32 | Which Social Media Accounts and Tech Tools are Really Serving Your Business? How to Know Which Apps to Delete
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Hi, friends. And welcome back to the scale without social podcast. I have a big update for you in today's episode. So definitely. Keep listening. But today I am going to share. The fifth and final D of my five steps that you can take to spend less time on social media? But still grow your business so this fifth word is delete so so far we have decided what apps are right for us we have decided where we want to spend the focus in our business right so the first d is decide the second d
It's divulge, which. Which is essentially just sharing your heart of why you are going to be taking. Some time, both in the short term or in the extended term for taking your business off of social media or taking your self off social The third D Correct. So it's super important again, to Your people to another option for how to connect with you because you still have a business to run. Right.
The fourth D is delegate and that is essentially bringing on a team to help you. Actually take on some of the tasks. social media so that might Look like hiring a virtual assistant we talked about in the last Episodes to even manage Your social media Account for you that can look delegating to some tech tools like Vizzlie that i talked about in that initial episode episode number 21. i introduced these five steps to you guys And essentially Delegating is a way that you can take Make your own personal Time off of social Media but still And leverage the Let's have it right So that brings us to the fifth And final d which is delete
Okay. So how many of you guys are gardeners out There or Like to cultivate flowers maybe In your home I am really Not, I kind of have a black At least when it comes to like outdoor plants I'm not very good with that i do love my indoor Fiddle Leaf figs and My orchids But i have read Book from Lara casey called " Cultivate: a Grace Filled Guide to Growing an Intentional Life.". And one of the principles that Laura talks about in the book is the fact that if you wanna have a thriving garden, or if you want to really cultivate the beautiful blooms in your life, you've got to prune or literally cut, or for the purposes of our little five step acronym, you've got to delete the bad eggs from your life and this absolutely can apply to your business. And today I'm actually gonna share how you can prune or delete to be able to focus on and grow other areas of your business. So whether that's social media as a whole, maybe it's a particular app or platform or something, essentially. Taking more from the rest of your thriving garden, if you will, than it's actually giving to your life and your business.
And I'm gonna break it down into three different areas or three different reasons why something might be. Taking more than it's giving in these three different areas of your life. And we will give you some tactical steps on how you can delete them to cultivate the areas of growth in your business and in your life.
Okay. So the three areas we're gonna focus on today are your mental head space. So this is tackling things like comparison. Tackling things like the, the way that you feel after spending time or engaging on a certain platform. So basically how it is impacting your mental health. Right? The second area we're gonna focus on is time.
So which areas or aspects or apps are a time suck for you? Where are you spending your time? Is it valuable time? Is it bringing value to your life and your business and then finally money? So some of these. Now a lot of the social media platforms that we talk about are free. And that's because as we've talked about, you are actually the product.
If they're not selling you a product, you are the product, but there are other apps and other aspects of your business that you're paying for that may not be. Giving more than they are taking from your bank account, because here's the thing we're in business to make money. Right. And if you're spending money that's money, that could be in your pocket.
So it's essentially like making money, right? So I'm gonna even share some tactical tips on how you can make more money and put more money in your pocket by deleting. The apps and the tools and some of the tech options or subscriptions that you may have even forgotten you are paying for. So let's tackle these each one at a time.
But first I do wanna share a little quick story and an update with you. So when I first decided to pivot this podcast, so that was back in episode eight. When I started the podcast call, it was originally called dream with me, and it was about helping entrepreneurs break down their big goals into bite size steps.
And I really felt called as I was taking this awesome podcasting course. And one of the steps was to create a social media online group, a Facebook group, if you will. And I was like, I just. I just don't know that I wanna do that. I don't know that I wanna put people in one more group. That's gonna take their time.
Right. And it really got me to thinking and praying, and it just, I had this huge kind of breakthrough moment to realize that social media. A lot of times is hurting our mental head space or hurting the time that we're spending or hurting. Even sometimes the money that we're spending, right. It's hurting more than it's helping.
