How to Leave Social Media Without Losing Your Clients

Sam Vander Wielen: [00:00:00] You’re posting on social media, you’re showing up, you’re trying to do all the right things on social, but your engagement is low. The growth feels glacial, and worst of all, you hate being there. It’s exhausting, and it’s starting to feel like a second job that you never even wanted. What you actually want is to build a business that grows consistently, connects deeply with your audience, and gives you your time and energy back without spending your life on social.

But the problem is, everybody keeps telling you that if you want to have an online business, social media is a non-negotiable. That logging off is basically business death. So in today’s episode, I brought in Amelia Hruby, somebody who’s built a real profitable and values led business without relying on social media at all.

We get into the mental health [00:01:00] toll of always being on and capturing your life for social media, the surprising ways you can actually grow your online business offline. Whether it’s truly possible to build a sustainable business without the algorithms. Spoiler alert, yes it is, but maybe not how you think.

Amelia is a feminist writer, podcaster, and producer with a PhD in philosophy. She is the founder of Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives, and she’s the host of Off the Grid, a podcast about leaving social media without losing all your clients. That’s why I thought Amelia would be the perfect person to have this conversation with you today.

Now, keep in mind as you listen to this episode, I am a big believer in not a one size all fits strategy, right? A many sizes, fits some strategy. So you can listen to this and you can take pieces. So I want you to agree with me upfront before listening to this episode. We are not here [00:02:00] today to talk about either you’re on social and you’re addicted to social and you’re trying social, or you completely log off and cut off all ties to social too, and then try to run your business elsewhere. There’s a lot you can take away from today’s episode that you can integrate into your business. I know that I am doing a lot of these things.

I’m not off of social media, but I am moving away its importance. I’m always focusing on the big three, so I’m a big proponent of like listening to things in business. Taking what you like, taking what you need and leave the rest, right? So if you listen today and you don’t completely agree with something we say, or you don’t completely agree with a strategy, that’s okay.

See if there’s a nugget that works for you. See if there’s a nugget somewhere else that works for you. Drop the expectation that this whole thing is either so black and white, that you’re either on or off, right? So I’ll see you on the other side. I wanna hear from you how you liked this episode. Let me know what came up for you send me a message. Um, reply to my email, but otherwise, kick back, relax, and enjoy this chat with Amelia.[00:03:00]

Hey Amelia, welcome to On Your Terms®.

Amelia Hruby: Hi Sam. Thanks for having me.

Sam Vander Wielen: How are you today?

Amelia Hruby: I am honestly really excited to be here and just feeling pumped for this conversation.

Sam Vander Wielen: I’m pumped for what everyone is about to learn from you for the next hour or so. So speaking of will you tell the listener what they can expect to learn from sitting and chatting with you today?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I always like to say that I bring a big dose of like pep talk meets permission slip to every conversation that I have. Essentially what we’ll unpack today is this myth that you have to be on social media to have a successful business. We’re gonna dive into all of the reasons we believe that, as well as why it’s not really true for most businesses, and just infuse that conversation with a lot of kindness and [00:04:00] practicality. So that’s what we’ll get up to, I hope, in this episode.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. Yeah. You’re very good at this, so I, I have no doubt. So, yeah. Speaking of whether or not it’s possible, I, I could imagine that someone coming in to today’s episode has this like side, side-eye skepticism coming in and they’re saying, is it really possible to grow? I should say run, let alone grow a online business successfully without being on social media. I would love to hear your answer to that.

Amelia Hruby: Yes, so I think it is absolutely possible to run an online business without social media. I speak from my own experience in which I do that and also from the experiences of like dozens and hundreds of online business owners who I’ve worked with in all sorts of industries and business models. That said, I am not here to like paint some naive, rosy picture that like every single business can leave [00:05:00] social media and be as successful as every other business like each business is unique, and what I think is most interesting is to sort of take apart, like what do you think social media will do for your business? And will it actually do that? Because a lot of people believe that social media will just be this sort of discovery and growth engine. Like if I show up there and I make good enough posts, clients and customers will find me and I will make money.

And that is not the case. I don’t actually know any business owner who thinks social media is working that way for them anymore. And so once we sort of break apart that idea, then what we can do is determine if social media is the right fit for what your business needs.

And there are some businesses where I think it is a good fit. For instance, if you are drop shipping products, you perhaps may really need to be on TikTok to have those viral moments that bring an audience your way. I’m not here to deny that, but there are so [00:06:00] many service providers and coaches and sort of one-on-one business model business owners out there where I’m like you don’t necessarily need social media to do this at all.

We can connect you with people and build your audience and fill your client roster in so many other ways. So my answer is a little bit of yes and no to your question, but I think it’s important that we just instead of speaking about it, so like can businesses leave social media? It’s like I don’t actually care about that question. I care about if you, dear listener, if your business can be off social media and that we have to answer together with like the context of your work and your life.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you do so well on, on your podcast Off the Grid is, is talk about how it’s not just about leaving social media there’s then there has to be something to replace it. Thinking about what you think social media is doing for your business, I also think about this all the time, Amelia, when I think about, when people talk about leaving social, I say, what do you think [00:07:00] leaving social media will do for your business? Because it’s not just like the art of exiting and piecing out where are we getting it from instead.

Amelia Hruby: Absolutely. I always also like to say that like leaving social media doesn’t mean you just get to quit marketing. We still have to market our work, and in fact, if you leave social media, you may have to do more marketing, or it may be that like on social media, you were only doing one type of marketing, you were doing social media marketing, and now that you’re leaving, we have to do different types of marketing.

But for the people I work with, that actually becomes this like generative creative opportunity and I think it strengthens our businesses and it’s like a fun experiment and challenge, but I completely agree with you. It’s not that you can just like leave social media and hang out and your business will continue to thrive without you doing anything else.

