Note: at this time transcripts are automated and unedited, which means errors may occur. But we hope you find them helpful!

[00:00:00] Viv: Welcome back to another episode of Marketing Without Social Media. Now, before we dive in, I wanted to let you know that if you are a service-based business, think coaches, consultants, therapists, who wants to get to $7,000 plus recurring months, yes, every month, but needs help with growing your audience, maybe with generating regular leads or landing paying clients, then I’d like to invite you to a free.

[00:00:26] Viv: 15 minute leads. Game plan call. Yes, just 15 minutes to work on your marketing plan. This is a super fast pace call and in this call we are gonna take a look at your current situation to see what is and isn’t working for you right now in your business. We’re gonna figure out and identify what’s possible for you and your business in the next six months and beyond.

[00:00:48] Viv: We’re gonna uncover the number one. That is restricting your growth and holding you back right now. And finally, we are gonna develop a three step action plan. [00:01:00] Yes, three step action plan that will get you results in your business. A S A P. Now the session is, Free. It’s 15 minutes and all you have to do is head on over to viv guy.com/game plan.

[00:01:15] Viv: Yes, that’s viv guy.com/game Plan right now. Pick a day, pick a time that suits you and let’s chat. In this episode, we are talking about why you can’t market without social media. So this episode is all about marketing without social media, but this is saying of the contrary to that, which is why you can’t market without social media.

[00:01:39] Viv: Okay? So we are gonna be talking about why you actually don’t believe it can be done if you are in that camp of, I just don’t believe it can be done. Then this episode is for you. So let’s dive in.

[00:01:58] Viv: You’re listening to [00:02:00] Marketing Without Social Media With me, Viv Guy, the podcast for people who want more clarity, connections, and cash in their business. I’ll be sharing with you proven techniques from leading entrepreneurs and experts from across the globe to help you to market without social media.

[00:02:19] Viv: And to grow your business in a way that actually feels good to you.

[00:02:32] Viv: So it was a bit of a trick title. I’m gonna hold my hands up because of course you’ve listened to me for a while. Hopefully you can of course, market your business without social media, but the belief out there for so many people. People is, you can’t market without social media. You must use social media.

[00:02:51] Viv: Of course, you must have to use it in some way, shape, or form. You must have to have content like organic posts going out there. Um, and a present to an [00:03:00] extent on social media. And this is a belief that many, many. People have, and this is a big one, like for me in the, in the line of business I do, and with the philosophy of message I share, this is the big objection I come up against for a lot of people, there is just not a true, true belief.

[00:03:17] Viv: Gosh, if you’ve ever watched the film The Christmas Chronicles, true believers, uh, there are many, many people who are not true believers that you can absolutely build and market a successful service-based business. Speak to you as a service based business cuz that’s my jam, not product based. Okay? I’m not saying it can’t be done for product based, but that is not my area of expertise.

[00:03:37] Viv: So you absolutely can build a business, but why do you believe that you can’t? Why is it that there is still a doubt? In your mind, and that’s what we’re talking about today. So it’s the start of a new year. And with New Years, you know, people start diets. They do dry January, give up the alcohol, all of these [00:04:00] kinds of things.

[00:04:01] Viv: I too am on the dry January giving up our coal because you know what? I was drinking quite consistently and frequently in 20. Two, after going to Australia to see my sister. Sorry, Gabby. Yes, I am blaming you. No, I’m not. I’m not truly not. But we got into this list habit of drinking, uh, a lot more frequently and a lot more.

[00:04:23] Viv: So I was like, you know what? I think I need to take a break. And it’s been really, really interesting because when I’ve been reading up on. Some of the, the effects of alcohol and things I, it got me to thinking there are so many likenesses to why we struggle with food addiction, alcohol addiction, nicotine addiction, as there are to social media addiction, and why we have this belief about why we can’t market without social media.

[00:04:50] Viv: So let’s talk about the brain. The brain. Okay. So as with, with. Nicotine food, we [00:05:00] get a dopamine hit. It says, oh, this feels pretty good. You know, I’m, I’m happy, I’m good. And that’s what we get when we scroll on social media or when we post content on social media and somebody likes it. Somebody views it.