And pretty much all of the training out there to business and growing your business or especially growing your network. Marketing business is all about how to build your social media following. And so I felt really called and really compelled to obviously share some ways that you can reduce the impact of the negative aspects of these on your business.
So, after I launched the podcast, I literally had put out that episode, maybe even the one after, and my husband and I were sitting on my back porch chatting about it. And he was like, well, what is your social media gonna look like? And I said, well, I mean, that's a great question. I'm kind of figuring this out as I go, but I feel.
You know, I'll probably still post some life updates here and there just to keep people in the loop on what's happening. And he said, actually, I really feel like that's gonna be confusing to your listeners and your followers. If you're still posting about your life and posting about all the things on social media, isn't that going to go against your mission?
Scaling without social.
And so I have not posted one thing. On Facebook or on Instagram, or definitely I wasn't really ever on Tik TOK or anything like that. In the last six months. And if you're listening to this, you probably already know that, but essentially I took and followed every bit of the advice that I've shared over the last 10 or so episodes with these five DS. And I took a big, long break.
Well, flash forward to last week, my husband and I went on
And we had an awesome date night and he was like, honey, I have to be honest with you. I'm having a lot of our friends and family say that they miss seeing updates for our life and our family and our girls. And he said, I really think that you might need to go back to Facebook.
And I'm, I'm laughing as I say this, because he was the one that kind of convinced me that I couldn't really do both, but he also gave me really, really great advice, which was that things don't have to be in life so black and white. And I have tried to be super transparent with you guys from the beginning that I'm figuring this out right along with you and that the, the mission and the deeper purpose behind this podcast truly is to help that busy mom, entrepreneur, who feels just overwhelmed by having to do all the things. And doesn't really want to share every facet of her life on social media. So she wants to grow her business. She wants to leverage the technology and some of the things that are out there, but she doesn't want to do it in a way that looks like being an online influencer.
And so, here I am six months into this and I cannot believe I'm saying this, but I am going to start taking some baby steps. Still, not sure what they're. Gonna look like, but I'm gonna take some baby steps towards integrating back into social media, just a little bit specifically into Facebook because I do it, it breaks my heart. My kids are at a new school. I ran into an old coworker that was like, gosh, it's just funny. Social media just doesn't show me your stuff anymore. And I was like, well, that's because I'm not on social media.
I actually started a podcast, told her the whole story, but I really sometimes miss. Those aspects of how social media was meant to serve us. And that is to keep us connected, to keep us updated on life events. I have missed, as I've mentioned, a couple of times, I keep hearing about Tragedies or really hard things that some people that I care deeply about are going through and they're being vulnerable enough to share about them on social media and I'm missing it. I'm missing out.
Full transparency. I don't miss the time that I was spending on social media. So it's going to be really hard for me to dive back in. I don't exactly know what it's going to look like because I've gotten in the habit of Not checking the apps. I never, technically I did delete Tik TOK because that was something that we talked about in episode 21 was specific to this D word, the delete episode that you should absolutely clear off the apps that are clogging your mental head space. And for me, Tik TOK was a clear one because that is one that is tempting to try to take over.
But it's also one that you have to commit to, to learn. And it's a completely different environment over there that that can just lead to some really kind of harsh, harmful. Addictions. And yeah, I just decided that was not for me. I never deleted Instagram, but I did really limit the time that I go on there. It's really just here and there. And to be honest, I still am not sure that that's an app that I want to dive into leverage because for me it is a little bit of a trigger of the comparison aspect more importantly for me as a strategist. And we talked about this and episodes in the past. My brain wants to use and leverage Instagram as a business strategy. And the entire purpose of this podcast is to focus on strategies outside of that. So for me, Instagram is less a place to stay connected to my friends and family and more, a place that I used to focus on building and scaling my business.