And also some people think that leaving social media will just fix every problem in their business and life. And it doesn’t do that either. I’m sorry to report. So, um, there’s an [00:08:00] episode of my show with a guest, Cody Cook Parrot, that’s called something like When Leaving Social media Doesn’t Solve your problems. And it’s very real. Like sometimes we think it’ll be this magic fix. While leaving social media was a process of deep alignment for me, like I still had problems on the other side of that decision.

Sam Vander Wielen: What do you think some of the mistakes are that you see most often when people leave social media?

Amelia Hruby: So a super common mistake is ghosting your audience. So I see people just like dip out and log off and never communicate that they’ve done that. And you know, if you’re just using social media for your personal life and you start to text your friends instead, like, that’s fine like that, that’s totally normal. But if you’ve been building an audience around your business on social media, and then you just disappear one day, those people aren’t gonna go like, look for you and figure out what you’ve been doing, they’re just gonna kind of forget you existed based on how the algorithm works on these apps. And so I [00:09:00] think it’s really important if you want to leave, that you actually communicate that clearly and kindly and consistently to your audience so that people can be in touch with you in other places, typically by like subscribing to your email list before you make your exit.

So that’s the huge mistake is like ghosting your audience. I think then a second mistake that we’ve already covered is thinking that when you leave social media, you don’t need to do any other marketing or leaving without another channel set up. So I think that is a version of that. So if you are leaving social media, where can those people follow you, instead? Is it gonna be your email list? Is it gonna be your podcast?

Is it gonna be through, you know, a sort of text message based communication? I’m am a fan of SMS marketing for some businesses, so I think that that’s a second mistake is like exiting social without setting up a clear landing place for people to find you.

And then honestly, I think the other piece is the third mistake I’ll, I’ll share is kind of leaving social media without recognizing that there might be like an [00:10:00] emotional process for you in that. I think that for a lot of us when we leave social media, like we actually have to grieve a lot of the things we used to have there or used to find there.

We have to be open to the fact that this might be a tumultuous emotional experience for us, and I’ve seen some business owners, sort of treat it as a real like strategic problem to solve, which is great, but then they underestimate that a lot of feelings are gonna come up and that can kind of muddy the process.

So I think those are the three mistakes that I would say is like ghosting your audience, not setting up another marketing channel people can follow you to, and then not addressing any of the feelings that might come up along the way.

Sam Vander Wielen: Okay. So that’s really helpful to know, and I’ve heard you talk about before, kind of building this little off ramp, you know, for, for a while of, of getting off of the platform.

Kind of mistake number one and two connected in a sense. So would you be building up this [00:11:00] alternative place to hang out like a podcast or YouTube channel or something like that while simultaneously announcing that you’re about to exit?

Amelia Hruby: Yes, absolutely. So I think that most successful social media exits that I’ve supported have had a very clear runway and off ramp that we’ve been constructing for people, and that can also take time.

I think that also leads into that first mistake of ghosting. Like often people who have a social media presence might leave it from the sense of like complete shutdown and overwhelm. So they’re just like, I gotta get outta here. There’s a sort of like immediacy to that feeling, but I think that. The more time we can give ourselves and our audiences to leave with care and leave intentionally, or even just step back intentionally. So I think maybe I haven’t even clarified, like what does it mean to leave social media? Because there are a lot of versions of this, right? Like even you say, I’m like, in some ways you have left social media by hiring a team to run it for you. That’s like one version of leaving social media.

Another version can be creating a sort of nine [00:12:00] grid and leaving your profile there, but you’re not active anymore. Another version can be completely deleting you’re deactivating or deleting your accounts. So there are all these versions of leading social media that need different amounts of time and runway, different degrees of communication and care. It’s, it’s a really personal process. I think We don’t talk about that side of it enough.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, absolutely. I, I, you know, even the, I was thinking like the, I feel like I see a lot of people announce their exits only to come right back, or I hear people pre-announce their, like pre like a very scheduled departure. Like, I’ll be gone for the next 30 days, or I’ll be gone for the summer. How have you seen those work out and or not work out in the past?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I think that. What it comes down to is actually like, whether you need a break or you’re like ready for a complete platform and paradigm shift. So I think that [00:13:00] if you’re finding that social media has been stressing you out, if you’re feeling burned out, if you’re feeling overwhelmed, there, sometimes a break is all that’s needed to sort of reset your relationship to the space and that’s where I think, yeah, like not being active on social over the summer, taking a 30 day break. Those are great strategies. If you are in a position where you’re like, social media is working for me and my business. But it’s not working for me emotionally or energetically right now. A break can be a great solution for that.

However, I think that a break doesn’t really get at this like bigger paradigm shift that happens when you actually leave social media, and that’s been a really big part of my work. So I think there are two versions of this one is like a platform shift. I see a lot of people leave social media to go to YouTube or to go to Substack and what they find is then on YouTube or Substack, there’s still the same lot like algorithmic logic that they were experiencing on social media. So I would say it’s like, again, I’m just like giving these like kind of tiers of options. . [00:14:00] Like you can take a break, you can move platforms or. If you’re ready for that full paradigm shift, I mean, when I left social media, I had to totally shut down one small business. I was running and start a totally new type of business. I used to sell books and courses and little practice groups and stickers. I had an online shop and I made a frankly, like a few thousand dollars a year with that social media business. And when I left social media, I was like, I don’t have a way to sell stickers to people. Like the 200 people on my email list are not gonna buy enough stickers to support me here. So I was like, all right, I need to start a different type of business and I moved. To a service provider model. I started Softer Sounds, my podcast production company.

And the biggest difference there was like I only needed, you know, 10 to 25 clients at a time. If I wanted to sell stickers forever, I needed to be selling like thousands of stickers a month. But if I wanted to do podcast production, I didn’t need that many people, so I didn’t need an audience, like I changed business models. That was one part of my paradigm shift.

