Tips & Talk 76 – My Month Off of Social Media

I took a month off social media in July. This wasn’t my intent but it proved to be an enlightening experience.

You may be thinking my account got hacked or closed. Nope. Worse. Tragedy happened in my life. I wasn’t in a headspace for social media at all. Hard stop. In fact, I was off for a little over a month. I didn’t care if I lost followers. I didn’t care if the algorithm dinged me about consistency. It just didn’t matter. (More details in the podcast.)

I’m using my situation because let’s face it. Life presents us all with drama, illness, loss … and at some point we need to get back up and keep living. But to get to that point, it’s important to focus on you and your recovery, going through the stages of grief – whatever it is for you. And it could be good times too. You want time to be all in for your wedding or the birth of a baby. What I’m trying to say here is life comes first and sometimes as a business owner, we forget that.

In this episode I cover what I learned in this time off social. I think it may help for when you feel the need to do the same.

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Transcript
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Hi there.

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It's Sue.

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And thanks for joining me for tips and talk day.

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Today. I took a month off of social media in July.

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This certainly wasn't my intent,

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but it proved to be an enlightening experience.

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I've been going full force on Facebook,

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Instagram, and Pinterest,

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which are my channels of choice for as long as I

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can remember some short breaks here and there.

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Yes, but for the most part,

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all in and that plan was meant to continue even be

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beefed up a bit until I unexpectedly switched things up.

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I'll explain.

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I've always been challenged with feeling like I need to document

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my life personal and business on a regular basis on social.

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It's a struggle because I want to be in my life

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moments, not partially in while creating an Instagram story or something.

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It's not that I mind sharing at all,

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but not by forsaking the living part of my life.

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I keep working on this to find the perfect balance.

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In fact,

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a little over a month ago,

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we were on vacation in Provence.

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This was a special,

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big birthday present from my husband.

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A couple of years delayed.

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We all know why.

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And I thought what a perfect time to really jumpstart my

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Instagram story game.

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I'll have tons of contents since I know we'll be visiting

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a lot of markets.

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So that could be a great way to tie in craft

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show tips,

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as well as my personal experience of dancing in the lavender

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fields in France,

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these are all things that Instagram stories should be right.

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And it was off to a great start.

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I wasn't feeling the need to be posting right in the

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moment because I was in a different time zone than the

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majority of my community.

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I was also excited to share parts of Provence with you

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until it all got shut down right now,

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you may be thinking my account got hacked or closed.

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Nope. Worse,

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July 4th in Highland park.

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Illinois happened.

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If you listen to,

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to my tips and talk 71 episode,

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I give you as much detail as I want to share

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about that day.

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But to me,

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even though I still had a few days of vacation left,

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I knew for certain I wasn't in a Headspace for social

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media at all hard stop.

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In fact,

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I was off for a little over a month and given

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what we experienced here at home,

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I didn't care.

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I didn't care if I lost followers.

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I didn't care if the algorithm dinged me about my consistency.

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I'm sure you can understand.

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It just didn't matter.

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I'm using my situation as a podcast episode because let's face

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it. Life presents us all with drama,

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tragedy, illness loss.

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Yet at some point we need to get back up and

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keep living.

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But to get to that point,

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it's important to focus on you and your recovery,

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going through the stages of grief,

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whatever it is for you.

Speaker:

And it could be good times too.

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You want time to be all in for your wedding or

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for the birth of a baby?

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I guess what I'm trying to say here is life comes

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first and sometimes while having our own businesses,

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we forget that.

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So here's what I learned in my time off social.

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I think it might help for when you feel the need

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to do the same first off and kind of surprising to

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me. I didn't lose followers focusing here on my Instagram account.

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Not only did I not lose followers,

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but I gained some,

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my Facebook group gift biz breeze continued to attract new members

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as it does every week.

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And the giving supportive women in this group kept it going

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without me engagement stayed the same and all was well.

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In fact,

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I know many of you didn't even realize I wasn't actively

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on social for such a long time.

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And that's because of this next point.

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My strategic plan carried me through.

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So even though I wasn't consciously on social things were still

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posting. What I mean by this is that I have content

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programmed and ready to go without me having to make it

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happen in lifetime.