And so for that reason, I think it's probably smart for me to stay off that one at least for a little bit, I'm not saying never, because again, we don't have to be so black and white, right. But for Facebook, I am thinking about impossibly when the, by the time this podcast airs, maybe I will do one little update post.
To just step back into it, to take baby steps back into doing it the right way. And my husband had a great perspective that me taking the six month time period off of social media has allowed me to kind of see the bigger picture and to get to know myself and my motivations and my intentions behind social media, but also see the platforms for the values.
For what I might be missing, which again is staying connected to the people that I care deeply about. So. I have to share that and hope you don't mind the brief interjection of my personal story, but it really does play along with the topic of today's podcast, which again is deleting the apps that don't serve you. And I have to say that some apps might serve you so you don't have to delete them.
That's not what I'm asking you guys to do is to delete all social media, unless you want to or choose to. I'm just asking you to focus on some different alternatives that aren't going to play into those negative areas of your life so let's get into the three areas where you want to focus on that d word the delete.
Okay. So as you are considering deleting certain social media apps or tools or resources that you leverage for your business. The first factor that I want to focus on is your mental health and how are these apps and resources impacting that? So several factors that kind of play into that are the comparison aspect. Do you find that when you tune into say Instagram, do you find that it just takes more of.
Like that negative. Like, are you kind of just like mindlessly scrolling? Do you find yourself like clenching your teeth? Do you leave that app feeling either just like you're not good enough or you're comparing yourself with others. Do you, this actually happened to me over the pandemic, where I went down a rabbit hole of like disturbing and negative content where I was literally like staying up late at night, underneath the covers, like looking at stories
Some pretty crazy And who knows. Some of it could be very real and very true, but it certainly didn't serve me. And there was nothing I could do about learning some of the scary things that I was. The rabbit holes I was going down if you will. And so that time and that app in particular was not serving me. So another aspect of this is so much of social media is focused on the self.
So in business, if you follow Donald Miller and his StoryBrand, you will learn that in business, you are not the hero. Your customer is the hero. And so often as business owners and entrepreneurs, we try to make the story about ourself. When this is not about you, this is about your customers, their problems, and how, what you have might be the answer to solve their problems.
And so much of social media. And so many of these apps are so focused on that self mode. So, and again, we've already talked about the addiction aspect of that. You can go back and listen to prior episodes. If you want to hear how I compare it specific to alcoholism, I'll link those episodes in the show
But essentially these are all aspects of how certain social media apps can negatively impact your mental health. And if that's happening friends, then you need to delete A specific example for me was tic talk my way. And it wasn't just, for me, it was actually for my, my daughter, my 13 year old daughter.
We have for about almost a year now, I have not allowed her to be on any social media apps, but there was a time when she was just starting middle school, where she was spending a lot of time on tech talk, she was learning all the dances. She was getting sucked into it for hours a day, and it was really starting to impact her negative.
Mental or her mental health in a negative way. For a lot of factors and it was really starting to play into her anxiety. And so that was a clear decision factor that we made to delete that app for her. And quite frankly, I don't want to get into it myself either. So that's why that one is a hard, no, for
So that's the first aspect that you want to look into as you were deleting some of the apps, literally from your phone. Or from your The second aspect is going to be your time. So how much time are you spending it? I have frequently talked about on this podcast that you should go into the screen time app on your phone.
And really look into how you're spending your time each day, each week. And you can do the same for your kids too. If you're a mom of teenagers like me and it's kind of alarming. And I actually was on a call with one of my amazing leaders, Brianne, and she shared with me that one of her goals. And I think this is so brilliant is for each week to reduce the time that she's spending on her phone.
And that's the overall screen time because it updates you whether you want it to or not. Or I guess you can turn off the notifications, but it updates you each week. And I just got the notification that I was on my phone, I think like 20% more than the month before. So I love when Brianne shared that with me, that that is a goal to actually incrementally decrease by just a little bit each week so that she's spending less and less time on her phone.
