26 | How to Decide Which Social Media Platforms (if any!) are Right for You: My Decisions After 5 months Off Social

Join Heather as she takes a deeper dive into how to determine which social media platforms, if any, you should be a part of. This is a closer look at the "Decide" step from episode 21. Heather vulnerably shares her story of how she came to the decision to continue building her business without social media. What are some concerns, moving forward, in regards to using social media to build a business. Heather shares the social media applications she chose to continue utilizing after 5 months of building her business off social media.

Episode Highlights:

・Deeper dive into the decision of which if any platforms you would like to be a part of

・Which platforms can you find Heather on moving forward, what was her decision after 5 months

・Heather vulnerably shares her heart and thoughts on what is working and not working while building a business without social

・Heather shares beautiful advice on how to handle this current divisive social media climate 

・What are some concerns using social media for business

・Moving forward, what, if any, social media apps is Heather going to utilize

 Listen Here:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Episode Resources/References:

・Episode 21

・Episode 23

・Podcast Pro University

・Easily Edit Your Podcast

・Get 50% off Stunning Emails

Connect with Heather:

HeatherKBurge.com

[email protected]

You can text (912) 405-892 any of these keywords to learn more:

ARTIST (to learn more about what I do selling the makeup)

PODCAST (to get a direct link to all the things)

COLORMATCH (to get a free custom color match for the Seint Makeup)

VIP (to get a link to my VIP makeup channel over on Telegram)

Transcript:

26 | How to Decide Which Social Media Platforms (if any!) are Right for You: My Decisions After 5 Months Off Social

Hi friends. Okay. So I am getting more and more questions and being contacted by more and more people who are looking to figure out how to take their business off of social media. Whether that's one platform, all the platforms. I have found that it looks different for everybody and through these conversations and also through my five months of basically taking myself off social media. And really kind of getting that big picture introspective view of what I want my business to look like. And also just reflecting on the way I feel about certain platforms. 

I am so excited in this episode to be able to share with you not only a deeper dive into the decision that is yours to make. For which platforms you do or don't want to be a part of on social media.

But also I'm going to share the decisions that I have decided to make in my own business. Because a lot of you guys have been asking me, what it's been like in this five months, since I have taken my business off of Facebook. And which platforms I am showing up on and where you can find me and all the things. So let's dive into this today.

So, if you've been listening to this podcast for a minute, you might recall an episode I did, number 21, where I spoke directly to those of you who might be looking to take a social media detox. 

And I was comparing, in that episode series, how social media has been proven to be not only addicting. But that about 5 to 10% of all social media users are addicted to social media. Just like there are people addicted to alcohol and drugs.

And so whether or not that is you and you are truly looking to take a social media detox. I wanted to take a little bit of a deeper dive into that episode because I shared five steps, they all started with a D. That you could take if you wanted to, do like I did and take a social media detox for a season. For maybe a rhythm that you integrate into your schedule. So maybe that looks like taking a detox every weekend or once a week for each month or maybe an entire month. Maybe an entire year. 

And so I walk you through in that episode, the five steps. But because I like to keep these episodes short and sweet, I figured it might be helpful to dive into each of those a little bit further in the next upcoming episode. So today we are going to be focusing on that first D, which is the decision or decide if you will. 

And what I want to talk to you about today is this decision of whether or not you want to take your business off social media or take yourself personally, even, off the platforms that are out there. And my goodness, there's a bunch of them. That is going to be very personal. It's not black or white. It's not for me to tell you what you should or shouldn't do. Just like, I wouldn't want you judging me for the decisions that I'm going to share with you today. That I have decided to make, at least for the short term in my business. Because as I've been very honest and vocal with you guys throughout this journey of starting the podcast about seven months ago.

 I have always been a little bit of an early adopter. So I've been on Facebook since close to the beginning when it was targeted towards just connecting other college age students and helping them stay connected with friends after they graduated. And certainly that was how I started using it. And it was, it has been still to this day, such a blessing at staying in touch with childhood friends and high school friends and college friends. And there's no doubt that that has helped me to build my business. Right?

Also, Instagram, same thing. I've been on Instagram since right about the beginning. And throughout all my journeys, as an entrepreneur, both in traditional retail and a boutique owner, I of course have had dozens of Instagram accounts through the years. 

So, I'm not saying that I have it all together or have the perfect advice on what it looks like to run your business without these platforms of social media, with Instagram and Facebook being the two main ones. But also, I have taken the last five months to essentially pick this big detox from these platforms. 

