This topic was suggested by Enitsedom Fullilove-Thigpen. If you want your own topic featured, all you have to do is fill in this form.
I chose to feature this topic because it’s not just Enitsedom who asked me about it — nearly all my clients ask me about this during our 1:1 strategy sessions. Social media fatigue is real and the burnout it can cause hurts a lot!
So today we’re exploring promotional tactics that don’t involve you massaging social media algorithms
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Let’s start by addressing the elephant in the room:
Can I build a sustainable business with zero social media activity?
Yes, you can but it’s going to be hard as hell! Sorry, there’s no sugarcoating it!
For all its faults, social media does many “jobs” for entrepreneurs:
- It allows you to get discovered by both potential clients and potential partners.
- Your leads can use it to “vet” you in more ways than one. For instance, a large social media audience will instantly increase your trust capital — people assume that your hundreds of thousands of followers can’t all be wrong.
- You can use social media to attract an audience to the platforms you own and control.
Still, social media is rented land and you should never build your home on rented land. Plus, it’s fickle, and every social media platform decays with time AND turns on its users.
Shameless plug alert: non-social-media audience growth is a big part of my Audience Accelerator course launching in July this year. Want to grow your audience without spending 20+ hours on social media every week? Join the waitlist here.
Let’s break down your dependence on algorithms you can’t control.
10 “tame” channels you can use to promote your business that are NOT social media
First, a caveat: not all these channels are the right fit for everyone. It depends on your budget, what you excel at (video, audio, writing), and so on.
However, I am sure you can find at least a couple of them you can leverage:
1. Email marketing/newsletters
Why it’s awesome: you own access to your list. Even if your ESP goes belly up, you can upload the list into another one.
There’s also an underrated benefit of email marketing — segmentation: you control who receives what message. For instance, if someone already bought one of your products, there’s no reason to keep emailing them about it. You can’t do this kind of segmentation on social media, so all your followers will keep hearing about the same offer ad nauseam.
Why it sucks: the newsletter space is getting more and more crowded by the minute, so it can take a long time to build a decently-sized list.
2. SEO
Why it’s awesome: once you’ve managed to rank for a few good keywords, you’ll get organic traffic for years to come.
Why it sucks: it takes a minimum of six months to get those rankings and you will lose them in time, unless you keep updating your old pages and adding new ones.
Still, if you have a blog or a website, it’s worth doing some light optimization on everything you publish.
3. Podcasts (hosting your own or being a guest)
Why it’s awesome: it’s a great way to tap into other people’s audiences (as a guest) or build a brand-new audience from scratch. This is a good website to find guests for your podcast or host looking for guests. There are countless more similar options out there.
Why it sucks: hosting a podcast takes up A LOT of time (think 1-3 days every week if you’re a solo founder). Even being a guest is time-consuming: find relevant podcasts, send them pitches, show up to record, and so on.
4. Paid ads
Why it’s awesome: it’s the fastest way to get your product/service in front of the right eyes. Most platforms allow for in-depth segmentation, so, with the right creative and copy, you can get a really nice bang for your buck. I wrote more about paid growth here.
Why it sucks: it’s right there in the name — you need a budget to make it work. The higher the budget, the better the results. Plus, once you’ve stopped pouring money into it, the results will stop coming too.
5. Affiliate marketing (for products)
Why it’s awesome: for a commission on the sale, other people will do the legwork for you and promote your products. Pro tip: the bigger the commission and the price, the more incentivized they will be to promote it.
Why it sucks: affiliate programs can be hard to set up and you need a large audience and/or a popular product to make a dent.
6. Referrals (for service providers)
Why it’s awesome: referrals act like affiliate marketing for service providers — in exchange for a commission (usually higher than in affiliate marketing), someone recommends your services to their network. Of course, you can also get free referrals or reward them with free products/services.
This is how my referral program works. Did you see the rewards you can access? Scroll down to the bottom of this email and find them.
Why it sucks: again, you need a large and relevant audience for this to work at scale.
7. Influencer/creator marketing
Why it’s awesome: tapping into an influencer’s audience can make a world of difference for your business, provided they’re the right fit. You can work with micro-influencers or go straight for the big names in your industry — it all depends on your budget.