The other thing was [00:15:00] moving from this mindset that I need to grow an audience to a mindset of needing to build relationships. And this comes along with moving from traffic marketing to relationship marketing, which is something I’ve learned a lot about from Michelle Warner.

And. I think again, it’s like these are big paradigm shifts to make a business model shift a total overhaul of how I think about marketing. And that’s what I wanted. I didn’t wanna do business in the social media way anymore.

So again, I went for the paradigm shift. But if that’s not for you listening, like a platform shift could be supportive or a break could be supportive. There’s like, and honestly I did all of those in my own, like I sort of babys stepped my way off social media over the course of a few years.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, I think that’s helpful for people to hear because for those listening who are already on social and maybe have complicated relationship with it, maybe they’re feeling, you know, the rightful anxiety of being like, that’s a big step. And it feels like a lot. And people are scary. That’s why, you know, you have such a good subtitle [00:16:00] to your podcast, uh, without losing all of your clients because people are sitting there worried like, if I leave, I’m gonna lose all of my clients. So I think that’s really helpful. How do you think that this conversation changes for someone who’s sitting here thinking about starting their online business is kind of right on the precipice of doing this and is sitting there being like, I really wanna do this business, but I really don’t wanna do social media. So it’s not so much about them stepping away, but learning how to build without it.

Amelia Hruby: Absolutely. So I’m always trying to speak to these sort of two different groups as I see it as like, do you already have a business that’s on social media and we have to figure out a strategy for stepping back or away from it? Or do you wanna build a business that doesn’t rely on social media and start from the get go?

So, I think that if I were in that position of have this business idea, I wanna start it. But the thing that’s like standing between me and really starting it is that I don’t wanna be an influencer. I don’t wanna have to grow [00:17:00] my Instagram platform. I don’t wanna have to get on TikTok. One, I completely empathize., And I also lived through the really awkward effort of taking my personal Instagram account and turning it into a personal brand account. And it was awkward. And those moments are hard, right? Like some of my closest friends unfollowed me because they’re like, I love you as a person, but like, your brand is not really for me. That’s a lot to navigate. I think it, it’s a good reason to not want to turn social media into your main marketing method. And so what I would say then is like, your job is to get really good at business. And that can be fun to like read business books like Sam’s, right? So learning about how business works, choosing a business model that doesn’t need a traffic marketing engine, like social media.

There are so many ways to set up a business and if you business model is selling, you know, $5 widgets and you wanna make six figures a month. [00:18:00] You need a ton of people paying attention to you, and that’s gonna be really hard to do without something like social media or really like paid ads like, you know, or it’s gonna be really hard to do even if you have those things, frankly.

But I think that it starts from the very foundations of your business. If you wanna build without social media, setting up a type of business that doesn’t require social media, and then really rooting into relationships and building relationships. And that can happen in your personal life and the connections you already have. But it can also happen by joining online business communities, getting to know people who are already doing the work. You know, Sam and I both have ways that you can tap in with our memberships or communities. Those are the places you meet the people who are gonna help you grow over time. And the third part of this, I guess, is just like that overtime piece.

If you wanna build your business without social media, you’re probably gonna be on a slower timeline than somebody who’s pumping in $10,000 into Meta’s paid ads every month from the [00:19:00] get-go. The timeline is gonna change. Your business isn’t gonna grow at that viral pace. For me personally, that’s been a gift. Like my nervous system actually can’t handle viral business growth. Like if I had 10,000 new clients show up tomorrow, I don’t think I would know what to do with that and that’s not gonna happen. ’cause there’s nobody like sending them my way through TikTok. Right. So I think that’s also a piece of it is like if you wanna build a business without social media, be intentional about the model you select. Be really all in on building relationships, and then embrace the slow and steady growth that’s possible for you from there.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, so what I’m hearing you say is that, you know, focusing on, even from the outset, if we’re building out the business, creating a product, first of all, that doesn’t require volume that maybe it does allow for more one-on-one time relationships that. Can be built through ways that you can meet people in, in other ways other than social media. So picking the product that way, and then picking the marketing channel that [00:20:00] supports that.

I always say too, that like, I think people often confuse having an online business, meaning that you provide your services virtually with like having to do all your marketing virtually.

So I think that you can have an online business that provides these virtual services, whether it’s like Amelia and you’re doing podcast production or you’re a coach offering services or running group programs, that can all be virtual. You don’t need to do, you know, you don’t need to be running across town meeting people at coffee shops or you can if you want, but you don’t have to. And it, it does open up this ability for you to work with people you know, all over the world, which is great. Um, and hire a team that’s virtual and all of these kinds of things. But then the marketing can be more on the ground. Like they, they don’t both have to be delivered in the same way.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I first started my business, I had a totally virtual business, but I joined my local Chamber Of Commerce. And I went to meetings and I met people and that didn’t like actually bring a lot of business my way, but it [00:21:00] taught me a lot about how other people’s businesses functioned.

And they didn’t quite know what to do with me ’cause they didn’t have a lot of online businesses in the, in the group, but it just, it’s all these opportunities for connecting. And, you know, other things, like I have this list of 100 ways to share your work and life without social media and some of them are virtual, but many of them are in person.

Like literally right now in my email inbox, I’m talking to a local like billboard company to figure out how to put up a billboard for the book that I’m writing. That is something I can do and it’s not virtual. Even though the book will only be available for purchase virtually. And I don’t intend to really do much store distribution or anything like that ’cause I’m self-publishing.

So, so much of the mindset shift around leaving social media is just stepping away from this idea that social media is the one and only marketing method and really opening your mind to like, what if in fact, there are so many other things you could do, [00:22:00] and that’s not draining it’s exciting. It’s actually quite thrilling to do a bunch of cool, interesting, different, innovative things rather than being like just another person on Instagram.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, absolutely. I think some of my customers have been really surprised to find out that they, it was like a lot less than what they thought. Like, for example, there’s an RD that I’m thinking of in, in my Ultimate Bundle® who, uh, established a relationship with a local medical practice who does like functional medicine and those doctors don’t have the time to be coaching the, the patients and making meal plans and all that. But she can, and so they are just funneling people her way. I mean, she just has a steady stream of people coming to her from this. And then the people that she serves are happy and then they tell their friends and like, so she really doesn’t have to rely very much on social media. Like we might build this up even in our heads more than we need to.

