And how I am still using storytelling to market my business and share my expertise without LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter
Part 1 - Deleting Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter
In the middle of 2020, my relationship with social media turned uncomfortable. The global pandemic was only a few months old, and to sum it up with one phrase: there was a lot going on in the world.
Like many, I had a ton of anxiety about everything that was happening and also about being isolated at home. Plus, everything was in flux with my business at the time. I was rebuilding a fully in-person business to become something else because I had no other option.
During this time, while scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, I could feel my anxiety in my body, and then the more I stayed on each social media platform the more I would disengage with my present reality.
With increased and continued social media use, I noticed that two parts of my personality reemerged — parts of me that were loud and overpowering towards the end of college, in my twenties, and even into my early thirties (I'm 40 now). I worked really hard to silence these aspects of who I am, yet now I was fighting against their resurfacing — trying to push them back down and failing to do so.
Personality problem #1: I was comparing myself to other people. For me, this looked like deep-diving into the profiles and posts of other entrepreneurs and their small businesses and feeling like there was something wrong with me because their businesses were surviving, even thriving, when mine had crumbled to the ground at the beginning of a global pandemic.
Personality problem #2: I was judging other people, reading into how people were behaving during the pandemic and if it was different than how I was behaving, I grew angry and plotted to never see certain people again or even talk to them again.
When comparing myself to other people I was creating a false narrative about myself. And in judging other people’s behaviors and actions during this tumultuous period in time, I was creating false narratives about them.
I was disappointed in myself that these unwanted parts of me were coming back. I worked really hard over the course of a decade to move through these feelings and move past them. And for a few years prior to March 2020, I was in a space where I could fully trust myself personally and professionally, and stay in my own lane while working towards staying open to everybody and all perspectives.
Comparison and judgment were at the wheel because of social media. This is how I was engaging with others and with everything that was happening in the world. The more I scrolled, the more anxious, judge-y, and comparison-y I felt.
And so I made a decision in July 2020 to pull back from social media. I was no longer going to post and I was no longer to engage with any of my accounts — both the personal ones and the professional ones.
I had a lot of accounts.
On Twitter, I had a personal account, an account for Tell Me A Story, and an account for my podcast, Rashomon.
On Facebook, I had my personal Facebook profile, and three different Facebook Pages — one for my former comedy career, another for TMAS, and a third for Rashomon. I was also in a TON of Facebook groups — a combination of podcast listener communities, women-in-business professional networks, and my personal favorite - the Trinny Tribe.
I had four Instagram accounts! My personal, TMAS, and Rashomon. Plus, a fourth account that I had started long ago for a failed affiliate link business called Shopping British. A business story for another day, but the important piece is that I kept the Instagram account curated to follow celebrities and influencers. It was like my guilty pleasure account, and the hardest to let go of.
Somewhere in Q3 or Q4 of 2020, I said, “You know what? I’m going to have a ceremonial December 31st, deleting all my social media.”
And so I did.
I didn't light a candle or play music or do anything like that, but I did sit down at my desk with my iPhone, took a deep breath, and deleted everything.
Let me tell you, social media companies do not make it easy to delete their accounts. I had to click delete buttons over the course of multiple screens with messages like, “Are you sure? You will lose everything!”
Some platforms made it so difficult to do that I had to Google “How to delete my account.” I remember having to get onto my computer to delete Instagram because the mobile app hid all of the possible ways to do so.
My recollection is that it took me between one and two hours to delete everything.
Even once I was able to delete all of my accounts, I still received confirmation emails that said “If you want to download all of your photos, you have 30 days to come back! “
I didn't want any of it and I never went back.
But there was still one social media platform that I held on to… LinkedIn.
Part 2 - Deleting LinkedIn
I was never one that really engaged with LinkedIn. I think someone at a networking event once told me that as a business owner, I must have an account. And so I set one up.
When I first created a profile, I struggled with the limitations of the platform and thought, “Hmm… this doesn’t feel like a way that I want to express myself as a leader, a founder, or a storyteller.”
I couldn’t even figure out the best way to use the platform. And so I never really used it.
There was one instance where I did make good use of LinkedIn. I was in production for the first season of my podcast, Rashomon. I was putting together an episode about a friend of mine reliving his experience as a fourteen-year-old contestant on the PBS game show Where in the World is Carmen San Diego? After hearing one contestant’s side of the story, I wanted to hear pieces of the story from the host’s perspective.
I did a quick Google of his name and the only result that appeared was his LinkedIn profile. In order to contact him I needed a premium account. And so I signed up for a free trial just to send him a message and ask him to record an interview for my podcast.
It worked! He wrote back and we moved the conversation over to email. A few weeks later we recorded a conversation for my podcast.
When I was deleting Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, deleting LinkedIn didn’t even occur to me. Because I engaged with it so little, I figured I would just keep it active in case I would need it in the future for additional Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?-esque outreach.
Once I was without my three major social media platforms, I turned to LinkedIn. I hypothesized: Perhaps this platform is actually the platform that makes sense for my business because I work with founders and leaders of other people’s companies and both of these audience types spend time on LinkedIn. (I think?).
I also thought it would be a good way to market my own thought leadership by sharing episodes of podcasts where I was the guest, and occasionally sharing installments of my newsletter, The Speak Up.
