Social Media

Forget about social media and online business

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I was scouring the interwebs today when I came across the following beauty.

For context: An artist (painter) asked for tips and tricks to grow their social media—hoping to increase their sales—on a “business for artists” forum.

One of the responses?

Read it here yourself:

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“The best advice I can give is: forget about social media and online business – do real life exhibitions instead. It's easier to connect with your audience IRL, which makes selling easier as well (and you'll get a much better compensation for your work). I have been a full-time visual artist (mainly paintings) for 27 years now and I do one or two solo shows and a handful of group events every year, and that's more than enough to make a living.

Sure I have social media, but the time and effort it takes to first grow a following big enough to get some consistency in sales and then the time and effort it takes to make those sales is just not worth it IMHO – with a fraction of that effort I make a lot more sales IRL. If I have to calculate my earnings based on time spent for the sales I make online, I am better off flipping burgers.

For reference: I have about 10K followers on FB, IG and X combined – FB being the largest and if I make a sale, the buyers mostly come from there.”

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Now listen up, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life…

BUT.

If you’ve got a combined follower count of 10k (that’s ten THOUSAND people) on social media, and you still struggle to make sales (or at least, find it not worth the effort, so much so that you’re discouraging others from even trying) then, and I say this with the utmost respect, the problem doesn’t lie with “social media and online business”, the problem, my dear friend, lies with you and your ability to be entertaining and persuasive (as opposed to manipulative—big difference) enough.

As the great late John E. Kennedy said, “Advertising is salesmanship in print”.

So if you’d know how to sell someone in-person, as the author of the post said he could, then you can use those very same principles to sell someone on social media—which ultimately is a form of advertising.

Except people nowadays don’t actively make the connection between social media, advertising, and salesmanship.

Such as shame, really.

Anyway.

For more information on how to improve the persuasive abilities of your writing, and especially in emails, check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/


My love-hate relationship with social media

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Once in a while, I’ll enter this period where I’ll write up some social media post guiding people to join my email list.

This, however, never lasts long.

Sometimes I’ll do it for 2-3 days. Sometimes I’ll keep it up for a few weeks. But eventually, I’ll disappear from the platform, without any notice. Only to pop up, unannounced and as if nothing happened, a short while later.

And it’s not because I can’t stay disciplined enough to keep it going. In fact, I used to write 5 post a day on Twitter for over a year, without missing a single day. That’s how I got started with all of this.

So it’s not that.

Simply said. I just got tired of playing the social media game and how fake and unfulfilling it is (ask anyone in the social media business who’s making real money—it’s shallow, its repetitive, it’s boring).

That’s just how it goes when social media is only good for top-of-funnel content (aka, aimed at the 95% of the population who are beginners in your market).

And it’s the same for the consumers as well.

Eventually that social media content gets boring—especially once you’ve read the same 10 beginner lessons a hundred times over and over again.

So for the entirety of 2024, I’ve been working on making my business work without requiring leads from social media—it helps a bit here and there, that’s why I write the occasional post, but I don’t rely on it.

How have I been doing this, you ask?

Many different ways. But one of them is through paid advertising—an incredible alternative source of guaranteed (and often high-quality) traffic that’s easily customizable to whatever you require.

It’s easy to keep going as well.

Far more rewarding and less shallow than social media content creation, at least.

Coincidentally, I’m also working on a new product that’ll teach my paid advertising framework so you can rely on a more stable and higher-quality form of traffic generation that, once you get it going, requires dramatically less time investment than anything else out there.

But that won’t be for now just yet.

In the meantime, if you already have traffic, but you don’t have a great product or service to do something worthwhile (aka, get paid) with that traffic, then I’d highly suggest you check out Product Creation Made Easy.

It ain’t cheap, but it’s damn worth it and you might find it to be just what you need.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/product


Why I don’t mention my promotions on social media

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Nor do I even try to sell any of my products (let alone even mention them).

Here’s why:

See, my reasoning is twofold.

First, I simply can’t be bothered.

Yes I’m certain I could earn more money, sign more clients, and sell more products if I were to mention and actively sell on my timeline.

But I don’t enjoy doing so.

