A little over a month ago, I deleted my Facebook account after being on there for over 10 years.
This month, I deleted my Twitter after 10 years, too.
And, I also deleted my Linkedin account.
Thus, I have zero social media presence.
Over this time, a few people — all of them millennials, who seem to think direct marketing was invented on social media — have asked why I’ve done such a thing and, also, “How are you going to build your list without social media???”
I find that question amusing on many levels.
And, there are several answers.
One of which is, all the time that’s been freed up.
Another has to do with one of the only reliably accurate theories in the social sciences about how you become the sum total of the people you spend the most time with.
For example:
I can tell you right now, all that time (and, even though I did not spend nearly as much time as most people I know on social media, I didn’t realize just how much time I was pissing away until killing my accounts off) I used to spend reading the thoughts, ideas, rants, virtue signaling, and grandstanding from people on social media has been replaced with a lot of reading of biographies and auto-biographies of great men. I would, for example, much rather spend my time reading the ideas of great writers, great Hollywood directors, great advertising men, and great leaders than the brain farts of virtue signaling SJWs nattering on about how enlightened they are… or internet marketers waxing philosophical about success they haven’t even achieved… or brain-washed millennials who can’t think outside of what their teachers or the media tells them to think… or the armchair politicians ranting about why this is the MOST IMPORTANT election ev-ER!… and so on, and so forth.
So anyway, that’s one of many reasons why I Thanos’d all my social media.
And, over a month later?
I only wish I’d done it years ago.
The extra time to read and write, the more focused attention span to better learn and hone my craft, the more clarity when creating my own products… are reasons enough alone.
But, there are many more reasons and benefits to doing so.
And, later this week, I will delve into more of them.
But back to the list building part of the questions:
I have used paid ads from Facebook, Twitter, and Google to build my list in the past. And, I have gotten many leads doing so. But, they paled in comparison to the leads I get now as far as quality. And, I am in zero danger of being de-platformed, too.
If anything, I can “siphon” away the best quality leads from those platforms, free.
And, without spending a red cent doing it.
All of which I talk about more in the upcoming December “Email Players” issue, which goes to the printer in a few short days (Friday).
If you subscribe after that, it’ll be too late.
Get in while the gettins’ still good here:
Ben Settle
P.S. I wrote the December issue before I deleted both my Facebook and Twitter. At the time, I was still getting good, quality, high-converting leads from both sites, and still would if I cared to be on there. Thus, I left those two parts in, because what I did still works, even though I don’t do them anymore.
