Skip to main content

Marketing Without Social Media

woman's hands typing on a laptop


Can you run a business without social media? This is a tricky topic for me to answer because this last round of quitting social media coincided with me going into a bit of an early retirement (at least from my embroidery and design business), but I can tell you about the first time I took a hiatus from social media and how it affected my business. Simply put, my sales increased threefold while I was off social media.

Marketing Without Social Media

That is an impressive number, isn’t it? I was surprised. Like anyone else, I bought into the belief that social media was the only way people would find me was through social media but when I sat down and really looked at my numbers, my sales were NOT coming from social media. Pinterest (which I consider a search engine rather than social media) and my newsletter were the biggest referrers to my website. With that knowledge, I decided that I would focus on my newsletter, blog, and a few traditional marketing tactics to grow my business.

Newsletters

Instead of writing social media posts, I wrote high-quality content for my newsletters. It felt good to create content for people who liked my work enough to trust me with their email addresses.

When I was creating content for my Instagram account, I was putting hours into posts would be viewed by a few random people, and then only for a few minutes, before it was buried in an avalanche of other people’s posts.

But when I created content for my newsletters, they were more likely to be read by subscribers. If someone did not have time to look at my content right away, they could save it in their Inbox for later. It felt like I was being more respectful of their time and attention. Personally, when I receive newsletters from other artists and writers, I save them in a special Inbox file, then pick an afternoon to pour myself some tea and read them. It feels as relaxing as flipping through a magazine. With that in mind, I made an extra effort to produce newsletters that were high quality and inspiring.

I always made at least one sale when I sent out a newsletter. I was not getting that return on investment with my Instagram posts. I was writing content to put money in Meta’s pocket, not mine.

Blog

Goodness, my blog. You are here. You know I love my blog. It is the heart of what I do. And, when I had a business, my blog was a marketing tool. My primary focus was not to sell on my blog but to connect. I wanted to connect with my clients and my blog is a great place to introduce myself.

I know what some of you will say…that you use Instagram in the same way. And that may very well be the case. For me though, I want to share more photos and text than Instagram allows. I also want to own and control the content. Plus, I know I am weak. I will not just put up my post on Instagram and then leave. I will scroll and lose hours. Just because I am weak in that area does not mean you are, so maybe social media is a way for you to connect with your clients. It was not for me.

Traditional Marketing Strategies

Teaching and Networking

During my first social media detox, I was teaching, going to gallery openings, and belonged to some local artists groups. These were all ways to connect with clients and people who can help you get clients. The tricky part of this marketing strategy is that I had to decide if I wanted to be “world famous” or if I would be okay with the idea of having a successful, local-based company. And I was. Community is very important to me and being with people in my geographic location is especially important to me. I get a lot of joy getting to know my neighbors and supporting my local economy. Every time I go to our little downtown, I run into someone know. It is so joyful to stop and talk with a friendly person.

That is not to say I did not go outside my community and make friends. Whenever I would travel somewhere, I would see if there was an event I could go to, an embroidery shop to visit, or even a chance to teach a class at my destination.

While I know in-person have events have been difficult the past two years  I have watched many people teach in online platforms and continue networking online through blog comments and mentions. All without using social media.

Press

I have been an entrepreneur long before social media existed and press releases were the life blood of my marketing strategy back then. They have proven to be successful even now. Whenever a newspaper ran an article about my business, I would see traffic to my website increase and sales go up. You can send press releases and press kits out to traditional newspapers as well to popular blogs and websites.

Offer to do guest posts for a fellow blogger who shares your target market and invite other bloggers to do guest posts on your blog, write articles and tutorials for magazines. These are all great ways to get your name and business out into the world.

I truly believe you can build a business without social media; you just need to be creative about it. I would love to hear some ways you might market your business without it. Leave a note in the comments.

Read More

If you want to learn more about starting a blog, I recommend checking-out my friend, Anne Butera’s, Skillshare Blogging class.

Nicole Cicak shares an honest account of the effect quitting social media has on her business.

Alexandra Franzen has a put together a great list of ways to market without social media.

Kristin Sampson has a some interesting links and lessons about the topic as well.

Did you miss the first two parts of my story about leaving social media? You can read about why I left I social media and how to stay connected with people.

Join my Newsletter List. In addition to getting reminders when I put up new posts here on the blog, I am also thinking about bringing back my monthly newsletter which will be filled with content only subscribers will receive.