And really kind of take a step back and again, get a viewpoint on what's working. What's missing, what's broken, and what's confusing. And I love those four questions there from my time with Dave Ramsey's Entreleadership program, it's a fabulous program. If you are a business owner to be a part of. 

And those four questions, what's working, what's broken, what's missing and what's confusing. Are four questions you can ask yourself about anything, whether it's a project that you've been working on a business, whether it's a decision that you're going to make, whether it's your company as a whole. And certainly that is always an element of what I'm looking to do as I'm reflecting on the decisions that I've made. 

Like taking my business off of social media for the last five months. So essentially what I want to share again today is. What does this look like for you? Which platforms, which reasons. What's your motivation? 

And then I also want to share my decisions with you. So let's talk about you first. . So I'm hearing and getting lots of messages and comments, especially as I run into people who have. Either listen to the podcast or they saw my posts that I made on social media, I guess it was five months ago. Telling them that I'm essentially not going to be on there for a bit a bit. 

And they of course have lots of questions for me and what that looks like. But more and more I'm having people that are coming to me and they are inspired to do something similar in their business. And so what that's looked like is some people are just over the divisiveness that's out there in the world.

I mean, there are so many decisions that are happening, that we all have different feelings on. And actually saw a friend Lauren post, or repost I should say, a screenshot of a post by a man named Matthew Johnson on Facebook. Of course, with some of the recent Supreme court rulings and some of the decisions and things that are just out there in the world that have absolutely just created this major divisiveness that's probably to some of you guys made you think like, okay, do I even want to be on this platform at all? Right? Well, I love what this Matthew Johnson, don't know who he is, but I love what he shared and what my friend Lauren reposted. He said, "I suspect two things happened this past week because of Facebook posts. Number one, zero minds were changed. Number two, many relationships were destroyed.

Social media is destroying human interaction. Social media has conditioned us to think that every opinion needs to be shared. Online is the best place to discuss debate. And if we disagree, we can't be friends anymore. Please don't fall into this trap. Take some time off social media snooze, some people for 30 days, if their posts gets you fired up. Don't read to argue, read to learn their mindset so you can love them better." 

And regardless of how you feel about all of the craziness that's going on in our world right now, I think this is beautiful advice from Matthew. Because this is just such a good reminder that, you know, when we're given this communication platform, we essentially have a place to both consume and share whatever is on our hearts. And we all have different. Feelings on all of the things, right? And the goal, especially if you are a woman of faith like myself, you know, the goal is to love, right? 

Love, God love people. And so the way that you can learn to love someone is to read their posts listen to understand their mindset so that you can love them better. Not so that you can necessarily agree with them. Right? Because again, zero minds were changed by the divisiveness and that's just how that goes.

So some of you guys might be feeling that that kind of just murkiness, if you will. Over on social media and wanting to take yourself off of it. 

Other people might be concerned about privacy issues. This isn't something that I personally am worried about. But I know I hear it a good bit. I know that shoot even the US government is looking at apps like Tik TOK and talking about potentially banning it because of the privacy concerns over it. 

So obviously this is a big deal that probably should be addressed, but maybe that's a concern that you have on a certain platform.

If you are like me and you have teenagers. Or even young young kids. I mean my nine-year-old does not have a phone. But she is on things like YouTube, right? Like I don't allow her to have the traditional social media platforms, like Instagram and Tik TOK and Snapchat. And obviously Facebook, I don't think there's any nine-year-olds on Facebook.

But essentially there might be some of you guys who were like me, who you've got kids and you want to exemplify to them that they don't have to show up on social media, right? Like the social media is not something that is a need or a necessary addition to their lifestyle. 

Also, if you have been listening to this and maybe you were struck by the fact that you're spending too much time on the platform. So maybe that's where your mind set is coming from. Right. Is you know, that it's a time suck for you. You've analyzed your screen time on your phone and you're feeling like, all right, I got to do something about this. And maybe a detox is the right way to do it. 

Here's another big one. The fact that you don't own your list. 

I have had so many friends lately in the last six months to a year that have lost their entire social media account. Like either Instagram or Facebook or both have been gone in a flash overnight and they've had it had to completely start over. And while a couple of them have done this successfully, and I know a couple have actually gotten their platforms back. You don't know that that's even going to happen for you. 

And even the ones that are kind of back on track, if you will, and have been able to successfully reintegrate in the platform. They're getting a lot smarter about the fact that they don't own their list and it could be shut down tomorrow. So if you're running your business, say, on Facebook messages. 

