Blogging without social media

Blogging without social media – A few months back I’ve decided to embark on a journey of moving away from social media. It’s been a few months since I’ve deactivated my personal social media accounts and only kept my business pages on the main social media platforms. These pages are only present for a front, as no boosts or constant content uploads have been made. They are simply there as a shadow presence, rather than an active and engaging channel. Before I jump into my results and findings, let me first share the reason behind this action.

What are social media platforms today?

First step was to recognize these platforms for what they truly are; virtual advertising platforms.  Back when they began, they were social platforms that allowed people to connect. As time went by, they decided to push advertisements to those same users. Today, every other post is an ad desperately trying to sell something. I get it. Everyone wants to make money. But the least you can do is allow users to filter the ads you force them to scroll through. It has become absurd as they don’t seem to even present ads that may interest users.

Facebook has this function of interests. If you delete all the interests, advertisements can no longer target your account to display ads. Once you’ve cleared all your interests and your Facebook looks like when Facebook just began; only displaying posts of your contacts, groups, and pages you signed up for. So, what do they do? After some time, they ADD interests to your interest list. This way, you will be advert free for a short while, and then will begin seeing ads that you never even chose. Meanwhile, Instagram doesn’t even give you an option. All you can do is report the advert as irrelevant and hope they won’t be plastering it again every other post.

You can’t go dark, but neither do you want to continue this way.

There are ways you can use social media platforms and their limitations, to your advantage. Each of these platforms has its advantages and disadvantages. It is your job to see these and identify how you can make them work for you. I have covered a lot of these in my article on 10 tips on becoming a blogger tip no. 7.

Traditional social media is an outdated scam

Perception is everything. You don’t have to go dark should you not wish to. If you are a business owner, you should definitely utilize the platform features to promote your business. Just keep in mind to take the results with a grain of salt. And even though this game is rigged against you, it does not define you or your business. You find that freedom that others seek and attempt to capture, just by realizing that a virtual platform does not have the power to access your work. It is only here to make money from your efforts.

Social media is not reality… Not even close to it.

In a nutshell, social media is not reality. It is a filtered, carefully crafted illusion that desperately attempts to mimic experiences from life. In doing so, users are cut off from the very experiences they try to replicate on screen. It is controlled and most importantly, it is all about making money. Real-life is not all about money. There is a lot more to it and even though these platforms exist today, becoming aware of their true nature will bring you one step closer from stepping out of this money-driven game.

You may think you will gain nothing from seeing them for what they are. However, you’d be surprised. You might actually be gaining the one thing that even the owners of these platforms may never have; freedom. The freedom to choose not to allow virtual likes to judge you. The freedom to not place your value into a virtual platform that has made sure to keep you on your toes and making you feel like you must pay more to be worth anything. And finally, the freedom to live your life and experience the moments that many try to replicate and capture to later post online.

Social media: If you don’t want to join them, Set your own rules

If you find yourself not liking where you currently stand with social media, you are not alone. I’ve been thinking of the best way to tackle this issue because, for one, I wanted to minimize the time I dedicated on the false reality. One of my most valuable resources is time and it is one that is limited, so what I spend my time on is very important to me. As s blogger, I can’t completely go dark. I began my journey by turning off all the notifications and sounds on my devices, to never hear any of them. Shortly after the feeling of having to constantly engage and constantly live the virtual life still haunted me. This is when I decided to cut off from this toxic virtual world entirely by deactivating my personal account (which were the main points of contact on these platforms).

Before I went ahead and did this, I worked out a plan to go through all my blog content and to optimize it, in order for it to be at it’s best. The thought of social media playing such a huge part in building a bridge between the content and audience was taunting me and the only way I could calm the mind was by making sure I did everything possible to make the existing content reach those who search for it. Call me old school but I would rather spend my time focusing on optimizing my website and articles to reach a larger audience than play into the monetary games of social media platforms which are trend-bound and will eventually cease to exist.

Part of the optimization process was to find a tool that will allow me to cross-post new content without having to actually log into the business pages. I managed to achieve this with Blog2Social. This tool allows me to spend a few minutes to vamp up the description of a post and with just one click to cross-post the newly published article to all connected social media business accounts and pages.