Why it sucks: you will need to allocate some budget for this, even if you work with micro-influencers. The workaround is collaborations with influencers (see below) or barters but not all of them are open to it.
8. Collaborations and partnerships
Why it’s awesome: it’s very flexible — you can work with a company/creator in a complementary field (think copywriters and web designers) or with a direct competitor (think two copywriters doing a masterclass together). Plus, you can work together to build an audience or products — the sky is the limit!
Why it sucks: it can take some time to find someone you trust enough to build something together.
9. Social proof on third-party platforms
Why it’s awesome: social proof is the golden standard of persuasion, even more so when potential buyers can see it on websites you don’t control, like G2, Capterra, Google Business, Amazon, Yelp, and so on. If you can incentivize your buyers to leave reviews on third-party websites, make it a priority!
Why it sucks: not all businesses have a profile on a review platform and it can be time-consuming to set it up.
10. Offline and online events
Why it’s awesome: conferences, webinars, summits, masterclasses, masterminds — all of them attract people with a real interest in a certain topic. They can be real goldmines for finding clients or partnership opportunities.
Why it sucks: they’re time-consuming and, as expected, the best of them come with a hefty price tag. Also, not all of them have networking opportunities.
4 wacky, out-there tactics and channels (try them once, brag forever)
These tactics are not for the faint of heart and they can be pretty hit-and-miss. If you have the budget or the risk appetite, go for them — you only need one of them to take off to get an amazing ROI boost
11. Buy a 10-second ad in Times Square.
Why it’s awesome: it’s more affordable than you’d think and you can use the photo for years to come. Quite the flex!
Why it sucks: unless you invest a lot in keeping the ad up for days or weeks, you’ll have little more than the flex. For actual ROI, you’ll need a bigger budget. Then again, you never know when the right person will pass by your Times Square ad at the right time.
12. Talk about a popular brand/creator in your newsletter/blog
Why it’s awesome: if there’s a brand or a creator you truly admire, why not write about them? You can even send them the link to the piece — if they share it with their community, you could gain a lot of traction!
Why it sucks: there’s a fine line between an analysis piece and a suck-up piece. Plus, you can only do it so many times.
13. Write a book
Why it’s awesome: irrespective of the number of sales it gets, it will position you as an authority in your field. The mere fact that you were able to write 100+ pages on a topic means you know a little something about it.
Plus, you can self-publish fairly easily, you don’t need to wait for a book deal to come through.
Why it sucks: it takes a lot of time! It’s also hard to track its ROI. Some people may buy what you’re selling just because you’re a published author but you won’t be able to tell how many.
Do it if you have enough to go on and if you truly enjoy writing.
14. Create a giveaway with MASSIVE prizes
Why it’s awesome: forget iPhone 15s, can you go BIGGER without going bankrupt? Before you tell me you don’t have the budget for it, know that it doesn’t need to be a cash prize or something you need to purchase.
You can offer:
- All the products you’re currently selling for free → ideal if you have a big portfolio of products because fulfillment will be very easy for you.
- Your time → work with the winner for 3 months/a year.
- Your services → whatever you sell, there’s someone who needs: a full website design, copywriting for an entire website + social media profiles, coaching/consulting for the winner and their entire team, and so on.
- A full-expenses-paid trip in a paradise-like location. Partner with a travel agency to cushion the blow to your budget. Sparkloop offers a free trip to Cancun to their top affiliate.
What to ask in return? Well, it depends on your goals. For instance, you can ask them to drive subscribers to your newsletter or buyers to your product. The person with the most referrers wins the BIG prize.
Why it sucks: budget aside, massive giveaways take some time to put together, manage, and ensure the prizes are won fair and square. If you think you can pull it off, though, it might just be the biggest growth lever you can pull — and it works like a charm in most industries.
✋ Limitations
Sadly, most of these tactics work even better when paired with social media. I advise you to try one or two every quarter. Unlike social media, most of them do not require ongoing effort.
Go on, live a little! There is life outside social media feeds, I promise!
That’s it from me today!
See you in your inbox next week.
Here to make you think,
Adriana
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