In this Business Besties episode, Kendra and I talked about the time we are spending on our social media. As digital entrepreneurs, it’s a given fact that we spend more than the average time online. Managing our own accounts and our clients’ is not an easy task as these platforms are designed to be addictive, and not to mention, associated with mental health issues.
When we are aware of the impact of social media on our business, we can then become intentional with your business goals. With your intention/s in mind, you’ll know what to prioritize. It will be easier for you to avoid FOMO or Fear Of Missing Out.
Learn more about our strategies in managing our time with social media.
Visit Kendra’s website: https://girlmeansbusiness.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girlmeansbusiness/
Learn more about Katie and Next Step Social Communications:
Clubhouse: clubhouse.com/@katiebrinkley
https://www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com
https://www.instagram.com/iamkatiebrinkley/
Katie Brinkley 0:02
Welcome back to Rocky Mountain marketing. I am so excited to bring you a new feature of Rocky Mountain marketing. I am going to be sitting down with my business bestie Kendras walls once a month to bring you some of our insights to running our own businesses and some of the struggles that we’ve faced along the way.
Kendra Swalls 0:25
Hey guys, welcome to Business besties episode number three. I am Kendra swas, business coach and podcast host and I am here with my business bestie Katie Brinkley, Katie, introduce yourself for us.
Katie Brinkley 0:39
I am Katie Brinkley, I’m tendresse business bestie. And I’m also a social media strategist, I have been helping entrepreneurs develop their social media strategy for over 18 years now. And I’m also a podcast host excited for today’s episode, the business app as these episodes are some of my favorite because I get to talk with you. I know
Kendra Swalls 0:59
they’re so easy. It’s so fun. And what you do leads perfectly into what we’re talking about today, which is social media. And it’s a pretty big topic. But we’re specifically going to focus on kind of the effects that social media can have on us. And the fact that, you know, we’re having to use social media for our business. So we need to be on it. We spend a lot of time on the platforms, we’re creating content for the platforms, we’re consuming content on the platforms. And that comes along with its own kind of struggles mentally, with mental health. We’ve seen a lot of things in the news lately about the mental health and social media being linked and all these different things. So we really want to kind of dive into how to be able to use social media for your business without letting it affect you have a lot of like negative or adverse ways. So I’m curious, just to start off, Katie, on average, how much time per day do you think you spend on social media?
Katie Brinkley 1:59
Oh, man, so which platform and I guess any and all I do feel like so for me and my personal social media, I try to spend less than 30 minutes a day, I know that it is something that I’ve had to work into my schedule. But this is the thing, Kendra, none of us thought when MySpace was around, that we’d be using it for our business. So it’d be an incredible tool for us to grow and get our message out there and do business with people from all over the world, not just all over the state or the country, all over the world. And it has to be a part of our lives. But it doesn’t need to be all consuming. And I think that for many people, that’s where they it gets to be one or the other. It gets to be, I don’t even use social media at all. Social media is terrible, I don’t use it, or they are spending 236 hours a day, checking their Instagram feed. So it’s one of those kind of double edged swords on social media if we you have to use it. But there are ways that you can strategize and have a strong presence still, but still not be spending all day on it. So I try to spend only 30 minutes a day for my own social media accounts. But I do feel like I’m a little bit different because I spend a ton of time on social media still, because I’m managing and coaching so many different people in businesses with their accounts. So honestly, I really am on social media, literally all day, like I get that report from my from my iPhone saying, Hey, your screentime showed that 26% of your day was on passive for social media. What about you?
Kendra Swalls 3:42
So I actually when you were talking, I pulled up my screen time on my phone because I was curious, because I know what I feel like I spend on social media. And obviously some days are more than others. So like yesterday, I spent a little more time on Instagram than normal because I was creating like some stories that I was doing creating reels I was bad. It was a batch day for my reels. So that spent a little more time but overall, my social media time if I’m adding this all up was an hour and 37 minutes, hour and a half a day. It’s not terrible
Katie Brinkley 4:16
thing. Oh yeah, right. You’re the real queen. So well.