And seeing as how ‘enjoyment’ is one of my 3 main business pillars, alongside simplicity and freedom, that should already be reason enough.

But still.

The second reason, and a more “reasonable” answer for some perhaps, is that this is my way of giving something back to everyone on my list.

I’m intentionally limiting the people who have access to my products, services, promotions, and bonuses to those on my email list.

Yes obviously I’m creating content, writing emails, offering services, and coming up with valuable products because I want to get paid.

I need to eat after all.

But I’m not desperate to get paid—there’s a true superpower in taking the approach of “no matter whether you buy my stuff or not, I’m eating steak either way”.

I don’t just accept anyone and everyone as a customer. I just simply don’t allow just about anyone to give me money.

I’m very selective about that.

I can count more clients I refused to work with than I can the ones I did.

That doesn’t bother me.

Maybe you’re calling me crazy right now (and you know, maybe I am, who knows?) But still, I’d call you inexperienced in the way of dealing with clients. You have no idea how enjoyable it is to work with good clients and how absolutely awful and outright painful it is to work with your average Joe.

In a sense, you could say I’m not trying to build a business.

I’m building a lifestyle—one that’s enjoyable at all times.

And that requires extreme filtering.

If you’re not filtering (heavily) in your business, I can all but guarantee you’re not enjoying it.

So, let me ask you.

What sort of filters do you have in place in your business?

And if you’d like to learn how you can run a successful business while limiting the number of people who even get the chance to buy from you, then you might want to check out Email Valhalla.

Click here to see what I’m talking about: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


People don’t care about “value”

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At least not your ideal customers.

For one, everything useful can be found online for free. There’s no arguing about that. Even more. All of the most useful pieces of information are already known by your customers, your readers, and almost everyone else in the market.

So people aren’t buying value.

They’re buying adventure, cool tips and tricks, exciting so-called “secrets”(which are nothing more than gimmicks that only make up 1%–2% of the final outcome—and which won’t help anyone who doesn’t already have the foundation down), and most importantly, they buy a new perspective, or in other words, new insights.

This is what those “give everything away for free” people are missing (what’s free isn’t being valued, let alone used and implement) as well as the people who swear you need to hard teach, educate, and share as much “value” as you possible can.

Spoiler, you don’t.

Just take a look at my emails (or anyone else running a successful business you admire for that matter). I’m not teaching you how to do stuff (at least not for free).

I’m sharing tips with you every single day, yes.

But not about how to do something.

I’m sharing tips about what to think about, how to look at the things going on in your market, new ways you might consider approaching opportunities you have, or other insightful realizations that lead you towards better knowing what to focus on (as opposed to a step-by-step plan on how to do something).

Speaking about how-to content.

If, by any chance (no idea why that would happen), made the realization, or gotten the insights, that, perhaps, building a list and writing daily emails to better build a relationship with your ideal customer, write better, more targeted content, and sell more high-quality products, and getting thanked for it by your customer, if you realized that might be a good way to go about things…

Then do check out Email Valhalla where I do indeed teach more about the exact steps you can take to do exactly that.

Tickles your fancy?

Then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


The dirty truth about social media content creation (and those who engage with your content)

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Here’s something important I realized some months ago:

The people who engage with your content aren't the same people who find your content most valuable/enjoy reading it the most.

(That’s especially true for social media content, but you can easily extend it to any other forms of media)

See, the people who engage with your content on social media are (mostly) other content creators hoping to “boost the algorithm” and get seen in your comment section by your audience, hoping some of your followers find their comments interesting enough to check out their profile, and eventually follow them and their content as well.

And more likely than not, that’s not your target audience.

Your target audience, instead, are most of the time the people who like reading your stuff, sometimes they’ll engage by liking it, but most of the time they won’t even do that.

They’ll just sit back, like they’re hiding in the shadows, browsing through your stuff, enjoying everything you’ve shared, yet never letting it known. Which makes sense if you think about it from their point of view, they don’t get anything in return for clicking like on your stuff or replying to it (unless it’s a question, and even then, most people don’t ask questions that way).

I notice this occasionally.

For example, every time I do a promotion, I’ll get some buyers, many repeat buyers, some new buyers. But each time I go to look at who’s buying, it’s almost always the quiet people. The people who haven’t replied too much (at least for first-time buyers), the people who are lurking in the shadows, almost waiting to make their entree.