Social media of the future

Social media platforms, as everything today must evolve. As they have passed the stage from being social platforms to allow people to connect worldwide, to become virtual advertising platforms, now it is time for them to develop further. We are currently living under the impression that for their presence in our lives, we, as users, must take on all the rules they currently setting, and be grateful for their free access to all.

With such a way of thinking, a new development has been taking root which is building its foundation on the absolute opposite understanding. Blockchain social media platforms, although not as famous to date, are based on the concept that users should be paid for their time and engagement. Although the mechanisms behind blockchain technology and the social platforms are a little complex, the basis is that everyone, whether you are commenting, sharing, liking, posting or constantly engaging with other users, everyone deserves to get a share.

This may be hard to comprehend as we were taught that if something comes free to us, we should be silent on all the rules and changes that the mechanism brings about in the future. That the fact that we are allowed to use the platform for free, we automatically have no say in its development. Although ironically, those who run the system are the ones that make the money from our participation. Which all in all makes the current outdated social media system a one-sided payday. Blockchain social media platforms see this situation fairly unfair and take into consideration that without the users, their technology would cease to exist. And for that reason, the user participation and time spent on their platforms should be rewarded accordingly.

Blogging without social media

It’s been 3 months since I hit the deactivation button on social media and I won’t lie, my life has changed…

I won’t say that I had a certain itch or that I constantly wanted to check my profile. The apps were muted for a few months prior, so I didn’t all of a sudden reach to my phone and need to check my virtual rating. Although the first 2 weeks felt strange. I noticed how all of a sudden, these empty time gaps appeared in my day. I noticed that I began to have some free time during my day, here and there. It felt strange at first as it was almost as though I was forgetting something I had to do. Not too long after, I found other things to occupy that empty time with, and it had nothing to do with a phone or a virtual platform. These little free time slots amounted to quite a batch of time, which felt like I took back into my possession.

Blogging without social media – Google ranking

As for the technical aspect of my exit from social media, it was surprising. There was a heavy drop in website visits in the first 2 weeks. However, within the drop of traffic, I also noticed that the quality of visits got richer. Social media platforms seemed to have driven numbers, but not necessarily quality users.

The bounce rate decreased and after the first 2 weeks, rich organic traffic was flowing in, raising the overall website visits to numbers previously seen with social media. The traffic graph is now looking healthier than ever, without any rapid crazy highs and crazy lows.

Something that caught my attention was the quality of visitors. It occurred to me that the majority of users on social media may not necessarily be the type of users for blog content. It is a theory that came to mind, however having pulled the plug on social media, the results seemed to have proven it. The majority of users on Facebook, Twitter and especially Instagram, did not seem to be the users that would take the time to read written content (percentage-wise), as to those users who specifically search and come across the content via search engines. And this makes sense when looking at it from a practical human perspective. Traditional social media platforms are focused on fast-paced content, imagery, and opinions. Written blog content requires the user to step out of this ‘fast-paced, swipe – swipe – like – swipe – comment – swipe’ rhythm. From a practical and routine perspective, it makes sense that the majority of social media users may simply not be the perfect audience pool for written blog content. It is like placing a print advert of a child’s school uniform store into a motor vehicle magazine. The two aim at very different audiences, however, a small overlap may happen.

As a conclusion, it was quite an experimental journey I decided to take on and I am glad to have stepped out of the main social media trend and see things for myself. This decision has allowed me to take back a resource, my time, that I never even noticed was taken from me. It has also placed my mind at ease in regards to there being a centralized authority, which is the only route everyone must take. Despite the information we are bombarded with, businesses such as social media platforms, do not run the world. That indeed is a satisfying piece of information to be aware of, as a centralized method or the ‘one-route for all’ can bring about a one-sided payday for a very small group, while the rest have no say. Competition allows us to choose from many different routes and also pushes towards innovation, rather than simply business.

If you are interested in blogging, make sure to check out my article on becoming a blogger and my tips for ranking on search engines.