This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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We're gonna jump back into question and answer here on Side Hustle School. My name is Chris Guillebeau. I hope you've been enjoying the format this year. I'm having a lot of fun. I'm getting lots of great questions from folks.
And by the way, just a reminder, if you have a question, we'd love to hear from you. If you've got a side hustle, you wanna share something about it, that's great too. Just go to sidehustleschool.com/questions. It's pretty simple. You can also just click the Ask Chris link at the top of the website.
Now, I really like today's question. So listen carefully. This listener makes motion videos and backgrounds for churches, but he dislikes social media. Hashtag not a fan. Should he just get over his resistance or can he succeed without frequent posting?
Is there an alternative? I actually have a very real non wishy washy opinion about this question. And it's not just for our caller, but also for anyone who sells anything. So what if you don't want to use social media? That's what we're gonna talk about in today's episode.
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Hi, my name is Ted from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I've been listening to Side Hustle School for a little over two years now. My side hustle is making motion videos and backgrounds for churches to use on their Sunday morning services. My question is, is it possible to build a thriving side hustle or business without harnessing social media? Hashtag not a fan. Currently, the videos I make are uploaded to one site where they take care of all the marketing and branding, and I get paid a commission on every video that's downloaded.
I have recently started my own website so that I can retain full commission on everything that sells, but I know I need to get the word out there to my target audience. So what would you recommend on reaching those people without using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all that stuff? Can't wait to hear what you have to say. Thanks a lot. So as I said, I love this question, and I have a real non-wishy-washy opinion about it.
First, here's the context, and not just for Ted, but for everyone. Your choice to use or not use social media, as well as how to use it, which platforms to use, how often to post, all that kind of stuff, everything in that category, it depends on how you choose to engage with your customers. So it's not so much like a one-size-fits-all answer, but if you're in the fashion space, for example, then you probably better be on Instagram, okay? You should have a strong Insta strategy from the beginning. If your business is political commentary, it's gonna be hard if you hate Twitter, because so many conversations take place there.
If you're doing resumes, most likely you need to be on LinkedIn, and so on. And it doesn't mean that every business should try to do all those things, especially when you are the business, as a side hustler. And I actually think for a lot of brands, even large brands, large and small, it doesn't always make sense to have a collection of random social accounts that have no real purpose. Like, I think it's actually kind of dumb when there's a brand that really has no need to be active on these platforms, and they're just trying to post all the time, inspirational quotes, et cetera. I had a clogged sync recently, and what did I do?
How did I solve the problem? I didn't go looking through my social feeds. Like, I went to the store and I bought some Drano. There actually is a Drano brand account that's posting stuff online, but why in the world would anyone follow them? Like, you just need a solution when your sync is clogged.
So what does that then tell us about Ted's question? At first glance, I don't think that the way he engages with his clients really has much at all to do with social media. I don't think it has to. He is serving churches, so the buyers there are either ministers or church boards or whoever is in charge of, quote unquote, business stuff at churches. And I would imagine that the way he gets to know these people is through more traditional networking or maybe even cold emailing.
That's still different from social media. And they probably don't care if he's posting on Snapchat, you know, every three hours. So my answer is Ted, I think it's okay to relax. You can focus on serving your customers. There are other ways to reach them.
Hashtag go forth. I hope that helps listeners. Once again, sidehustleschool.com/questions. We'll be featuring them throughout the year along with updates from other listeners. This has been episode 1131.
One, one, three, one. Another Throwback Thursday coming up tomorrow and much more is on the way. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