It’s also the same with people who join my email list.

I’ll occasionally get messages from people saying they finally joined my list after having consumed a lot of my content for the past months, yet they never interacted with anything because I’d never seen their names anywhere.

So if I can give you one honest piece of advice, coming straight from the bottom of my heart, wishing you the best.

Then it’ll be to not lose your focus by only paying attention to the people who engage with your content. Make sure you keep your target audience in mind, regardless of who you find saying what on your stuff.

Anyway.

Creation content is only one of many methods you can use to build an audience and get some attention. But getting attention isn’t enough. You need to drive that attention, that traffic somewhere to be able to do something with it.

For that, I wholeheartedly suggest you direct all of your traffic to your email list.

And when it comes to building a functional and money-making email list your readers love to be a part of, then for my last suggestion, I’d recommend you to check out Email Valhalla, it’s very much the ideal entry point (for both beginner and advanced people alike) to build an email-powered business.

Check it out here: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


A simpler and more passive list-growing method than social media

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I’ve been gradually getting more passive email subscribers the past few days.

All because I took the time to create and host my very own WordPress site, publish all of my emails online, and learn some of the basics of SEO and making it so my emails (or “posts” as WordPress calls them) show up in search engines.

This combined with Beehiiv’s Boost function, and me teasing my Email Valhalla course on sign-up also means I’m semi-passively (I still have to write the emails after all) earning an income because of it.

Not only that, but I’ll keep earning based on past emails I’ve written—emails that will only grow in numbers and get better in quality the more I write.

To me there’s truly no better business model out there.

Find me another business where you can earn a living by writing whenever you want, from wherever you want, all the while helping people accomplish their own dreams, getting thank-you emails on the regular, and, last but not least, do all of this without a income ceiling limited by any one resource such as time, distribution, money, or costs.

I applaud anyone building a coaching business, working as a freelancer, owning their own agency, or any other service-based business for that matter—let alone selling physical products.

But that’s not for me (at least not yet, who knows when the Banana Viking merchandise might be released?)

I like to keep it simple, efficient, and with a freedom-first aspect.

Anyway.

If you’re only using social media to get leads, you’re seriously missing out.

Go get your online real estate up and running.

And if you’re not even building your own email list yet, what are you waiting for?

Check out Email Valhalla today and get started right away: https://alexvandromme.com/valhalla


Why I’m not active on LinkedIn anymore

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If you follow me on LinkedIn, you might have noticed that I haven’t been posting that often anymore.

In fact, I haven’t posted anything at all this week.

And no, I’m not quitting. There’s nothing going on. I’m not going through some stuff that forced me to stop posting.

And no, I didn’t get banned again (imagine).

Simply said.

I realized that I don’t actually enjoy the whole social media content creator thing as much anymore. A lot of stuff I read feels (and often is) fake.

It’s all the same dumbed-down information (if it isn’t outright BS advice that’s actively hurting every single person who’s reading it). Which can be good for some, but that’s not what I want to focus on right now.

Don’t get me wrong.

Social media can be a good thing. It’s a tool like any other, after all.

It’s probably one of the best practice fields for newcomers.

But it shouldn’t be the only thing people depend on. In fact, you shouldn’t depend on it at all.

I’ve seen so many people who fall into the social media echo chamber, only to never get out again. They skip and forget to learn so many business fundamentals necessary for their entrepreneurial career. Most of them aren’t getting any real results either.

That’s the biggest danger.

It feels like you’re doing stuff and achieving something, while in reality, you probably aren’t.

Likes are nice yes, one-off clients here and there are nice as well.

But recurring revenue, something most social media content creators don’t have, is a whole lot more nicer.

So I’m exploring different avenues.

Most notably, paid ads to drive traffic to my website, writing articles, working on SEO, getting referrals, and so on.

The key here is, however, to make your email list the center of everything—which is another thing on social media many people forget.

As the saying goes, “All roads lead to email”.

That’s where the money’s at after all.

And if you want to learn how to effectively build and monetize that email list, then check out Email Valhalla here: https://alexvandromme.gumroad.com/l/valhalla