Kendra Swalls 4:21
And that’s true. So I will Okay, I’m gonna I’m gonna kind of edit what I just said. So I actually yesterday was not my my batch real day, it was the day before. We’re recording this on a Friday. And on Wednesday, I bash and that day, I spent three hours and 21 minutes on Instagram alone, which here’s the thing. You don’t realize how much time you’re spending because it’s like,
Katie Brinkley 4:45
that’s the point. That’s what they know from you.
Kendra Swalls 4:48
I know and I have fallen victim to that because there are times that I’m like, Well, I’m just gonna go in and do a couple of things. And the next thing you know, it’s like, oh, yeah, I need to be like focusing on other stuff. So I really like that we have like the apples added the insights. I don’t know androids what they do. But for iPhones, like I think that’s been really helpful. Having that screentime report. I know a lot of people, especially during the pandemic, whenever he was shut down, we were all home, like everybody was like, just ignore the screentime report. But it really is beneficial to see in number form and to look at like, okay, overall, I’m spending five hours a day on my phone. But like, yesterday, I was on my phone for three hours and 29 minutes. But I was listening to a podcast on Spotify for an hour and 20 minutes of that. So like, to me that’s not the same as sitting in like scrolling through Instagram, but screen. Great. Yeah, I Yeah. But at the same time, I think that it is very eye opening to actually go and see like, oh, okay, so if I’m telling people like, Oh, I’m so busy, I don’t have time and yet, I’m spending an hour and a half on Instagram, then that’s probably not ideal.
Katie Brinkley 6:00
Well, and this comes back to what we saw a lot with social audio and clubhouse a year ago, when I sat down and I was looking at how many clubhouse rooms I was hosting on a daily basis. I was like, holy cow. No wonder I’m not getting any work done. I’m spending three hours a day holding summits and speaking. And it’s not to say that it wasn’t worthwhile. It absolutely was. And I have had the opportunity to meet some incredible people like so. So I mean, like, it’s not to say it that wasn’t worthwhile. But I think a lot of people come summer of 2021, they saw Oh, my gosh, you know, I’ve been spending a lot of time on this app. And that’s why we have seen a decline in the amount of users on it. It’s not to say that it’s gone away by any means. But I think that people are being more strategic with their time. Because if you’re spending three hours a day, which equals 15 hours a week, that only gives you 25 hours a week to get the rest of your work done. So anyways, I digress. I think that this is one of the more eye opening things when Apple did introduce the screentime report, it kind of almost makes you feel guilty when you open it up. And like oh, I didn’t really was spending time on social media. And I have a little for the listeners that aren’t watching this on the on the video, I have this little box that showcases how many times you can hear it kind of clicking. So 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and I will flip it and utilize that for Okay, I’m going to go in, I’m going to mess around on the ground for my business for a bit. And when the timer goes off, I shut it down. So that’s been a huge key for me to kind of keep my focus, because as an Enneagram. Seven, I do have the shiny object syndrome. But yes, I definitely think Kendra, we’re not alone with the struggles of social media and spending our time. Too much time on it. How are you managing your time, but still giving yourself in your business the presence that is necessary? I think that’s a again, that double edged sword that so many small businesses, entrepreneurs mompreneurs run into is that they are okay, I need to be on social media. So I had to create these reels. And now I’m spending three hours a day on social media. Yeah,
Kendra Swalls 8:15
well, I think, for me, what’s been helpful is recognizing, like the return on investment, and I don’t just mean like monetary investment, but like investment on time. So what is the return that I’m getting on that time that I’m actually spending. So if I look at, you know, I currently run two different businesses. So I have my photography business, and I have the girl means business coaching brand. So I learned pretty, you know, I guess a couple years ago with my I was spending all this time on my photography, Instagram, I was posting pictures all the time and stories and trying to really engage over there. And when I really went looked at the data of where my clients were coming from, none of them are coming from Instagram, they were all coming from Google searches, client referrals and a little bit from Facebook. And so I was like, why am I spending all this time on Instagram, trying to build up this account that is really not benefiting me, and not getting the return on my time investment over there. And so I slowed down my, you know, my time I spend, I still post occasionally, I don’t engage as much I just kind of have it as like a little like, extra social proof place that people can go and get information. Now with my other account with my coaching account. It’s the exact opposite. I would say 75% of my clients come from finding me on social media. And so I can spend more time on Instagram. And I can spend a little more time on Facebook knowing that the return on my time investment is going to be a little bit higher, because that’s where people are finding me that’s where I’m connecting with people. That’s where I’m having conversations with people. That’s where I’m sharing my You know, resources and content. So I think that’s key is really to understand, you know, what am I getting out of this? Am I putting all this time in? But that’s not really helping me, you know, grow my bottom line, or am I putting all this time in? Because it’s helping me grow my bottom line. So that has been a big indicator for me is to say, Okay, I’m willing to invest an hour, maybe an hour and a half a day, if it’s gonna result in me getting one or two new clients. Yeah, that’s worth it to me. I mean, it’s not costing me anything. Why not?