Amelia Hruby: Absolutely. And I’ve actually also worked with plenty [00:23:00] of dieticians and RDs and you know, many of them have multiple methods for getting clients so they can multiple pipelines, right? So they have those sorts of relationships with clinics that bring in clients.

They have their own marketing channels online, and then some of them also will like panel with insurance because insurance providers will just send you people through their networks. So there’s so many again, it’s that multiplicity piece, right? Like the inviting in the mini options and the finding the way.

Not to like, I wanna be clear that I’m not saying do everything all the time and wear yourself out in the process, but being willing to try different things and recognizing that actually like any business that relies on only one source for all of its revenue or all of its clientele is quite precarious. And in fact, like diversifying how we meet people, how we make money does bring more resilience to our businesses and so embracing that on every level from our marketing to our sales to our [00:24:00] offering suites, I think is just valuable, especially frankly in like the year that we’re in, where business is really hard in 2025 and it’s especially hard for businesses that are on that sort of like we only do one thing, one way path.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, absolutely. And I think people are feeling that way about social media as well. So it’s kind of funny for me to be sitting here and having this conversation with you, thinking about how the business owners that I hear from so often who are struggling are also, they’re also putting all their eggs in the social media basket. And what I’m hearing from them time and time again, it’s like I’m trying so hard over there. I’m spending so much time and nothing’s working, but they still see it as the only way.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I mean that makes me sad to hear, honestly. Like, and I can empathize because that’s how I was for quite a while.

You know, I’ve shared on my own show my journey to leaving social media, but it really started with [00:25:00] frankly like getting a book deal and selling a book, and then going all in on Instagram to try to grow my platform and promote my book, and. Frankly, it just kind of flopped. Like I did all of the quote unquote right things.

I hired the professional photographer. I hired the brand designer, like I did all the stuff. It looked great. I was so on trend and on top of my content pillars and like it just wasn’t working there for me.

And I had to kind of be really brutally honest with myself. At a certain point, I like literally sat myself down and I had this conversation in my head of like, Amelia, you want to be Instagram famous and you never will be.

And I’m sorry. Oh no. It’s so silly to say out loud, but like. It’s true. Like I, I wanted people to follow me. I wanted that attention. I’m such a, like, it’s very clear in my astrological chart how much I love, um, being the center of attention sometimes. But I just think that what [00:26:00] I’ve learned since I left, like at first when I left, I was like, this is devastating.

Like, nobody’s gonna pay attention to my work. I guess I’ll just run my business and like, I’ll work with a couple dozen people a year and that’s fine. But what actually ended up happening is like I found the channel that works for me, which is podcasting, and that is where I have been able to really like magnetize attention and pull people in.

And I’m doing, frankly, a lot of similar stuff that I was doing on social media. It just didn’t work for me on Instagram and I think there is this false promise out there that like it’s sort of a version of meritocracy that if you do all the right things on social media, it’ll work for you. I mean, frankly, the same thing in podcasting.

People think like if you do all the right things with your podcast, it will get big. And the reality is like that’s just not true in any medium or any marketing channel. We like have to find the places where our message reaches the right people and resonates in the right ways, and that might take experimentation.

You like me, might have to have a conversation with yourself about how you’ll [00:27:00] never be Instagram famous.

Sam Vander Wielen: I just like see I know that this is not what’s actually happening, but in my mind I always see, like when we’re on social media, it’s like you just like, almost like reach the carrot and then there’s like a guy with like a carrot on a string.

It just keeps pulling it like a little further. It feels like a really toxic relationship where you keep trying and trying trying and there’s such both subtle and very obvious ways that I think it tells you that you’re not enough so that you keep trying. It keeps, it’s very good at keeping you on a hamster loop or a hamster wheel to like, to keep going. Keep trying, but never feeling like you’re quite there. Right. And so nobody, feels like they’ve made it, even the people who have large followings.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, and I think honestly this is true in business as well. Like as soon as somebody figures out a new and interesting marketing method or tactic or strategy, like once they can flip it and teach it to you, it is no longer like interesting in and of itself [00:28:00] such that it will guarantee success for you.

Like what I have found time and time again is like what it requires of each of us as business owners is figuring out what works for us and what works for the people we wanna speak to and yes, there are sort of tried and true channels like email, like podcasting, but how you show up there, how you gather an audience there, what it looks like for you, like, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but like each of us have to figure that out. It sucks. . I want the 10 step plan that will guarantee me 10 figure months, not, not $10,000 months or whatever you imagine. 10 figure months.

Sam Vander Wielen: Hopefully not $10 months. Yeah. Or 10 figure months. Yeah. Either way, neither one. Neither one’s gonna work.

Amelia Hruby: But still, like I too have bought the formulas. I have downloaded the things, but the reality is like that doesn’t work in business. It works for things like registering your LLC, right? There are steps you can take to figure [00:29:00] out, but also even when, even with that, the state government could change at any time. The stakes can always change and so part of being in business to me is again, building that resilience and embracing those changes with a spirit of flexibility and experimentation and excitement.

Yes, some days I show up and I’m just really defeated and I don’t want to deal with the new change in my inbox, but most of the time I’m able to bring that different mindset and it’s the only way I can keep going in business.