[00:05:14] Viv: Somebody comments on it. Ooh, those, yes, those pesky bloody likes and comments that really, really influence our brain chemistry as well. So with that, every time we get these dopamine hits, our brain’s going, Ugh, I want more of this. I really want more of this. And so that’s where addiction starts with, with the dopamine response.

[00:05:34] Viv: Um, so we. . Okay. We see this all the time with people who are using social media, have to be on social media. I can’t put it down. Gosh. I was at the theater for a, a pantomime, uh, went to see Cinderella with the kids before Christmas, and the intermission came, the interval came and it was horrendous looking around the people all around.

[00:05:56] Viv: And the amount of parents who just pulled out their phones, and it’s [00:06:00] pretty obvious when everyone’s on Facebook, which was the main thing. I actually saw Facebook, we didn’t see many people TikTok or anything, but Facebook was the biggie where everyone’s suddenly scrolling on Facebook. I’m not saying they’re posting, I’m saying they’re just scrolling.

[00:06:12] Viv: The kids are there and they’re ignoring their kids. To be on social media. And I’m not shaming you if you do that. I’ve done it. We’ve been there. If you’ve read my story, you know, you know that I had a, my big reason for leaving social media was my, my eldest back way back when telling me, you know, to look at me, mommy, I’m a princess.

[00:06:29] Viv: And I ignored her. And I ignored her cause I was on social media in the scroll hole and she put my phone down and said, mommy, please put your phone down and look at me. I’m a princess. Whoa. Guilt, big guilt. And you know, we kind of lose being in the moment when we are on social media anyway. I’m digressing.

[00:06:46] Viv: Okay. So this is why they want to lure you into the scroll hole. Okay. And, and this is where we get addicted. Yeah. So even though we’re like, you know, there’s no real reason for us to pick up our phone and lock is we want a dopamine hit. That is the real reason we’re [00:07:00] picking up our phone, not because we think, oh my, I have to check if this critical piece of information has been posted on social media.

[00:07:07] Viv: It is not the reason we pick up our phone to scroll. We pick it up because our brain says, I need another dopamine here. Boom. Yeah. And that’s what’s happening when we drink. When we eat too many biscuits, too many cakes. Whatever it is. Yeah. Food addiction, alcohol addiction, nicotine addiction, so on and so forth.

[00:07:24] Viv: Drug addiction, bigger drugs. So the brain is a big part of this. When I’ve talked about this before, you’ve may maybe heard many times, heard me talk about the dopamine response. And I am not a scientist by any means. Uh, this is, you know, I’m, I’m not an NLP practitioner, but you know, these, this is things I have learned along my way through my, uh, much research from leaving social media.

[00:07:47] Viv: We’ve got this dopamine working to say, I need to go on social media. I need to go on social media. But we also have influence. So there are many people on social media who are saying like, look, I built my [00:08:00] business all on like social media, or, Hey, come and sign up for our course and we’ll show you how to get 50,000, uh, Facebook followers or Instagram followers or, Subscribers or whatever they are in, in a week, in a month, in six months.

[00:08:15] Viv: Yeah. We’re gonna show you how to do that. That’s our thing because we did it and now look at us, we’re millionaires. Okay. They are the exception to the rule. If that is the case, people have done that, or they may have started their business way back when in the day when social media. Was like, yeah, your post had 90% reach versus like 0.0009%, um, or whatever it is today, at the beginning of January, 2023.

[00:08:40] Viv: So we are seeing people influencing us, kind of saying, this is the thing, because these are the posts that we’re, we’re out there. And because we, we start to sort of see that we, we believe that we believe, you know, we’re seeing other people talking about how they’ve grown their business on social media.

[00:08:55] Viv: You know, all that content is around like social media. Social media. I’m on social media. I’ve got [00:09:00] a business. So even if they’re not saying I’m successful, we’re seeing so many people posting their content about their businesses because this is the world we’re in. So these are the types of communities we’re in.

[00:09:09] Viv: These are the things that are showing up on our feed. So we are constantly having a beliefs reinforced that you have to be on social media to run a business because everyone’s. . We’re seeing everyone around us on social media, continually posting on social media, talk about how wonderful their lives are.

[00:09:25] Viv: Let’s just call out some BS on some of that. You know, , you are looking at everybody’s highlight reel and how much of it is true? That is the question I want you to ask yourself. How much have you always painted that picture of, you know, this is what it’s really like. We’re actually going, fuck, I’ve got no clients.