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There are two parts to this and you can do it

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too. First.

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I schedule some posts to go live on a date in

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the future.

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Like the podcast in fall.

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Now truth is I have a team that helps me with

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this, but even when I was doing it all myself,

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I had a system.

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You can do the same thing for when you want to

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promote presence at a craft show or already have product launches

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or seasonal sales set for certain dates to take this even

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further, whatever your posting frequency,

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you can schedule it out for the whole week and not

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have to touch it again until it's time to do the

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same for the following week or gosh,

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schedule out two weeks or even a month.

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If you can.

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Then the only activities you need to do daily is engaging

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with others.

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And with people who respond to your already scheduled posts and

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then create stories,

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if you want them to be live at the time,

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by the way,

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remember not to make all your posts,

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promotional, meaning don't sell all the time.

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This is a quick way to lose followers.

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If you want help,

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figuring out what to say in posts that will increase your

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audience and engagement.

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Take advantage of my content for makers program.

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I created it for you for just this purpose.

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It's only $27 and you just buy it once not year

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over year or season after season,

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content that you can tweak for your product and individual situations.

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That's why you only have to buy it once.

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If you're interested,

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read more about it and get yours at gift biz,

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unwrapped.com forward slash content for makers.

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Okay. Before I had diverted myself with all of that,

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we're talking about scheduling posts in advance,

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which frees up your time.

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Overall, the second point under my strategically scheduled posting strategy is

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that I have regular posts appearing on both my Facebook pages

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and in gift biz breeze that are evergreen.

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This means they're valuable messages that apply now.

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And in the future,

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remember, it's such a low percentage of people who see your

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posts that even reposting content from a couple of months ago

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will be seen by new people.

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This is perfect for you.

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If you have a blog,

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why write the article and then share it with your community

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only once.

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Yes, if you've done it well,

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you have SEO power behind it,

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but you're missing out.

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If you don't continue to post it up on social from

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time to time,

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I use smarter queue to do this.

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I have enough blog posts that I can rotate through them

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all weekly.

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And one will only be repeated each quarter.

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So I do this as well with some of my podcast

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episodes, that cover topics that are most popular and stay relevant

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over time.

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And all this happens automatically.

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I update it from time to time,

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but otherwise it's hands-off to check out smarter queue,

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you can find a special link giving you a free trial

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over on my website,

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gift biz unwrapped under the tab called resources and then business

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tools. You'll find other business development programs.

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I recommend there too.

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The final thing I want to share with you about my

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time off social is that it resulted in a major reduction

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of my anxiety and stress levels.

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I had given myself permission to take the month off,

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regardless of the consequences.

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And immediately I felt a weight lifted.

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Maybe I shouldn't be saying this,

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but it's true.

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My time off has been a reset of all sorts that

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has served me well.

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I've had a chance to evaluate what I'm doing there,

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and I'm actually excited to dive back in,

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will the anxiety and stress reappear maybe.

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And then again,

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something we'll need to change.

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Overall. I've found that taking a break from social has been

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a really good thing.

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I'm still a huge advocate of social.

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Don't get me wrong.

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This is one way to grow your business and interact with

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your community,

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but it's not the only way it holds a solid spot

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in an overall marketing strategy.

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But again,

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it's just a single spot with social media in particular,

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it can get out of hand,

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new platforms arise.

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They're always changing.

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And the experts on each platform continually stress what's best right

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now and how you should be showing up.

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It's exhausting trying to integrate that into everything else you do

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for your business.

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Well, it can get you in a tail spin.

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So here and now I'm giving you permission to get off

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the wheel for a while.

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When you need to take time out to stand back and

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reevaluate what you're doing,

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do that don't stay stuck in a cycle because you're afraid

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of what will happen if you stop.

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I did that for too long.

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During your time away,

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you're much better equipped to decide what's right for you.

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And when you're ready,

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you can re-engage with social media accordingly,

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that's a wrap.

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I'm a get to the point kind of girl.

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And this is what you can expect from these quick midweek

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sessions. Now it's your turn go out and fulfill that dream

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of yours.

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