You don't own those conversations. They could be gone tomorrow. That communication platform that you have with your customers. It could disappear. And so a lot of you guys might be in that boat where you're looking to essentially build other options. And we're going to talk way more about that in future episodes. So get excited about that.

And then finally the comparison aspect. So depending on what business model you're in and how you're currently showing up on social media. Likely there are people in your industry who are crushing it online, and that comparison can absolutely be crippling. 

And so I know that, that can also be a factor in your decision for taking your business off of social media. 

So again, these, these different kind of pain points if you will, for factoring into your decision. So everything from the divisiveness that's out there. The privacy issues. But this we're going to focus on that decision first. So, again, all of these different reasons might factor into what it looks like for you. And that's also going to then apply to the different platforms. So again, you may have feelings about things like YouTube or Facebook or Tik TOK or the new BeReal app that's absolutely exploding. And so each of these kind of questions is going to look a little bit different for you. 

And speaking of questions. I have a question for you as you're listening to this, as you have been listening possibly to some of the other, messages that I have for you. And perhaps you heard the interview that I did with Bob Heilig. And let's see, it was, Episode 23, which is the part two of that interview series. I asked Bob for his tips on what he would give, the advice that he would give to someone who's looking to build their business off social media. And he asked a great question that I'm going to ask you today, which is, what is your motivation for doing this? 

 I suspect that it is one of two things. It's either a fear choice, meaning, you don't necessarily want to put yourself out there on social media. And so you're looking for the easy way out. Or number two, it's a faith decision. Meaning it's something that is in your spirit, it's something that you feel strongly, that you are called to do. 

If it is a faith decision, like it is with me. Again, as a believer, I lean on the Holy Spirit to guide me and guide the decisions and to give me that kind of confirmation in these decisions. And as difficult and as kind of wild of a decision as it was back in February for me to take my business off of social media. 

I haven't once questioned that decision because I know it's tied to my faith and to the bigger purpose and passion of showing entrepreneurs that it can be done. Right. But I see it all the time. That some people are kind of backing away from these platforms just simply because they're afraid. They're afraid to put themselves out there. They're afraid to show up as salesy. Bob and I were talking about that in the, in that episode episode 22 and 23. 

And, or maybe they, you know, they think that they're not good at marketing. Right? And so they don't want to dive into social media or they're afraid of learning it. That's a thing. A common thing is they're like, oh, well, I don't know how to do reels. I don't want to learn how to do stories. Or I, you know, essentially these reasons, aren't reasons that you should take your business off of Facebook or Instagram or whatever platforms it is. Or like here, another example would be being afraid of what other people are going to think. Right. And I'll get into that in a second. 

So my question to you is, is your decision, fear-based or faith based? What is your motivation? And only you can know that. And I want you to get, you know, again, pretty introspective as we decide on this, but let me now shift into my decision. 

And a little bit more of my experience in being off of social media for the last five months.

So I want to kind of start with a funny story for y'all. I, you know, one of the ways that I am choosing to communicate with my customers is doing more email and text marketing, just to stay better in touch and better serve my existing customers. 

And for any of you guys that aren't yet connected to me, and want to stay more plugged into that, you can text the word, CONNECT to 912-405-8912, and we can stay in touch on all the things. You'll be able to pick and choose what it is that you're interested in, whether it's the makeup, the podcast, business, all of that, all of that good stuff. 

But as I've been leaning into that, I have actually felt inspired to create some content, namely some short form video. If you listened to the episode with my friend, Jackie Richards, it's again, a two-part episode. She talks about the importance of short form video. And I was excited when I realized I could do short form video without having to post it on Instagram or Tik TOK or Facebook. I could send it directly to my customers. 

But funny story. My, my gut, my first, like without thinking I recorded the little three minute video, it was just a really simple, easy, like summer face look. Right? And I uploaded it to YouTube without thinking, cause I was like, oh, okay. I've got that, you know, that app on my phone. And it's a place that I can store it. It's a place that I can link to it. 

And I shared it with some of my friends in a group chat. And one of them said, oh, you're back on social media. And I said, no, I'm definitely not back on social media. And she said, oh, well, you're posting on YouTube. And I was like YouTube, isn't social media. And she's like yes, it is. 