Sam Vander Wielen: It’s so true that like being on social and following the trends is really not teaching you what you need to know about delivering your message and to whom you’re delivering it to. And, and I was just talking with a friend this morning who signed up for this, like reels, I don’t know, membership of sorts. So where like every week they tell them which reels to pump out and like, which, what, what’s trendy and literally like what to just say with the, the text on the screen, what to say verbally and then like what their caption should be, and she’s like, man, they’re just not working for me. Like, I [00:30:00] don’t understand how they’re not working. I’m like, yes, because there’s no one size fits all. And also the, the person that I know that they’re taking this thing from, like I, I saw one of the reels that they suggested last week.

I then just started seeing it everywhere and it was so boring. And I’m like, guys, we are better than this. Like, we can do better than this, you know? And it doesn’t speak to me, let alone the fact that it gets so saturated so quickly.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah. Unless you’re the person creating the trends on social media, it’s not gonna give you those same results, right? Like part of the model of social media is this sort of memification where somebody creates a trend and it breaks through and they do really well with it, and then all of us are out there just like chasing like, oh, how can I be the fastest one to copy and repeat that trend? And I think that’s a really good way to learn how to create content and to get comfortable creating and sharing. Like I think there’s value in that, but as the person doing the copying of the meme, you’re never gonna have the success as [00:31:00] the person who is ahead of you creating these trends themselves, like along the way.

And so I think that on social media so many of us are in this mindset of following the trends when like, unless you are the creator of the trend or the trend setter, you’re not gonna see those types of results, unfortunately.

And for me, the only way I could get out of that mindset and model was to just step away from social media entirely so that I’m not worrying about the trends, and in fact, by not being so immersed in them, I’m able to create more original and interesting things, and that is then what has brought more people my way over time.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, exactly. Our, our listeners like to hear my Norm-isms about my dad, my dad, what my dad used to say. And my dad would always say, be a leader, not a follower. And I dedicated a whole chapter to it in the book about called Be a Content Leader, not a follower. And um, I so agree with you, and I also think you guys all need to remember that the [00:32:00] people who are selling that stuff are selling it to other people who are on social media to run their business, whereas your clients, your customers, might not be business owners.

And I know, like one thing my customers and and the listeners here have been hearing me talk a lot about this year is that I’m also concerned that all of the people that we are talking to our customers, not our online business peers, are not wanting to be on social media anymore.

And so I actually see this as a big business strategy, you should all be considering that, you should, as Amelia is saying, like have your eggs in many other baskets and start exploring other things because I’m concerned that we’ve reached peak social and that you see this withdrawal and you see, is that what you’re seeing as well?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been really interesting this year. I’m just hearing from more people than ever that they don’t wanna be on social media. And when I say people, I don’t just mean business owners who listen to my podcast. Yeah. I mean, I mean my like 65-year-old mom, right? It’s like, like everyone I know, whatever their social media channel of choice is, [00:33:00] like getting sick of Facebook, getting sick of Instagram, getting sick of TikTok, and many of them are still spending a lot of time on those platforms, but they’re using them to numb out to disassociate and to be really passive. And so that is not a good mindset for selling to people or getting them to do something like join your mailing list, right?

So I think there’s this both and of like, I think the sentiment around social media is shifting and becoming more and more negative just in the general public. And also I think people’s behavior on social media is becoming more and more passive, and that’s not a great atmosphere to be in as a business owner, trying to get people to take an action and come check out your work.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, that’s, it’s like a thunderstorm of bad, bad things happening. So, yeah. That, that makes sense to me. I wanna go back to talk a little bit about how when you left social and you eventually, you know, started the podcast or leaned more into the podcast is going to be like your thing. [00:34:00] Did you then, and are you now driving traffic and finding listeners to the podcast without being on social media?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, great question.

So first I’ll say that like when I started my show Off the Grid, it was an experiment like, I wasn’t, I didn’t know if it was gonna work, and I created the first season and it did okay, but it was not like a runaway success. I don’t even think it was really a success. It just did fine. And at the end of the first season, I was talking to my friend Taylor, and I was like I just don’t think this landed. I think I should quit. And Taylor said to me, and I’ve quoted this so many times, she was like, you are at least six months ahead of everybody else. You need to keep going. People are starting to change their feelings on social media. They will get on board and you need to still be around and making new content when they are.

And that was such great advice because when I got into season two, a couple of you know, big content creators [00:35:00] found the show, loved the show, and shared my work. And things have grown so much since then. And that leads me into the second part of your questions, like, how am I driving traffic to the podcast?

I mean, podcasts are notoriously hard to grow. There’s no discovery mechanism, there’s no algorithm driving people to your podcast, although Spotify is trying to change that to some degree but I think that, you know, this gives me this unique position to be like, well, I have managed to grow this really hard to grow thing without social media.

It gives me like a really dissatisfying answer for everyone because the way that it’s grown has been through word of mouth and essentially through creators who have a bigger audience than I do finding the show, loving the show, and sharing it like authentically, genuinely, and a lot. Like I can name specific people, when Cody Cook Parrot found the podcast and sent it to their newsletter that had tens of thousands of people on it, that was a huge boost in audience growth for me. And then the biggest visibility opportunity I’ve had was at the end of last [00:36:00] year, I was on, we Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle. And that was a huge platform i’ve never been on like a, you know, metaphorical or literal stage that was that big. And it also brought a lot of people in.

But all of those things happened through relationships. Like I’m really out here sort of like just over and over again speaking to the power of relationship building because for me, whether it be in my service provider business or in my content business, through Softer Sounds or through Off the Grid, like relationships are what have grown those businesses time and time again. So all of that to say like, I’m just trying to trace these webs for people of like, how does this work? Through years of relationship building. Is that the answer you want? Maybe not. Maybe some of you listening are like, great, I’ve got a great network. I can activate this immediately. And some of you listening are like, actually, I just wanna be invisible forever. Can I just hand Meta my credit card and use ads to grow my business? And like maybe, I don’t know, it could work [00:37:00] for you. There are different paths depending on your strengths and your desires.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. No, I can imagine people listening are like, okay, I hear you. Relationships are important. One thing I’m thinking is that they might be conflating what you are saying with pitching, because I’m thinking like, I see a lot of new people come out hot out of the gates and they’re like, you should have me on your podcast.