So that's a perfect example of you don't have to delete. And she actually does build her business on social media, but we were talking about her. Our business and how she might look into some alternatives to social media, just because, you know, she wants to diversify the aspects of where she's bringing on business from other places. So that's another episode for another day, but I love that example because likely there are certain apps where you are spending way too much time and you're certainly not.
Getting the value or getting the business from those social media apps. It doesn't have to be social media. It can be other, other things, but you're not getting the investment back in your life. And there's only so much time in the day friends and we all have the same amount of time. Right. So if you're spending it on an app that is not serving, you might be time to delete it.
And then lastly, the area of your money. So again, Really when it comes to monetization with social media, again, they're trying to sell us ads and trying to, you know, make money from big corporations, which again, that might be you too. You might be using your ad dollars in ad revenue to boost your presence on these platforms, which guess what they want you to do more of that.
And so they're going to incentivize. And focus all their energy and efforts with their algorithms to incentivize you, to pay, to show what you have to more people. And they're doing the exact same thing to these big corporations. Right? So even if you're not paying for on social media, you, you are paying for it for your time.
But I also want to talk about, as we dive into a lot of really helpful tech tools. And if you listened into the interview that I did with Jake Dempsey from. Project broadcast. He's the CEO of project broadcast. And I got amazing feedback from the episode. A lot of you guys were so excited about it.
And if you want to learn more about project broadcast, or if you want to sign up for it, I will also include the link in the show notes. So you can just swipe right up and go into the descriptions and you'll see it down there. But basically that's a perfect example of something that if you are to invest in an app that is not free because it's not, it's very affordable and it's a lot less expensive than.
Any other texting platform out there, but if you're going to invest You want to make sure you're using And there are definitely a possibility that you have apps that you have forgotten you were paying for, that you don't even know that you're using. And they could be adding up to hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
In a year for you, especially if you are a business owner and while they are a tax deduction and a lot of ways that's money that could be in your pocket. So my amazing assistant, Jess and I actually went through my list of all the tech tools that I need and we're doing it, or the tech tools that I use in my business and which ones I pay for, which ones are free and which ones are our favorites.
And so I made a little spreadsheet in my notes app and I shared it with her. And I listed out the app, what it was for how much it's costing me each month and maybe an alternative that we might be considering to replace And I was shocked. You guys are going to die. I don't even know what the exact number is, but I mean, it was adding up to thousands of dollars a year in tech apps and some of them.
It might be necessary. Some of them, like, for example, zoom or project broadcast would be another one that is absolutely worth its while some of those I use often enough that I definitely can get the value from the investment and the return on the investment in my business. But so many other ones I either forgot I was paying for.
Or there's a less expensive option. That's going to serve my business possibly even better. So I would encourage you to do the same thing. So that's going to be your homework is to go through the apps that are on your phone. You can also go into your, and again, I have an apple phone, so I'm not exactly sure on a Samsung.
Or Android phone where to find this, but you can go into your app store and you can look at your previous purchases from your app store and essentially see those subscriptions that are recurring each month. Some of them recur each year. And you can see when they're coming up due and you can go in there and cancel them, delete them, get rid of them if you're not using them.
And if you don't find that they are serving your business in a positive way, So friends, I hope that this makes sense. I hope this is helpful in your business in terms of taking that last and final step to just start fresh when it comes to. Leveraging social media platforms, apps, tech tools, all the things to make sure that they are serving both your mental health.
Your time that you're investing. And your money. So. I am excited to maybe dive in and see some of you. If we're already friends on Facebook. If not definitely. Let's stay connected. I love to keep you guys updated each month on my email list. And I do send a text or two each month on all the things.
Just, I promise I won't spam you. It's just some relevant things that I want to share. So if you want to stay connected, text the word, connect to 9 1 2 4 0 5 8 9 1 2 and you'll get in. Those monthly update rhythms, where you can see more about my family. And business and all the things so thank you guys again for listening today i hope you have a great week