Katie Brinkley 10:34
But this is yeah, this is Kendall, where do you draw the line between? This is my Strategic Outreach for so in social media versus going down? You had a great post a couple weeks ago about? Are you spending time on social media actually creating the content and engaging for your business? Or are you Mindlessly scrolling and it was a great post, if I scroll back through the roll means business feeds, check it out. But it’s true. And I think that a lot of times, that’s why I’ve set the tab, the timer set is how do you separate that, okay, I’m going in to engage or to create content for my business, and prevent yourself from going down the rabbit hole which Instagram, Facebook, tick tock, LinkedIn, all of them want you to go down that rabbit hole, because the more time that you’re spending on the platform, the more money they’re making. Yeah,
Kendra Swalls 11:21
I think your timer idea is really good. I do that occasionally, not as good, I need to get in those little cubes. Because I’ve done it before where I like, I’ll set a timer on my watch or on my phone before I go into the account. But a lot of times, honestly, it’s times I don’t even realize that I’ve picked up my phone and done it. It’s when I am maybe like this morning, it happened just this morning, I was in Canva, I was working on creating a new carousel post. And I got kind of stuck on like what I wanted to say, and I was getting frustrated side mindlessly picked up my phone and went to Instagram. Or when you’re sitting at a red light. And you’re like, Okay, where I live, we’re always stuck at train tracks. So I’m like, Okay, I’m gonna be here for a good three minutes, let me pull up my phone and pull up Instagram. So I think first thing is becoming more aware of those times. And then also, like, I try when I go into the app, I try not to start off with scrolling. I try to start with having an intention of like, what am I going into this app for? If I’m going in there, because I’m going to post a story, then I make sure that I do that, like I’m creating the content before I consume any content. So it’s kind of like a self check. You know, it’s like, have I created something worthwhile on here, have I engaged, sent a DM responded to a DM posted a story posted a feed post or real or whatever? And then after that, I can say, Okay, now I’m gonna go, maybe consumed for a few minutes. But again, I’m not the expert at this because I do fall down that rabbit hole. So it’s a work in progress. Yeah.
Katie Brinkley 12:55
Yeah. Social media, by itself has a reinforcing nature. I mean, uses the brain’s reward the dopamine hit, you know, when we get a like, when we get a comment, when we get somebody engaging with us. It gives us that excitement, again, that dopamine hit of people like me, and it gives you that reinforcement of what you’re doing is resonating with people. And it’s these platforms are designed to be addictive. They’re designed for you to want to, okay, well, I haven’t, I’m just sitting here, I might as well just open it up and check things out instead of just sitting there and watching the train track trains go by, you know, yeah, I mean, it’s the problem is, though, is which we want to talk about on today’s episode. They’re designed to be addictive. And they’re associated with a lot of mental health issues, anxiety, depression. And with so many people being on social media, over 69% of adults are on social media. 81% of teens are on social media. And that’s scary. It is scary. And we both saw a amazing YouTube video that really kind of inspired this episode. And with teens, being on social media, with adults, so many adults being on social media, it puts all of us at risk for feeling more depressed, more anxiety, and more stressed about these apps that are on our phone. And I know it probably is a little weird for me to be saying all this. But I think that when used in moderation, when you are using them for your business, and thinking about them as a tool, instead of as that pleasure app, things can change and you can still have that great balance. So I’m gonna pass the mic on over to here because I think it’s something that we’ve, we both use for our business regularly. But how can we be mindful of where social media is starting to go?