[00:09:42] Viv: I’ve gotten this. So many of my clients have come to me saying, yeah, I put this post out and I feel like a hypocrite. Perhaps I don’t have X, Y, and Z. I’m not doing it myself. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I digress. So what we’re seeing is all of these people, it’s reinforcing this belief, okay? The belief that we have to be on social [00:10:00] media.

[00:10:00] Viv: So when someone like me comes on and says, whoa, you really don’t wanna be on social media because you’re getting a shitty return on investment, if any, you know, ie. You are not getting clients, you’re not making much money, and you could be doing a lot better if you got. And marketed without social media, through collaborations or other means, but collaborations, let’s say, because that’s the fastest way to grow your audience.

[00:10:21] Viv: See episode 49, um, and 48 and many, many others, . So we start to say, well, Viv, that can’t be possible because everything in my own life says, you know, you have to be on social. And there’s a part of me saying, but I really wanna be off it. I don’t like it. But whoa, dopamine starts to decre decrease. So your brain starts going, we need to get hit.

[00:10:43] Viv: Another hit. We need to get another hit. Which is again saying, go back on social media. We have to be on social media. Okay? Which is reinforcing. We need to be on there. And then we’re seeing other people when we go back on there and it’s creating this belief, we stop considering other possibilities that there are other ways to market your.[00:11:00]

[00:11:00] Viv: we start to cherry pick the information that reinforces our belief that we have to market with social media. That social media is the only way we look to find evidence that reinforces our belief. It’s called confirmation bias, and this is what we do as addicts. We find ways to say, I can’t go to a party.

[00:11:20] Viv: I can’t have a good time without alcohol, or I can’t celebrate without chocolate, or champagne, or hit of cocaine, or whatever your. Or I can’t relax without going for a cigarette break. Yeah, I, I can’t have a break without a cigarette. These are all beliefs and these are things we look to reinforce. Just today, a friend of mine was saying her husband’s been on a, uh, is on this course, I think it’s an electrician’s course or something, and he’s been going to college and the rest of the class are all smokers.

[00:11:50] Viv: So he’s taken up smoking. I mean, she was like, are you a teenager? But this is it. You know, there’s influence around that to fit in. You can’t hunt to be [00:12:00] part of the crowd, you have to smoke. And so that’s something that’s happened and this now belief that’s forming for this person. So we need to be really, really careful.

[00:12:08] Viv: We need to, you know, be aware that we are looking. For evidence to support our current existing belief. And we need to be aware of this because we need to be questioned actually. Is that the right, is that the, is that the truth? Is that the best way? And in our lives we will always do this. It’s not just with, with work, with social media.

[00:12:27] Viv: You know, if you are religious, You will look for things to confirm that your beliefs are are right and valid and just Okay. , I will look around for research that marketing without social media is right. So we look around for things to confirm our bias, our current belief. So what can we do about it? You might be like that.

[00:12:47] Viv: Oh yeah. , this is why you are feeling really stuck. Why you are kind of like always keeping, you know, a toe dipped in the social media organic content creation camp. You know, you’re still putting out the odd post. You’re still [00:13:00] hanging out a little bit on social media, even though you don’t really want to be because you’ve still got this belief.

[00:13:04] Viv: Okay? And I love this. When I was going to marriage counseling and the therapist said, you know, we talked about our, our sort of neural pathways and our beliefs and, and how it’s like, imagine a cornfield. I love this. Imagine a cornfield, okay, so in your brain, in your, your beliefs okay, are like a well trodden path through the cornfield.

[00:13:26] Viv: And in this cornfield where the path is world Trump, it’s really easy to walk up and down this. So because it’s easy, we don’t have to sort of battle through like knocking down really high, um, ears of corn or anything like that. Crops easy and that’s what we do with our beliefs and the things in our life.

[00:13:45] Viv: We go with the root. That is easy because it’s already the path that is tro. But here is the good news, haha. There is this thing called neuroplastic. What is this? It is the [00:14:00] ability for our brain to create new pathways. So to start boshing through that field of corn and start creating a pathway. Is it easy?

[00:14:11] Viv: Is it hell? If you can imagine like six, seven foot high crops and you’ve gotta start a whole new pathway. It’s gonna be hard. But if you think about when you take those first few steps, you knock the first few down so you can see the next ones, and you start treading them down, treading them down, tread ’em down.