Labels:

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 2, 2022 at 4:39 AM

    Reading your newsletter is such a treat for me. I enjoy them and the frequency is right for me. Thank you for doing this ��

    ReplyDelete
  2. C. Jane ReidMarch 2, 2022 at 7:12 AM

    I love the comparison of sitting to read your favorite blogs like flipping through a magazine. Only it would be a magazine completed curated to your tastes. I'm definitely going to try that. I'm already finding it so much more satisfying to read a blog rather than scrolling through social media. And I'm less likely to lose hours.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayMarch 2, 2022 at 3:49 PM

      Blogs are the best. I hope you start writing soon!

      Delete
  3. Aleta JacobsonMarch 2, 2022 at 12:13 PM

    Thank you Laura. This is a great post for me and others who are in this social media cobwebs and trying to leave. You offered some great ideas and I thank you so much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Laura BrayMarch 2, 2022 at 3:49 PM

      Always willing to brainstorm Aleta! I hope you find a solution that works for you.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Building a Cookbook Library

I collect cookbooks.  I know I could look-up just about any recipe online, but I can't give up my cookbooks. I love sitting down with a stack of cookbooks and planning a holiday meal or dinner party. Sometimes, if I'm feeling bored or anxious, I'll pull a favorite cookbook off the shelf and just read it. I love the photos. I love to daydream about making the dishes. Sometimes they inspire me so much I get up and bake something. To me, cookbooks are so much better than cooking blogs. Is it just me or have they gotten impossible to navigate? First there's the pop-up ads that always seem to crash the website at the very moment I'm rushing to check how long the brownies are supposed to bake. By the time I reload the website, I have burnt bricks of chocolate. I also hate the long, drawn-out stories before I get to the actual recipe. Don't get me wrong. I love a good story behind a recipe. Heck, when I share my recipes, I usually give you a story. What I hate about mo...
20 comments
Read more

On gardening, reading, and dreaming

Yesterday was a spectacular spring day. After getting dumped on with a late snow in mid-April, and then days and days of cold wet rain, the sun and 70-degree weather was a welcome respite.  Gardening We headed into the garden early, just after breakfast, with carrot, radish, and lettuce seeds in hand. All cool weather crops, we usually have luck planting them early. If all goes well, we’ll be eating from our garden in mid to late May. The rest of our plantings will have to wait until Mother’s Day weekend or later, when the chance of frost is long past.  Cooking As we poked around the garden, we were able to harvest some kale and parsley which somehow survived the winter. To celebrate, I made a big bowl of tabbouleh which will take care of a few lunches this week and made creamed kale to go with the shrimp and grits my husband made for dinner last night. I don’t know why I feel so much happier when I’m eating food directly from my garden, but I do. I know it’s all in my head, ...
18 comments
Read more

A Year of Food Memoir

  Last year, when I decided to turn my creative attention to writing memoir, I knew I had to read it as well as write it . Looking at my reading journal, it looks like I read over twelve memoirs, each bringing me a different view on not only life, but also how to write one's personal story.  This year, I'm turning my attention to food memoir. If you have spent any time reading my old blog , you know that I love to cook and I've played with the idea of writing a cookbook or a food memoir for a long time so I thought it might be fun to read food memoirs and cookbooks this year to get inspired and learn how authors share their lives through food. Looking at my shelves, I realize that this interest isn't new to me. There's Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, who single-handedly ruined going out to eat for me. Isabelle Allende's Aphrodite is one of the most sensual books about food I've ever read. MFK Fischer's description of eating an orange that sa...
11 comments
Read more

Witcherature

  There I was in my family’s half-finished basement, surrounded by my friends. It was the mid-1970s at the end of October, in a small town in Ohio and my mom was throwing me an epic Halloween party. We had just finished a game where we sat in a circle on the old rug that barely protected our bottoms from the cold linoleum basement floor. My mom started telling us a scary story that involved body parts and, as the story went along, she would pass the ‘body parts” around the circle. It was pitch dark in the room and we could only use our hands, not our eyes. Ice cold hands (water that had been frozen in rubber gloves, a heart (peeled tomato), and eyes (peeled grapes) were solemnly passed around. My friends and I were around eight years old at the time, so we tried to laugh off our fear, tried to remind ourselves it wasn’t really body parts that were being passed around, but I think we were all relieved when the story was over, the lights turned on, and cupcakes started getting passed...
2 comments
Read more