Kendra Swalls 14:53
Well, I know like I see a lot of people talking about different strategies that they have with this. And I do think one thing is just awareness. You know, what does that say? It’s like knowing is half the battle like you like the fact that we are aware. And we’re becoming more aware as a society of the effects that social media has. You know, there was that documentary, the social dilemma on Netflix is a year two years ago. It’s fascinating. And like, it talks about all these things about how how much social media is in our brain. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy how well they know our habits, our behaviors, what we do when we’re going to do it, how we’re going to do it, all these things. This
Katie Brinkley 15:33
Tinder, I just want to stop you really fast right there. Because exactly what you said, I mean, I have my I don’t even want to say it, because it’ll turn on my al X. It here’s what I’m what I’m saying. And even though she hasn’t chimed in yet to say anything back and asked me if that’s the song I want to listen to, or if I want to add it to my cart, she’s sitting right here listening to everything that I’m saying. And are we it’s it’s naive of us to think that social media is not doing the same. I mean, as a social media marketer, one of the best tools that I have is knowing your website browsing history. So if I’m promoting a launch for somebody, and that you’re a motivational speaker, and you’ve Googled, in someday in your lifetime, you Googled Tony Robbins, I can target you. Yeah. And that’s the thing where it’s great. Sometimes, with the Apple rollout that we saw last year, it makes things a little bit harder for us as marketers to get the right ads in front of you. But I mean, there’s a reason why if you Google, new sunglasses, all of a sudden, you’re seeing ads for Sunglass Hut and Ray Ban in your feed.
Kendra Swalls 16:40
Well, what’s even scarier is it’s not even necessarily what you Google, I’ve had times where like, I’m having a text message conversation with a friend group, and we’ll make a comment about the vacation, we want to go on somewhere someday in the future. And the next thing I know, all six of us are getting ads to that location on our Facebook feeds. I mean, it’s as much as we say that, we don’t want that, I want you to think about the fact that like this not all negative. I mean, I have this backpack I bought that I absolutely love. The only reason I found it was because of a Facebook ad because I had been searching for great backpacks for traveling and laptop backpacks and stuff. And it gave me an ad for this company that I would have never have found before. So I mean, we’re talking about kind of the negative side of things, there is a positive side to it. And I really do think that if you were to ask people, would you be willing to give up a lot of the technology that we have right now, in order to, I guess, just allow these companies to have this access to their information? I think you would find a vast majority of people would say no, like, I think that we are subconsciously or consciously agreeing to say like, Yeah, that’s fine if they want to read my text messages, if it means that they that I get to have access to this incredible global free platform. And that’s kind of the price that we have to pay. But I want to go back to the video you mentioned because I think that so the video and it’s by Virginia Kerr, it’s on her YouTube channel. It’s she’s talking specifically about tick tock. However, the same concerns are valid across multiple platforms. And I think that she voices the concerns that we maybe all have had, but have not really put into words all the time. And one of them was what we just talked about, like the fact that things are showing up on the for you page of her tic tock that she’s like, I’ve never even voiced these things out loud. How does it know that that’s what I want to see. I think the other thing she brings up, which I do want to touch on is the fact that she does not allow her children to be on social media or on Tik Tok. And I think that that has been a little bit of a balance that I’ve as a parent have had to deal with is that yes, I’m using social media for my business. My kids see me on my phone, my kids have played with the filters on the Instagram, and on some of the Tick Tock filters when it first came out. But I am adamant that my children will not be on social media until I feel like that they are emotionally capable of handling it. And I don’t know when that will be I don’t have an answer or a number to that. But my oldest daughter is in fourth grade. And there are already kids in her class who are on tick tock and that terrifies me. So I also think that there is a bit of this catch 22 of like, well, we are using it for our business, and we’re on these platforms. And yet we’re like telling our children no you can’t be on there too. It’s a struggle like and I know your your kids are younger too. So we don’t have that problem just yet. But I think a lot of people listening who have older kids might be kind of struggling with that same idea of like, well how can I be telling them know when I’m spending all this I’m walking proof of how addicting it can be.