And I’m like, wait, who are you? What do you do? Like, why I don’t know you. Right. And I get that a lot, and I’m, I know you do too. So can you maybe explain, not only just like the difference, but even how to approach it. Like if someone’s starting out and says, I love this idea of building relationships, but how do I build relationships when I’m new?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah. I think that this is such a great question and I also receive these pitches, so I think that the first part of it is like you do have to build a body of work. . Like. That is tangible. By which I mean people, other people can see it, like it can all be online. Your body of work can be a bunch of great blog posts. Your body of work can be a cool [00:38:00] podcast. Your body of work could be fantastic. Testimonials from client coaching, clients you’ve worked with, like there are many options, but it needs to exist because I will regularly get pitches from people who have like a broken website and know where I can go really find them online and I’m like, I don’t know what to do with this or like, like if there’s not anywhere I can direct my audience to, to connect with you further, like, I’m not gonna feature you and there’s nowhere for me to send them. And also, I can’t see the work that you’ve done. Not like you can be in my inbox telling me what it is and how good it is all day.

But if I don’t have, if I can’t point to your body of work and I can’t be excited by it. It’s never, it’s not gonna take me any farther. So building that body of work is really important here.

The other thing is like being a good community member, a good relator, a good friend, like as I just talked about, you know, I was in other people’s communities for a really long, for years before I started one of my own, or launched my own business or launched my own membership.

Like I really believe [00:39:00] in sort of paying into the space, giving your energy to the field you wanna be in before you start asking people to buy things from you. And again, this is not the Shark Tank model of doing business. This is not the VC funded way of doing business. Where it’s like, if you have a smart enough idea and you can put enough money behind it, you can build a business. If you wanna do business that way there are so many people out there who wanna teach it to you. It’s just not me, and it might require social media.

For me. I have just always found that like by being in those communities, like you wanna be on my podcast, the fastest way is to join my membership, start showing up to stuff, show me how cool your body of work is, and then send me a pitch.

I’m probably gonna say yes to it if it makes sense for the show. Like I’ve had so many of my interweb members on the podcast and I’ve gotten so many pitches from people where I’m like, this is cool. I’ll put you in line behind the 10 other copywriters I know who have already invested in my work. Right?

[00:40:00] It’s that balance. Like I’m not gonna, I’m not saying like, oh, if you join somebody’s community, they’re then indebted to have you on their podcast. That’s not what I’m saying. But I am saying that that like genuine relationship buildings, like building your body of work and building your relationships is like what comes before the pitch.

Sam Vander Wielen: I agree with you. It’s like, it’s reminding me of like when you, if you sign up to go do the New York City Marathon, you have to volunteer first for the, for a marathon before it, and you also have to run a certain number of like, public events to like get involved in the community and get, you know, start meeting people.

They wanna make sure you’re dedicated. I mean, it’s very similar. I’m sure if I went back, if I could go back and look at all the people I’ve gotten pitches from, I’m sure so many of them aren’t doing stuff even anymore. Right? It’s like you wanna know, like you’re gonna be here and you’re, you’re around.

My friend Natasha too says, uh, Natasha Samuel, who we’ll have on this summer, she was, she always says too, if you, if you don’t have a stage yet, build, build your own, you know, And so that’s reminding me of what you’re saying of like, go, then go make your own [00:41:00] podcast and then show Amelia, like, look at all these great podcast episodes I have. This is why I think I’d be a great guest.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah. I say yes to pretty much every podcast guest invitation I get. I have 100% been on shows that have like five listeners. And that’s not always possible. Sometimes, like I do have to screen as my invitations grow, but like it is a great way to just like practice making those requests because I think something, something I’m always trying to talk about that’s really hard to talk about and very nuanced, but I’m gonna attempt it again here, is like all of us could use to be more aware of the power dynamics of social capital that are at play in online business.

And if you are like brand new to the space and you don’t have, like your business isn’t quite up and running yet and you need to learn a lot and you like have a lot just of time and room to grow. Maybe you don’t like show up and immediately ask the biggest person in the space to have you on their podcast.

Because also when [00:42:00] someone’s a guest on your podcast, like you’re asking them for their time and you’re asking them to pay somebody to produce it, and you’re asking them to promote and co-sign your work, like it’s actually a really big ask to be on a podcast. The same way that asking for a coffee chat is actually a really big ask for people who have already built their audience. Like there’s just this way that. It’s, again, it’s very slippery and it’s really hard in online business because when I go to somebody’s website they can be brand new, but they paid somebody $25,000 to build the most beautiful website in the world. So I don’t realize they’re brand new. It, it’s just very hard to know like, how far along are you? How much work have you really done? How much do you know? How big is your network? But these are all the questions I’m asking myself and trying to figure out when I get a pitch in my inbox, and that doesn’t mean I only say yes to pitches from people who are like, have huge platforms.

I say yes to pitches from people with tiny, tiny audiences all the time, but they’re very aware of what they’re asking of me and they’re very like kind and understanding and they [00:43:00] make it easy for me to say yes and I think that’s a big piece of it there. There’s just something in like the more people that enter the online business space, the more acuity and awareness and skill I think all of us have to cultivate and just like seeing through some of the fluff and like getting real about like, okay, how much experience and expertise do you have?

How big of a platform do you have? And how does that connect with my current like goals, needs, desires.

Am I like sort of pulling you up behind me and with me? Am I asking you for a hand up to get where I wanna go? Am I reaching out to you as a peer? ’cause we’re on the same page, like these are questions I wish more people were asking when. In the context of something like pitching.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. It’s a, it’s a really good point. I, I feel like, looking back on it, I did much more of like a ladder approach where I probably approached people who were like a little above me or around me, right. Kind of hovering around me, and then as I moved up that ladder, I kept moving that, those rungs [00:44:00] up with me, you know, and, and pitching higher people.

