find a certainty because there are too many variables happening in the world. But what we can find is clarity. And I think the biggest thing on your journey to leaving social media is that you have to find clarity that this is the right choice for you, and then you will figure out other ways to make your business work.

Amelia [00:34:03] If you don't have that clarity, the other things may feel not good enough, not easy enough, might be too hard, you don't get it, you don't want to do it. That's fine. But I don't think there's anything that can offer that certainty of like, “This is the time that I can leave and I— it will always work at this point.”

Amelia [00:34:22] So, that's a little bit of what I hear in this question, and I just wanted to offer that up of, like, the biggest thing to do is to find clarity in yourself that you want to leave. So it's not about the growth point or inflection point in your business, it's about the growth point or the inflection point in yourself that you're ready to leave.

Amelia [00:34:40] And as you've heard on the show, you know, for me, that was this big aha moment of realizing that I was in this codependent relationship with Instagram, and I had to get out of there. And when I had that— when I realized that— when I had that moment of like, "Shit, this is the codependency I've rooted out of every area of my life." I immediately had the clarity of like, "Oh, so it's got to go. I've got to go." And that gave me, like, the will and the fortitude and the clarity I needed to take different steps to leave and to do something else. So, I think that's what I want to offer you. Leaving social media, it's less about looking for a certain point in your business and more about looking for clarity in yourself.

Amelia [00:35:23] [Amelia breathes deeply] Oh, that felt good. Maybe it felt like I called you out. I don't know. Maybe it felt bad [chuckles]. I'm sorry if it did, but hopefully, it felt opening, clarifying. And I send you so much love if you're in the midst of that journey. It's so hard to realize that things that seem to work for everybody else, don't work for us. Or the things that everybody else want, we don't want. Or that ways of doing things for other people aren't ways that we can do them.

Amelia [00:35:48] It's really hard to take that step and do something differently. But please know that I'm here with you.

Amelia [00:35:54] If the step that you decide to take is leaving social media, you've got me on your side. And if you decide to stay, I'm also on your side [laughs gently]. Again, it's just about making those intentional, empowered, energetically sovereign choices. That's what we're here to do.

Amelia [00:36:10] So, on that note, I'm going to sign off from this penultimate episode of Off the Grid. Thank you so much for tuning in to this podcast, for sticking with me for the 17 episodes of Season One that have happened so far.

Amelia [00:36:23] As always, I want to invite you to download the Leaving Social Media Toolkit and to [outro music begins to play] please join me in The Refresh in August. Sending you lots of love in your journey. And until next time, y'all, I'll see you off the grid.

Amelia [00:36:43] Thanks for listening to Off the Grid. Find links and resources in the show notes. And don't forget to grab your free Leaving Social Media Toolkit at softersounds.studio/byeig. That's softersounds dot studio slash b-y-e-i-g.

Amelia [00:36:59] This podcast is a Softer Sounds production. Our music is by Purple Planet and our logo is by n'atelier Studio. If you'd like to make a podcast of your own, we'd love to help. Find more about our services at softersounds.studio.

Amelia [00:37:13] Until next time, we'll see you off the grid [music fades out].