If you’ve been following this letter for a while, you’ll know I’m all about slow and sustainable growth. I advocate for being on one channel instead of five and focus my precious time on creating content that has longevity. You won’t see me dancing on TikTok videos or posting a dozen Instagram reels. It’s just not my vibe.
Lately, I’ve been feeling less alone with my choice of quietly quitting most social media channels. Due to mental health and political reasons, many people are resigning from X and Meta channels. I think we’re stepping into an interesting era where being on any specific channel is becoming a choice of values and lifestyle. What do we want to spend our days doing? Whose business do we want to be supporting? What are we really getting in return for the time we invest in these channels?
To get a better view of what’s going on with social media, I invited
, founder of the Social Media Escape Club as a guest to my High on Hope Rebel series. He helps artists and creatives leave channels that drain them and adopt marketing strategies that have longevity and real value.In our chat, we cover themes such as:
Why doesn’t Seth believe in ‘traditional’ social media platforms?
Where has he focused his efforts since?
What is the Social Media Escape Club about?
What can artists and creatives do instead of tweeting, tiktokking and reeling and can the alternatives actually be profitable?
What I appreciate about Seth is his commitment to helping creatives thrive and his way of cutting through all the BS that the world is telling us about how we should be spending all our time adapting to Meta’s latest algorithm. His words are like a motivational speech to anyone who is considering leaving social media and looking for alternatives that don’t suck you into another rabbit hole of measuring your value against pointless likes.
Words of Wisdom
Here are some of my favourite quotes from the interview. Save them, share them and watch the interview in full to get the context. All quotes by Seth.
[17:04] “We weren't meant to follow 5,000 people. We weren't meant to stay in touch with people we went to high school with and know what they had for breakfast. That's information that we just don't need.”
[17:45] “I think it's been so easy to just post on social media and that's what social media sold us. You can just post the thing on social media and it'll be seen 50,000 times. Great. Oh wait, it doesn't work like that anymore.”
[22:36] “All this time that we've been spending on that part of trying to grow our audience and remind our audience that we exist could be time spent becoming better artists, musicians, better at our craft.”
[6:05] “I think the absolute most powerful thing for any artist to do, if you're still on social media and you have those accounts, make every effort on there to drive people to your email list.”
[4:42] “I think you can be off of social media because as long as you have an email list, as long as you can directly contact fans of your work, you can have a career.”
[14:03] “It's scary sending 10 emails to creative directors, editors, people that could give you jobs. Scary as heck because 10 people might not email you back. It's a lot safer and it feels better putting it on social media knowing only 5% of your followers are even going to see it because then you can at least say, well, I did all I could. I posted on social media twice this week, so what more can I do?”
[10:59] “The biggest thing I think with that is like all of the work that goes into getting a hundred new followers on say Instagram, the next time you post something to Instagram, you're lucky if 10% of your fans will see it. So you just got a hundred new fans, maybe 10 people will see it. It's a lot easier to get 10 new people on your email list. It's just 10.”
To show ❤️ for Seth’s wisdom, get involved with his Social Media Escape Club and check out his website.
The High on Hope Rebel Series
This series of interviews features people who have taken a big leap of faith without knowing where exactly it will land. They’re also people who are breaking conventional rules about how to succeed in this world and figuring things out for themselves in inspiring ways. They’re the ones who publish a book even if people tell them it’s an impossible sell, leave social media even if it means slower business growth, choose ethical approaches to their work instead of maximising profit, follow a spiritual path rather than societal rules, share their stories even when they’re in the midst of personal turmoil, and open their hearts to talk about the good, the bad and the vulnerable.
They’re the type of rebels that the world needs more of.
They’re the people who create hope.
They’re the people I love to hang out with.
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Thanks for tuning in and giving my newsletter your time and presence. Let me know what kind of thoughts this interview sparked in you via email or comment below.
And when in doubt, focus on becoming the hope you wish to feel in this world.
With kindness,
Aurora
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