You were saying how you’ll get certain pitches that are just like going to lead to a yes to you. So for, I know for people listening, they’re always asking about pitches and pitching people for different, um, collabs and opportunities. What makes something a yes? I know you can only speak for you, but what makes something a yes for you? Like what shows they did the work?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah. So. I love when people who are like genuine listeners and fans of the show pitch me. And it can be hard to express that, right? Like you don’t wanna come across as like it can be vulnerable to come across as someone’s like biggest fan. Yeah. And for some people that’s off-putting, like for some people they don’t like that kind of energy in their inbox, but for me it kind of works.

I really don’t like the way people have been taught to pitch, which is like, pick one episode on their podcast feed and show that you listen to it and you understand what’s valuable. Like, I actually hate, I I screen those out so clearly because it’s obvious to me that that’s what you did, right? Yeah.

[00:45:00] Like you’re, oh, I loved your recent episode with so and so, period. I’m like, okay. That’s fine. I don’t even know if you actually listened to it. Yeah, maybe you did love it, but there’s nothing in your pitch that suggests to me that you understand the, like bigger picture of the show or the values that I bring or, so I think that like having that genuine connection again.

That may be an unpopular answer because I’m kind of telling you like, you gotta go listen to a bunch of shows and be real fans of them before you pitch them. But I think for me, that’s the first thing I’m like, okay, do you really get what the show’s about? And are you actually a listener? So I, it’s clear to me that you understand where we’re coming from here.

Um, the next thing is, I want some like clear ideas of like titles and topics from you in a pitch. That’s what makes it easy for me to say yes. Like if you pitch me something that is so clearly like, great, you understand that my audience is small business owners, you understand we’re not talking about social media, and you can offer either like a marketing strategy they can use or like a unique perspective on how not engaging with [00:46:00] social media changed your business. That makes it easy for me to say yes. Like I don’t have to figure out what our episode will be about. And I get a lot of pitches where I’m like, Hmm, I wonder what I could talk to this person about. And again, if they’re somebody who I admire or who has a bigger platform than me, like maybe I will do the work of figuring that out.

But if there’s somebody I’ve never heard of and I don’t know you, and you don’t know anybody, I know I’m probably not gonna do the work of figuring that out. But if you figure it out in advance, it’s easier for me to say like. Yes. Um, and then also like, again, that relationship piece, like do you know somebody who knows this host?

Could you get an intro? Could it be more of a relatable connection where it comes through instead of just like a cold pitch through a contact form that does work well? So I’ve had people who like know a guest that I’ve had on have that guest intro us get permission first to do the intro, which is nice, and then do the intro. And that always works better for me than like somebody I’ve just never heard of.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah. Okay. Those are, those are really, really good tips. I, I know that [00:47:00] like when I reached out to you, it was because I had heard your interview because I was a regular listener of the show, and so there were obviously more times that I had listened that I hadn’t reached out to you, but then one episode that I listened to with you and Dr. Olivera, she had talked about something that I was like, well, this is really mind blowing and so I was just genuinely responding back to your email and being like, this was really good and this spoke to me. And like, by the way, I have a book and, and I think we could talk about this, but to your point, I was, I was also honest to be like, because I was a listener, I understood you and your audience and who you generally speak to and so I was like, I’m not off social start off by saying that like, and, but I have a complicated relationship with it. I do a lot that is off of it. I think we could have an interesting conversation, here’s how. So I think that’s super helpful.

I also personally, like when people tell me how they’ll help promote the episode, ’cause often the pitches can come off like very one sided, like you’re helping them, but to your point, like they need to help distribute the show and so, I don’t know about you, but that’s something that’s been helpful to me in the past.

Amelia Hruby: [00:48:00] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially if you’re somebody who like has an audience and has a platform, like making that clear in your email can be useful information. And you know, Sam, like your pitch to me was so genuine and that was a big piece of it.

Like I was just interested in learning more about you personally. And also I was familiar with your platform. I knew you had way more email subscribers than I did. Right? Like it’s that both, and it’s like the genuine desire to build a relationship and that recognition of like, you know, I felt honored. I was like, whoa, Sam wants to be on my show.

That’s cool. I mean, and I think that that gets back again to what I’ve been saying around just sort of like being aware of the space, being open, being authentic, being clear about what you can offer and being aware of what you’re asking for. All of that goes into a good pitch, whether it be to be on a podcast or a sales pitch for a client. Like these sorts of things, I think map onto both many different scenarios.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, absolutely collaboration. So yeah, so many things. So one [00:49:00] thing I’ve always wanted to ask you when I’m listening to your show is like, if I could just like, I wish there was like a little pause button where I could like insert a voicemail and be like, wait, Amelia, I wanna ask you a question.

So this is my chance. Um, so something I think about a lot when on your show is that, you’ll talk sometimes or guests will talk sometimes about Substack and which I know you and I are both on, or you know, some of your guests have been on YouTube or they’re on insert other platform here, like LinkedIn, whatever.

I think it’s funny, like what lines we draw in the sand about like what is social media and what is not. Right? And so I even often feel hypocritical about this and I really struggle with it and I don’t have fully formed opinions on it. So I was wondering. How are you feeling about it? Especially with places like Substack, which I know you’re on and everyone should go subscribe to yours, but they like, with all the changes that are happening there now we’re seeing video. Every freaking article I clicked on this morning ended up being a video, and so I was like, I’m not trying to watch a video I wanna read. So yeah, I was curious what you thought about that. [00:50:00]

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, yeah. What even is social media these days? I know is a great question. So for me. I think that currently, this may not be true forever, but when I think of social media, I think of platforms that have a feed that is algorithmically curated.

And so I think that applies to TikTok, to Instagram, to LinkedIn even now. I mean, it applies to all the spaces you mentioned to YouTube. I think that on social media platforms like users typically have a profile of some kind and they show up to share or consume content with a scroll. So we’re seeing that on all of these platforms we just mentioned.

