In January of 2023, I decided to take a "quick break" from Instagram and TikTok. Nineteen months later, I still haven't returned, and I couldn't be more content with how things have gone for Yardia during this time.
In preparation for an upcoming podcast interview and a workshop I'll be teaching around this topic later this year, I've been reflecting on my decision to opt out of these social media platforms and how it impacted the ways I run my business.
The three main things that opting out of social media has given to me as a business owner are space, clarity and agency, as well as an opportunity for a lot of experimentation. Here are a few of the takeaways that I've learned over the past year and a half.
Space
Leaving social media gave me the space to look at my business and creative process more holistically, and without the usual comparison to the successes other small businesses are presenting in their social media feeds. It gave me time to look within and to ask myself the question of "what do I actually want?"
It was a sense of spaciousness that I think could only have happened after I removed the comparisons and distractions that I'd been bombarded with through TikTok and Instagram. My brain now had time to process all the content and information it had been taking in over the years, without getting overloaded with more.
I needed the opportunity to put what I'd absorbed over the years into action--to actually do the work instead of performing an act of "being a business owner." Having the space to think, to practice, to process.
I began to see my business as being in a transitional phase, and compared my current product line to what I was interested in creating going forward. And having the time to pay attention to these longer term holistic goals helped me to begin to take action for Yardia's long term sustainability and path forward.
Clarity
Because of the time and space I had to sit with myself and my business, eventually this brought a sudden and unexpected level of sharp clarity, both on the business and personal sides of my life.
There were a few instances where big plans or truths just seemed to come out of nowhere, and it was as if my brain had been waiting for all the distractions to get out of the way so that it could be like, "finally it's quiet enough for you to hear this!"
I'm currently developing the largest scale product I've ever created, in terms of amount of art I need to paint and in terms of the level of logistics I'll need to consider for the manufacturing process. The entirety of the idea for this product, in all its details, came to me in a flash. It was something I'd vaguely thought about making for years, but never had a really clear plan for, and then very suddenly it was all I could think about. The space I'd given to myself over the course of the last year and a half led to a level of clarity in my creative process and I was able to give myself permission to go with it and start creating immediately.
This clarity has given me a true sense of renewed energy and excitement about my business, like back in the days when I was just starting. I feel like I've entered a new level where I get to be an explorer again instead of just going through the day to day.
It's the difference between contentment and stagnancy. I'm really pleased with where the business is currently, AND super excited about where it's going.
Agency
What I'm learning is that I really want to be intentional about how I run Yardia in a way that aligns with my values, serves my lifestyle and emphasizes the relationship between my customers and myself.
In the past, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out strategies to better fit Yardia into the ecosystems and algorithms of online marketplaces and social media platforms. But over the past nineteen months, I was able to look a little further out to the bigger picture and consider what will serve Yardia best to be successful on its own terms, instead of simply serving an algorithm.
I think there's an assumed truth that to be successful we need to jump onboard with following whatever a platform tells us we have to do, when really, we do have a choice of how we want to create success for ourselves.
If we just look within the social media or marketplace platform for our guideposts, then we're only really seeing one little pathway, instead of the whole trail system that might give us an alternate path to the same destination, or give us a path to something different that's equally beautiful.
Experiments:
Opting out of social media helped me to consider whether I actually needed to follow any of the dominant industry trends and guidelines, all those "should's" that I sometimes found myself believing I needed to participate in to achieve a level of success. I realized that when I was operating in that way, only looking within a platform or a marketplace, for me it was coming from a place of scarcity.
I didn't want to continue to make decisions from a perspective of fear, but instead I wanted to have the agency to operate with a sense of openness and experimentation.
I wondered if I could work more creatively. I began to ask myself, well, what if I try something different? What would happen if I experiment in this way or take this other path I see?
And how can I come up with a solution that serves my own desires and goals, instead of what's already been laid out in front of me?
I've really been enjoying the creative challenge of running these little business experiments over the past year and a half. It make running Yardia feel fresh and fun, and gives me the confidence to continue to build more creativity into my work.
A few of the sales and marketing experiments I've tried instead of social media:
- Vending at more niche events that fit with my brand: a flower and garden show, a local Pride event, a PNW bookstore trade show.
- Mailed a personal holiday card to every store that purchased from me over the course of the year.
- Built and launched an independent wholesale website to have an alternative to the online wholesale marketplace I also sell on (Faire).
- Relaunched my wholesale newsletter on my primary email provider (Klaviyo), instead of using Faire's newsletter option as my platform.
- Personally invited all my wholesale stockists not already subscribed to join my newsletter.
- Researched and cold emailed around 2000 wholesale leads.
- Hosted a seconds sale event in my driveway and utilized the hyperlocal news blog for my area to invite folks to it.
- Hosting a solo virtual trade show to celebrate the launch of my indie wholesale website to encourage my stockists to try it out, and opting out of a larger virtual trade show on the Faire marketplace that had been successful for me in the past.
I still see opting out of Instagram and TikTok as an experiment too. While I don't have any plans to return, who knows? Maybe I'll be back someday, maybe not. My next big experiment for next year will be launching a new type of product without social media and I'm excited for the creativity that planning that launch will bring with it.
I think the overarching lesson I'm learning is that there's no one way to run a business, and having the space, clarity and agency to do what works best for Yardia is bringing me a whole lot of contentment and enthusiasm in the meantime.
Read my first blog post on this topic: I quit social media for 6 months--here's what happened.
To see how leaving social media impacted my finances, read: 2023 End of Year Reflection.
Listen to my interview on this topic on the Proof To Product podcast: Business Contentment over Business Growth.