And while I spent two years creating a marketing strategy that focused on recording podcast interviews, leading workshops in communities where my potential clients were hanging out, and inviting people to my live, virtual Speak Up Session, I still felt kind of obligated to engage with LinkedIn.
1. Because I had a profile still and hoped to stay top of mind for some folks that I was connected to there.
2. Not that anyone put pressure on me, but I thought, “Well, I can’t help podcast hosts spread the word about our guest episodes over on Instagram or Twitter, so I should share here because they must expect to.”
It was fear and a people-pleasing pressure that no one was putting on me but myself.
In the two years sans FB, IG, and Twit(ter), while I successfully removed any default go-to of scrolling the ‘gram, checking Facebook groups, or searching for “likes” and comments, I noticed that I would head over to LinkedIn on my web browser when I was procrastinating on a big task for my business. If I felt uncertain about an action or an outcome that led to a consistent low hum of anxiety, I would scroll LinkedIn.
I was disappointed that this behavior was happening after kicking the habit with my other social media platforms and so I added LinkedIn to my site blocker app, only allowing myself to log in on Mondays and Tuesdays.
When I did log in (and sometimes this happened on a Wednesday or Thursday because I was anxious and hit quit on my site blocker), I would see the numbered pings of notifications and feel a rush.
So-and-so viewed my profile?! Who are they!? What could this mean?!
And then an immediate afterthought of Oh, now they're going to see that I viewed their profile, and what is this all about?
I was falling prey to more false narratives, plus an algorithm that was designed to keep this narrative going, keep me staying curious, and keep me on the platform as long as possible.
Another reason I held on to LinkedIn after deleting the other social networks is that I felt like I needed to use it as a networking tool and as a tool for social proof.
While I changed my entire business model and service offerings in 2020, I was still open to leading larger corporate training gigs — something I had done in the early years of my business.
I led a company program in 2021 and once it was over I thought, “Well everyone I worked with here is on LinkedIn, staying connected to them on this platform must be the best way to network and relationship-build. And maybe, just maybe, leaders at other companies will see the work that I did with this company and it will lead to more work…” I repeated this same sort of logic for my potential one-on-one clients that were connected to me on the platform.
Did I truly connect with any of these people on the platform during this time?
No.
In the fall of 2022, when I was reviewing my marketing efforts, my time and energy spent, and questioning whether or not to leave LinkedIn for good, I was running through the pros and cons with my business coach and I remember using the words vet, legit, and real.
“LinkedIn is a place where people can vet me. It will show them that I’m a real person and that my work is legit.”
I cannot believe I had these thoughts, let alone that I expressed them out loud to my coach!
Retyping them now pains me.
This notion of vetting, proving credibility, and showing people that I was REAL, was the real reason it was hard for me to let go of my LinkedIn profile.
What I've realized in these last few months, looking at the true data in my business of how my clients come to me and how they make their purchasing decisions, 0% of my business comes from a LinkedIn profile view or the LinkedIn equivalent of sliding into DMs.
And because I did not enjoy using the platform to post, network, or engage, I no longer wanted to use it as a tool for sharing my story.
I did not need it as a tool for sharing my story. I had so many other, more exciting, more aligned, more true-to-my-voice ways of sharing who I am, what I do, and what I stand for with my desired audience.
And as far as my own trust in myself, my expertise, and my leadership are concerned: No one needs to vet me on LinkedIn.
I know I am a real person, I know that my work is “legit”. And I know that all someone needs to do is put my name or my company’s name into Google and they will see it for themselves. I have a large digital footprint with a wealth of resources and a very clear “contact me” button on the Tell Me A Story website.
I don't have to prove anything to anyone.
I deleted my LinkedIn profile, unceremoniously, on December 28, 2022. I chose this day vs. the ceremonial 31st of 2020 because Mercury was going into Retrograde on the 29th and I did not want the stars and planets to interfere with this very important decision. (I’m half joking here, but really, astrology has been a great leadership tool for me.)
Part 3 - The Before + After
If you would like to learn more about how I was engaging with social media in terms of my small business marketing and how I am still using storytelling to market my business and share my expertise without LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, please check out these two podcast conversations:
The first was my conversation with Meg Casebolt on her podcast, The Social Slowdown. We recorded this conversation a year into being social media-free.
The second was my conversation with Tara McMullin for her podcast, What Works. We recorded this conversation a few weeks before I deleted my LinkedIn profile for good and much of what I share above is based on the unedited, unused transcript of our initial interview.
If I were to sum up my after — both the two years and counting without FB, IG, and T and the few weeks without LinkedIn — as a handful of takeaways, they would be as follows:
I’ve had the best two years of business (both revenue-wise and self-leadership-wise) since Tell Me A Story began operating as a full-time company at the end of 2016.
Without the pressures of an algorithm or the verbal and visual constraints of a digital interface, I’ve found my true voice as a leader and a storyteller.
I’ve unlocked my creativity in terms of how I want to market my business and share who I am with others and I’ve gone on real-life adventures to reach new audiences that were harder to connect with via a social media platform.
I’m happier as a human being and far less anxious about what other people think of me, my brand, or my business.