That helps me sort of figure out what is or isn’t social media and for me, like podcasts are not social media. My primary way of consuming them is not scrolling like, like I may like look at my feed to see what’s new, but there’s no algorithm serving that to me, it’s just like full of the things I’ve [00:51:00] subscribed to.

Similarly, when I’m inside my inbox, it’s not social media, like I scroll through the emails I elected to receive. They are not currently served to me algorithmically, although I know there are some plans. I’ve heard rumor of some like Gmail plans do a lot more like AI and algorithm based filtering in our inboxes, which scares me as a marketer, however not currently happening.

Yeah. Um, and I think that this is where a platform like Substack becomes tricky, or even LinkedIn, honestly. So I think LinkedIn, I did an episode on this last summer, like LinkedIn started as a social networking platform, like what you did was build your virtual resume and then you could like direct message people like it was email. But their function of LinkedIn was not so much this like feed that you would go to to share or scroll on, like that’s not its original function. And I think social media, it turned into social media similarly with Substack, when it was just a place where you subscribed to emails that so showed up in your inbox [00:52:00] that was very clearly like not social media.

Now that they have launched an app whose like main page is their tool called notes, that is very much a place you go to scroll and discover and things are served up by an algorithm. And so I think that Substack is shifting into more and more of a social media platform. YouTube is an interesting case because there is a lot of focus on search functionality and YouTube. Like there are kind of two types of YouTube users. They’re the people who browse and so they’re just seeing what’s served to them and they’re just like scrolling. And then there are the people who go there to search for specific things and they only search for what they want. They watch a video, they may like find some recommended stuff and they get out of there once their use case is over.

So YouTube has a bit of both, I would say. I mean LinkedIn also still has both, but we’re really seeing this shift of more and more platforms of all kinds turning into social media. Yes, I have a Substack newsletter, but I don’t use the social media functionalities of Substack. Like I don’t use their discovery mechanisms. I [00:53:00] don’t use notes. I’m just there to share my emails and private podcasts, like Substack for me is actually just the sort of paid podcast additions of Off the Grid, the public show.

So I have a public show that comes out every Wednesday, and then on Substack I have a private show that comes out twice a month.

That’s how I make sense of that with myself. But I hear you on like how we draw those lines like everyone’s got their sort of like, I’m off social media except for this, and I still do that. Like I think that’s just part of online business these days.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, it’s true. And it, it also goes to show how maybe a mindset shift and working on yourself and your relationship to it can then, like, for whatever reason, maybe someone could approach Substack differently than they feel about Instagram.

Like I know a lot of people who feel a like. I don’t know. It’s, it’s like a drug in a sense. I always feel, I tell my friend, I tell my mindset, coach Jen all the time about how I feel like if you just like replace what I’m saying with a drug word, like it is so funny. It’s like we’re talking about drugs, but some [00:54:00] people will feel like this about TikTok, for example.

Like they can’t pull themselves away from it. Whereas other people feel like that about Instagram. Whereas like, it’s so funny, I go on TikTok and I’m like, what is this? And I get out of it. It, it does, has no pull for me. And maybe that’s like a generational difference or something like this, but it just doesn’t speak to me. So I think, I think that’s really helpful to hear your breakdown.

Okay. So I wanna, I wanna kind of recap before we go today of just maybe giving the person listening if they want to leave social media. Let’s recap. What do you think that they should do first?

Amelia Hruby: So if you’re already on social media and you want to leave? I mean, your first step is to make a clear decision that you want to leave and how you want to leave. I wish, I mean like full exit deactivation or break, like figuring out. Do I want this and what version of this do I want? Then your next step is to figure out where else your audience can connect with you, and then your third step is [00:55:00] to begin communicating that you’re leaving and when you’re leaving, and how people can stay in touch.

That’s sort of your process that eventually gets you to a log off or log out date. I think if you’re not on social media yet and you’re like, what’s my three step process for building a business without social media? I think it starts by being really clear about your business model and what type of marketing it needs.

So people I’ve learned that from would be like Jessica Lackey, also Michelle Warner, who I’ve already talked about. And both of them have resources inside of my membership, the interweb where they sort of walk through how to make your model match your marketing. So that’s the first big hurdle for you, is to figure out your model and what type of marketing it needs and then it’s to set up your first marketing channel that isn’t social media. Both of these are like ginormous steps, by the way.

Sam Vander Wielen: Yeah, yeah. These are just, there are many baby steps beneath these steps. Yeah.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah. So that, that’s kind of where you begin if you want to build a business without social media. But otherwise, for folks who are interested, I have a whole free toolkit on [00:56:00] this that includes a five step plan for leaving any social platform, as well as that list of 100 ways to share your work without social that I mentioned earlier. So I’m not sure my recap here was the most helpful, but if you like a really clear like check, check, check list that is available for you online as well.

Sam Vander Wielen: No, I think that was really helpful. I also think they’re going to love your freebie. I know you talk about that a lot on the podcast, so that’s gonna be really helpful. And obviously go check out Amelia’s podcast Off the Grid. Amelia, where else would you like people to find you other than the freebie and the podcast?

Amelia Hruby: Yeah, I mean, you can find all of that at offthegrid.fun, the toolkit’s at offthegrid.fun/toolkit so that’s really where you’re gonna get everything I have to share and say about stepping back or away from social media. And if you want to learn more about podcasting, you can find the studio at softersounds.studio.

Sam Vander Wielen: Great. I will make sure all of those are in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here, Amelia. It was a real honor.

Amelia Hruby: Yeah. Thanks for having me, Sam. I am so grateful that we’ve gotten to know each other [00:57:00] this spring and done all these great podcast swaps.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms® podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps To Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business at Samvanderwielen.com and to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram at samvanderwielen and send me a DM to say hi.