This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey friends, what's up? Welcome back to Side Hustle School. Really excited about this year. This is episode 3,290. I've got a listener question for you, our first one of the year.
The question is, what if you don't want to use social media? What if you're just over it? And listen, I know a lot of people out there kind of feel that way. They're frustrated with algorithms, they're frustrated with noise, with so much spam and advertising and such, and probably some other frustrations as well. But if you want to hustle, if you want to have a small business of some kind, if you want to sell services, products, et cetera, can you just completely ignore social media?
Like this guy in his question, he says, I am hashtag not a fan. So should he just get over his resistance? Or can his business succeed in another way? So I really like this question because as I said, I know a lot of people are feeling this, or maybe they just don't want to rely on social media, they want to do something different. And so in this case, this guy makes motion videos and backgrounds for churches.
But I think like the situation can apply to a lot of people. So if you're thinking about starting a new product or service or how to get your products or services out to people, what do you do? Should you also just kind of get over it or is there something else, another solution? I've got a real non-wishy-washy opinion about this question, I will give it to you. Detailed version from him, the question that is, and my response coming right up.
[Music]
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. [Music]
Hey, Ted, what's up?
Thanks for listening. Thanks for being out there. And as I said, I love this question. I'm gonna give a real answer here. And also the context perhaps, not just for Ted, but for everybody.
I think your choice of whether you use social media as well as how to use it, which platforms you use, how often you post, all that kind of stuff, I think it really depends on how you want to engage with your customers. Like where are your customers? How are you going to reach them? How are you gonna meet them, converse with them if you need to do such a thing? And not every brand needs to do this, to be very clear.
I think if you're in the fashion space, for example, you gotta be on Instagram. Like that's just, you have to have a strong Instagram strategy if you are in the fashion space. If your business is political commentary, most likely you're going to be on X, AKA Twitter, just because that's where a lot of conversations take place. If you're doing B2B sales, then probably you wanna be on LinkedIn. Probably for a lot of other businesses as well.
But the point is, the business and the social media need to match. And if they don't match, then you really shouldn't try to force it. In fact, this is something you can take off your plate entirely. There's a lot of businesses that really don't need to be on social media, except for maybe, I don't know, maybe like one profile somewhere, but they don't have to be posting all the time. The example that I think of is, I had a clogged sink recently, and I didn't go and look through all my social feeds to figure out what to do.
I didn't need to have a conversation with the makers of Drano or Liquid Plumber or any other product. I just, I went to the store and bought some, okay? So maybe from some big branding or marketing perspective, you could say, oh, but they had to create brand awareness, but that's just a, that's not something that you need to think about as a side hustle for the most part. You just need a solution when your sink is clogged. And so a lot of people like Ted are providing solutions.
And I don't think that the way he engages with his clients has much at all to do with social media. He is serving churches. So the buyers are either ministers or church boards or whoever is in charge of like placing orders for things, business stuff at churches. So I imagine the way he gets to know these people is through more traditional networking or perhaps cold emailing or introductions and such. And those people I'm guessing don't care if he's posting on TikTok.
And so Ted, I think you should go focus on serving your customers. There are other ways to reach them. Hashtag go forth. That's my recommendation to Ted and anybody else out there. If you are overwhelmed with social media, there are other ways.
We're gonna talk about a lot of different things this year. And I hope you will subscribe and follow. I'm putting together some special stuff for our 10th year. And I'm so grateful for our community. If you have just joined Side Hustle School, well, welcome.
It's all completely free. The archives are available on the website, sidehustleschool.com, 3,200 plus episodes for download or streaming wherever you like, whenever you like. And much more is coming out as well, of course. My name's Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.
[Music]
From the Onward Project.