It's like, wait, what? So of course, I go to all the places to find things right. And that's Google. And Google says that YouTube is social media and so I was like, oh, well, shoot. You know, if I'm trying to exemplify building my business off of social media or without social media, then I shouldn't be posting myself on social media. So I kind of had a game plan strategy with my amazing assistant Jess. And she was like, what if we put it on your website as a blog post? And then we can link to the blog post instead. And I was like, oh my gosh. That is amazing. Yes, let's do it sounds great. And so that was our solution for the short term was to post it on the blog post. 

Which I love because that, that kind of you know, gut check or the good question for my friend did require me to think outside the box and to kind of get creative, right. But it also got me to thinking and got me more introspective about how I really feel about, for example, YouTube being a "social media platform" and what was my motivation or my mission for not posting that video on YouTube. 

And I realized that it was kind of based in fear, not based in faith, because for me, YouTube, whereas Google might say it's a social media app. I don't see it playing into necessarily the same problematic aspects that, apps like Instagram or Facebook or Tik TOK or Snapchat, have on our brains. Certainly I know YouTube can be addicting. Anyone who's got, again, a nine year old knows that. 

But it's, it's not a place that's going to create a lot of comparison or FOMO. Or, you know, it's just, to me, it doesn't have those same kind of problems that Instagram and Facebook have.

And so for me, I decided that there could be a win, win solution. Which would be something I would coach someone else to do. Which is to still use and utilize the platform like YouTube, which can be a great place to store video content. But it doesn't have to be me doing it. And so what I decided to do, and I decided to put YouTube in the green category. So I'm going to share that my green, yellow, and red for myself personally. So green means it's a go and here's my plan for using it. Yellow means I'm kind of proceeding with caution and figuring it out. And red means it's a, it's a hard no. Not something I'm going to be be leveraging for myself. 

And so my first green is YouTube. And the reason is as I'm not going to be posting it, I'm going to be delegating it to my assistant. And I'm not going to be sucked in to things like, comparing how many views a certain video got, or you know, getting in a fight in the comments section with someone who criticizes, whatever it is that I, that I post in the video. Essentially, I'm just uploading the video into the communication app we use, which is Telegram. And then she takes it and runs with it. Does all the things. 

So essentially. I myself am not the one that's leveraging the platform. And to be quite honest, I don't expect there to be much that comes from it from a business side, but I do feel like it is a good platform to host that type content. Because guess what? It can reach more people. It can serve more people and it is a highly shareable place. 

So for me, the decision I've made is to move forward with the delegation aspect of posting my videos on YouTube. In fact, we even posted the interview with Bob, I recorded the video and I often do when I do interviews here on this podcast. And we will be posting more of them on YouTube. And I think it's a fabulous place to spread this message and to create more of a conversation around this. I just don't have to be the one that's a part of it. So maybe you are a business owner that personally doesn't want to do it, but you've got to build your business on, on whatever platform it is. 

You can delegate, and that's going to be a whole other episode coming up real soon. So get excited about that. Okay. So another green for me is one that's not for me personally, but that is the app BeReal. I did allow my daughter to download it because, I feel like it, if anything is kind of aligning with the feelings that I have about social media. Where people are putting this kind of inauthentic, highly curated version of themselves out there. 

Whereas BeReal, you get prompted to post and you only have three minutes to post. And if you post late, it says you post late, but you have to, the whole purpose is to just document what you're doing right then and there. So it's a way for people to stay connected, but in a more real way. 

And there's no, you're not seeing the number of likes or you know, there's not that same kind of comparison aspect, if you will. There's probably still some FOMO out there. I'm sure. And I'm sure it's probably pretty consuming. So I will set some boundaries by doing some screen time limits for my daughter on that platform. For sure. 

But for me, I think that's one that could be. Not for myself personally, but could be a green. Another one is kind of, I would say a yellow, green, and that is Facebook. So I have talked about here on this podcast, before that I have some team resources that live on Facebook. I do still receive messages, actually, for example, Bob Heilig, when we were going back and forth on the interview schedule for the podcast. We were communicating on messenger, right? 

So Facebook messenger and Facebook itself for marketplace. I'm actually redoing my garage for my husband's birthday. And so I've been looking from everything from saunas to ice machines on Facebook marketplace, and it is a fabulous place to get a great deal on something like that. 

And so. Facebook for me is going to be a green, but not as a place to post. And I'm going to limit my time to about 15 to 30 minutes a day, which is essentially, I mean, it's really easy to do. But it's going to allow me to be able to engage with and stay connected with the people and relationships I've built. So I can comment, you know, I'm not going to say I'm never going to post a picture. But it will not be coming from some social media strategy. Like I used to do on my Facebook. Right. I'm not you know, necessarily going to be creating content. I'm just going to be engaging and staying connected through the Facebook platform. 