Katie Brinkley 20:04
Well, in addition to addicting, FOMO, fear of missing out, if you’re not on social media and all of your friends are, you know, that are going to be saying, Oh, what if I’m missing out on the jokes and making connections with other people, and I’m going to be missing out on invitations to do things, I’ll be missing out on all of these experience. And it can cause even more anxiety and depression because you’re not on social media. And I think that that is one thing that we need to be mindful of is setting those timers setting the time for you to be in front of a screen to be engaging with people that you’re not currently with that and I it is something that I am still consistently trying to work on, not being in front of my phone not being near it, when I’m with other people turning on one of them. Again, Apple has done a lot of great things with trying to give some work life and technology slash life balance back to people with the focus mode. And so I turn focus mode on when I’m at the office. And then I turn personal mode on when I’m at home. And I only get certain notifications from certain apps and certain people. And I will
Kendra Swalls 21:18
say like I and I this is one thing I know you’re good at because there have been times where I will like, again, I have, you know, insomnia, I don’t sleep very well at night. So I’ll have an idea. And I’ll be like, I’m just gonna text it to her really quick. And it’s, you know, maybe 10 or 11 o’clock at night, and I go to text it to you, and it will send me a little thing that says she has notifications turned off course, then it gives me the option to notify her anyway. And I’m like, Well, I’m not going to be rude, but sometimes I might be. But I do agree, I think that they are taking steps in the right direction to give us control back. Because I think that’s part of the problem is you hear all these stories and like the, the documentary, the social dilemma, I remember watching that and like being a little bit terrified that the lack of control, I felt like I had over these apps and what they were doing to me, but there are things coming that are being put in place because people are having conversations just like the one you and I are having now. And the ones like you know, Virginia poster video and the documentary, and there’s other documentaries similar to that, that they’re trying to put more and more controls in place so that we can have our own control back, you know, Instagram just a releasing that they’re going to have the feed options, so that we now have more control over the content that we see when we log into the account. And I think that’s going to be huge for some people to be able to say, I only want to see certain things go ahead, I’m
Katie Brinkley 22:40
going to be devil’s advocate for advocate here, I think it’s going to cause people to spend even more time on the app, because they’re going to be checking every single feed to see like, okay, these are what my followers are doing. Now I want to just see what Instagram thinks that I should be doing. And then now I’m gonna you know, so I think it’s gonna cause people to spend even more time on the app, but I don’t have the new feed yet. A couple of my clients do. So we’ll see how it goes. But I definitely think that it’s, I think it’s gonna cause more more time to be spent on the app.
Kendra Swalls 23:07
That’s interesting, cuz I hadn’t thought of it that way. I just I thought a bit more of like, because one of the things that I do, when it goes back to like, how do you control the time you spend is, I’m very particular about who I follow. You know, I don’t just follow anybody that follows me or anybody that reaches out to me, because when I log into Instagram, I want to make sure that the content I’m seeing is content that’s actually going to be valuable to me and my time because if I only have if I’m trying to only spend a limited amount of time, I want to make sure that the content I get is not just random, you know, stuff that I don’t care to see. So that’s where I was thinking that the feed option might help because then I can specifically say, I want to see these things first. And then if I have time, I can go focus on the other things or go check the other things as well. But we’ll see. I’ll be curious to see how that actually pans out.
Katie Brinkley 23:56
Well, I think that one of the things again that inspired that this then inspired this episode was Virginia kurz YouTube video, her removing Tik Tok from her phone. I also have removed Tik Tok from my phone. I never was really using it past April of 2020 Anyways, but I think that do an audit on where you are at with your time spent on social media. If you’re spending it to engage with your friends, your family, your community, do it strategically. Do it mindfully don’t just scroll just for the sake of scrolling. If you’re on it for your business, utilize that time as you would be using it for promoting your business on other for emails for lead gen for sales calls. treat it the same way. But I think that we all just need to take a giant step back and think about how much time we are spending on these social media platforms. And is it worth the ROI that is taking away from our families from our friends and Our true connections that we’re having in the moment. Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Rocky Mountain marketing. As always, I’d love to hear from you. You can visit my website at www.nextstepsocialcommunications.com. Connect with me on LinkedIn or check me out on Instagram. Let’s keep taking your marketing to new heights