[00:14:27] Viv: Now that other pathway is always there. Luring your back cause it’s easy. Okay? But eventually that’ll become a little bit more overgrow as your path, new pathway starts to get tro down. And this is what. The ability to rewire our brains and our beliefs. Okay? But this is where we have to question the things that we are looking to, the evidence that we are looking to within our world.

[00:14:51] Viv: And question, hang on. Am I just cherrypicking information here to make myself feel better that what I’m doing is actually the right thing? Or is there another way? [00:15:00] Look at your data, look at your numbers. That is always the thing I can say. You know what I say, what my beliefs are, what my pH. Other people can tell you theirs, but where is the actual factual information?

[00:15:12] Viv: It is in your data. So, you know, look at your data. Where is your, you know, what is it telling you? How much time are you spending on stuff? How much energy are you spending on, on, on marketing? How many clients you get, how many leads? Is it effective? Okay? And if it’s not, then you maybe still need to ask yourself the question.

[00:15:33] Viv: Is there a. Is there a more effective way? Is there a better way? Do I need to change my beliefs? It’s not gonna be easy because we get addicted to what we know, especially if it’s social media. These companies, you know, have they hire other companies to develop brain hacking technology specifically fought their.

[00:15:57] Viv: Yes. They want a hacky brain that is [00:16:00] part of it. As with alcohol, you know, as with anything, chocolate, blah, blah, blah, packaging. It’s all around like hack need your brain to make you want more of these things. Yeah. It’s all around us. Okay. This stuff that’s gonna get us hooked on things and believing we need certain things within our lives.

[00:16:16] Viv: Okay. look to the numbers for evidence, for proof to start. And, and I know , we’ve talked about confirmation bias. Really look at the numbers if you think, I just can’t look at this objectively and impartially, get someone else to look, get someone outside of your organization to have a look at those numbers.

[00:16:37] Viv: Come and speak to me if you want to. Let’s look together. Okay. Um, so as we start this new. Moving on, moving forward, and you are thinking, I need to move my business forward. I want to move my business forward. I want to grow. I’m sick of being stuck in place of, I’m just getting by, or it’ll do, or I’m okay, [00:17:00] but I want more, but I just not sure, you know, if you are in this eh, myth kind of position and you want to change things this year, but you can’t figure out why, you just can’t get.

[00:17:13] Viv: You know, away from like the hamster wheel of content creation, you know, on social media, you’re spending hours and hours creating bloody posts and scheduling them and everything else, and checking in and ugh, scroll whole stuff, and you’re like, ah, I want to do something else, but I just don’t believe it’s possible.

[00:17:32] Viv: Then I just ask you to give it. To try and think about the things they’ve talked about here today, to look at things from a different perspective because that level of awareness about what’s going on in our brains can sometimes just be enough to go shit. Yeah, man. For me, like understanding, like. The science behind stuff is, it’s always the whys and the where force.

[00:17:55] Viv: I struggled with physics so much at school cuz I had a physics teacher [00:18:00] who, when I would ask him question like, why is such and such like this? He’d just be like, it’s just because, you know, why is the universe the way it is? Why is it, you know, Why is infinite? Because it is. That’s not an answer. I can’t like take that on board.

[00:18:15] Viv: I can’t run with that. I can’t believe that I can’t get on board like with a, just because I need to understand the science and if you are like me, hopefully this has opened up. You know, you are, you are thinking and your perspective to, there is another way, and I don’t say it has to be without social media.

[00:18:31] Viv: Okay. That sort of collaborations is the way you might want to blog. You might. Do, um, Google ads, whatever it might be, but I just want you to think about is there another way them being stuck on the hamster wheel? That is the content creation machine and scroll hole that is social media. Hope you’ve enjoyed this episode and are rearing it to go for this year.

[00:18:57] Viv: Feel free to share this [00:19:00] episode with a friend if you think it would be of benefit to them. Can’t wait to speak to you next time. So there you have it, folks. I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of Marketing Without Social Media Today, and feel inspired to take action in your business, whatever that looks like for you.

[00:19:18] Viv: And as always, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. For tuning into another episode of this podcast, and if you haven’t done so already, please do subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss an episode. Speak to you soon.