The Garden Through the Years-June

This is our sixth year gardening. It's been a journey, every year we learn a little more. The garden has not only taught us how to grow plants, but also how to have patience and hope. It's taught me the healing power of nature. It has helped my husband and I grow our marriage through planning the garden and working side by side. It's inspired me creatively. Every year, I usually share a monthly update of my garden during the summer months. I'll continue the tradition this year, but I am also planning to share the garden's growth over the past six years. I'll show you what it looked like each month over the years. We started our garden in 2017, about 10 months after we moved to the Pacific Northwest.  My husband built our raised beds and we put up temporary fencing around the perimeter to keep the deer out. It was cumbersome to get in and out of the garden and it didn't deter the deer or the bunnies. They found a way in regardless. We grew tomatoes (too many)...
24 comments
Read more

How to Stay Friends without Social Media

How do you stay in touch with people once you leave social media? This one of the main concerns I hear from people when they find out that I’ve quit social media. To be truthful, you will fall out of touch with some people. But you know, that’s not always a bad thing. At least it wasn’t for me. According to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, the number of people humans can sustain relationships with is 150. He based this number (called Dunbar’s Number ) on the size of the human brain. The thesis is that primates are wired to be in group sizes that will assist with survival. While there are arguments about the validity of this theory, I know I feel stressed-out when I have too many relationships going on and not enough time to nurture them.   Being a good wife, mother, daughter, sister, and friend is very important to me. It brings me joy to take care of the people I love. I cook for them, check-in on them regularly, and give them my focused attention when I am with them. But I mus...
12 comments
Read more

The Seed Library

I am standing in front of the old, wooden card catalog of the Washougal Library and am reminded of the card catalogs of my past. The first was in my elementary school library where we learned how to look up books using the Dewey Decimal System. I remember the sound the drawers made as I slowly and carefully pulled them out-a quiet creak of wood in a silent library. Then the smell would fill the air. It was the smell of old paper and the typewriter ink the librarian used to carefully catalog the books.             Now, I look up my books on a computer but today I am, once again, standing in front of the card catalog. I pull out the drawer and am surprised that the sound and the smell are still there, even though I am standing in a library 2,455 miles away from the one in my memory. The drawer no longer holds cards listing a multitude of books to be read, instead it holds small packets of seeds.      ...
13 comments
Read more

A Slow Holiday Season

It is Christmastime at our house. We have pulled our trees and ornaments out of storage just in time for the darkest days of the year. It is an unusually wet season (even by Pacific Northwest standards) and most days it seems the sky is under a large piece of dark gray flannel. The sparkling fairy lights strewn over the mantel and the lights of the tree illuminate the house in a way that lamps cannot. The light fades just as I leave to pick-up my daughter from school. Before I go, I walk through the house, lighting the trees and all the fairy lights. It is a small, festive way to welcome her home from a wet day out in the world. When we get home, I make a simple snack. Apples and peanut butter, cheese and crackers, or, for a special treat, hot cocoa and popcorn. We sometimes turn on the gas fireplace.  We settle under quilts my mother-in-law made and watch Dash and Lily on Netflix . It is our second year watching it. We greedily look at the dreamy holiday interiors.The holiday soun...
4 comments
Read more

The Aging Inner Critic

  A funny thing happened over the past decade. My inner critic got old. The last time I really looked at my inner critic, about fifteen years ago, she looked like the identical twin of my high school art teacher. The one who told me that I didn’t have any artistic talent, thus crushing my dreams of becoming a fashion designer. But I looked my inner critic up the other day and discovered that witch got old! She no longer appears as my high school art teacher but is a completely new character running around in my head messing with me. She tells me her name is Maude and she’s an old woman of the most crotchety type. Her skin is creped and full of wrinkles, her hair is gray, she is short (like me) and thin (not like me, which, She points out, is because I over-indulge and She doesn’t). She smells of camphor liniment and the peppermint candies she clicks against her teeth whenever someone (me) says or does something that She doesn’t think is “appropriate”. Tsk. She wears sag...
14 comments
Read more

Leaving Social Media

I took my first social media detox in November 2018. I decided to take a break for 30 days. It felt amazing and I learned a lot about myself and my use of social media. I returned to social media, as planned, determined to take the lessons I learned from the detox to mindfully interact with Facebook and Instagram. I had the very best intentions. By May 2019, all my good intentions were forgotten and I found I was back to a place where social media was affecting me negatively . I promised myself that I would get back on track. (You know where this is going, right?) Before long, I was back to what I perceived as an unhealthy relationship with Instagram and Facebook. Something needed to change. The pandemic hit. I used it as an excuse to stay 'connected'. Instead of feeling connected, I watched in horror as people tore each other apart online, saying things they would never to say to one another if they were face to face.  In September 2020, I deleted my business page and told my...
10 comments
Read more