So some of the reds, so these are the hard no's for me. Is Tik TOK. I am going to delete it. I haven't done it yet, but I'm going to delete it from my phone because it's just a total time suck. And it absolutely, because there are so many people that are crushing it in my industry, on Tik TOK, it is such a comparison minded app. And it's just, I don't know. The privacy concerns, there are so many elements that for me, it's a, it's a no, so Tik TOK, it's going away. 

Snapchat, it's been a no, for a minute. That one, especially as a mom of a teenager, yeah, that's a, that's a hard no. So not doing that. Twitter, I never use that anyway. So that's an easy one to not use. So those are my reds. And for yellow, let's talk about Instagram. So Instagram is a yellow for me because I'm not going to delete the app, but I'm not using it. And honestly, like I never, I never log in to it. My daughter, it's so funny. We have a cute little golden retriever named, well, we have two golden retrievers, but we haven't a platform for our golden retriever. 

And my daughter loves to snap little quick pictures of her and post them. And again, she's not trying to build a business out of it clearly, but Sophie surely is adorable and Sadie, her little sister is too. And so it's fun for her and she's pretty good at it. And she made a little reel the other day. That was just adorable. And so I'm keeping the app on my phone and allowing her to mess around on that platform. And then funny enough, actually this week we had a, our company had a customer celebration event on Instagram as a party. 

And so, I logged in, not on my account because I was like, oh, this is going to be a time suck for me and I'm going to get sucked into something. But instead I was already logged into that a little Sophie, I don't even know what the account is. Sophie is something golden. I don't even know. I don't even know. 

And I logged in there and I was able to see some of the announcements and new products and, and all of the fun stuff that they shared on there. Without having to be sucked into Instagram and the ways that I typically am. So Instagram is the yellow. So, these are just a few of the examples. There's obviously more out there that are kind of murky areas. Again, there's there's Pinterest or WhatsApp, which I know is big. I have a lot of international listeners, which if you're listening. Yay! I am so thankful to be able to reach so many people across the world. 

It's so cool. That's one of the neatest things about a podcast is being able to talk to anybody anywhere. From little old Savannah, Georgia. But you know, essentially. For me, actually, I think WhatsApp, would be a green because it reminds me so much of my beloved Telegram app, which is an incredible, incredible communication platform that I guess could be considered social media. 

So essentially guys that is where I have made my decisions in regards to all of these different social media accounts. And this is how essentially I'm going to be spending the next six months or the rest of this year, if you will, showing up. So, you know, keep that in mind, if you need to get in touch with me again, you can always text me at 912-405-8912. 

That's my business number. And you can text anything from the word CONNECT to stay connected. You can text word PODCAST to be, connected to the Scale Without Social for female entrepreneurs and get more information about that Telegram group. You can shoot, you can text the word COLORMATCH, if you want to try the Seint makeup, there's a lot of different ways that you can communicate with me on that platform. 

But you may see me engaging a little bit here and there on Facebook and you might run across my YouTube videos. And if you do know that these decisions that I've made did not come without a lot of introspective thought and they are decisions that I have made based off of my faith, not my fear. Right. And I encourage you to do the same thing. 

So that's your homework for today is decide for yourself which platforms. And really kind of get introspective on how you want your business to look like where you want to show up and let me know over, in that Scale Without Social for female entrepreneurs, Telegram group, what you've decided. 

I wanted to take a second to give a shout out to one of the amazing gals in the group, Mona. Who said she "finally got caught up on the podcast today. And I must say that this is such a blessing. I joined Bob's Love Serve, Grow movement in April, and it has fit perfectly with this series. I had been feeling that I needed to disconnect some from social media for a while. But wasn't sure how I could do that and still be successful in my business. All of this came together perfectly and has helped me feel more genuine in all of my relationships. It's been such a relief. Last month was one of my best in my business, even though I slowed down and posted less on social media. Thank you. Once again, Heather K Burge. You're a big blessing to me."

Oh my goodness. You are such a blessing to me, Mona. Thank you for sharing that in the group. And if you want to join that conversation. 

Just head on ever. You can search it up in the Telegram app, or again, you can text PODCAST to 9 1 2 4 0 5 8 9 1 2. Well thank you guys for listening today I hope you have a fabulous week and get ready as we continue this series.