Visibility Without Social Media: A Quiet Marketing Approach
Marketing your coaching and consulting business without social media is not only feasible, it also gives you your life back while maintaining your online visibility.
Being consistently visible on social media platforms to drive sales and gain followers is probably one of your least favourite things to do, especially if you are a highly sensitive person (HSP).
You want to increase brand awareness and reach your target audience, but having to engage, post content, and comment all the time is exhausting. It takes you further away from the natural world and can lead to burnout, affecting the quality and authenticity of your online presence. This constant pressure to perform on social media platforms can result in inconsistent messaging or forced content that doesn't truly represent your brand or resonate with your ideal clients.
Despite what you may have been taught about content marketing and social media, you can be visible to your ideal clients without relying heavily on social media, and in ways that feel good to your nervous system.
In this blog post, we'll explore what's possible and I'll share the alternatives that bring over 700 people to my website organically each week, increasing my website traffic without depending on influencers or constant social media engagement.
— In this article —
The hidden cost of social media marketing
Early in my solopreneur journey, I was indoctrinated into the idea of Facebook Groups being an effective "zero cost marketing strategy" for online visibility. This sounded like a great plan since I didn't have buckets of cash lying around for paid advertising on various social media platforms.
I joined several Facebook Groups, created a spreadsheet to map the different 'theme days' that each group had, and before I knew it, I was spending hours daily creating content, commenting, and engaging in an effort to be visible and grow my followers.
These new online community spaces were exciting and fun — for a little while, but it soon became hard work, and it was difficult to mentally log off from social media at the end of the day. I was doing well in terms of making sales and building brand awareness, so I kept up the charade.
The longer I stayed on the Facebook Group hamster-wheel, the more I realized that there is indeed a 'cost' involved with this social media strategy, and that cost was to my wellbeing.
Boldly breaking up with Facebook Groups
After being honest with myself about how awful it felt to "have to" scroll through social media newsfeeds daily, looking for content to comment on — I knew it was time to draw a line in the sand and courageously break away from this visibility strategy.
This wasn't an easy move because many of my clients and email subscribers had come from Facebook Groups, and I feared that my online presence and website traffic would suffer without them. Nevertheless, it needed to be done for the sake of my sanity and wellbeing.
For help with making this change, I engaged the support of a mentor and commenced a 30-day experiment where I paused all engagement with social media groups.
The difference I felt within those first few days was profound — a sense of lightness, clarity, and happiness that I hadn't felt in years settled over me. I knew there would be no turning back to traditional social media marketing.
Being visible in a way that feels like ‘art’
One of the pivotal moments that shifted my marketing trajectory happened while I was still active on social media platforms. I was trying to come up with a question that would generate engagement in one of the groups. It only needed to be a sentence or two, but I was struggling to create compelling content.
I remember saying to myself in frustration, "I'd rather write a 1000-word blog post than come up with a silly question."
And there it was, the aligned solution that had been patiently waiting for me to acknowledge all along. The visibility strategy that most feels like 'art' to me — writing content for my website.
From that moment forward, I gave more of my energy and attention to writing blog articles, and it was this decision that began to lay a foundation for ‘becoming discoverable’ and the 700+ organic visitors that I receive on my website each week.
Also contributing to my organic website visitors are my YouTube videos, Pinterest presence, and Kindle suggesting my book Quiet Marketing. These creations all feel like art to me — what feels like art to you?
Visibility versus Discoverability
Visibility is the conventional approach to marketing that most of us have been taught is the 'only' way to succeed in business. It's a proactive approach to content marketing that typically requires a strong presence on social media platforms, consistent content creation, responding to comments and DMs, and doing whatever else we can muster so that our content will be shown in newsfeeds to our target audience.
And herein lies the problem! Most of us, especially if we are HSPs, don't want to 'have to' show up on social media all the time to maintain our online visibility.
Enter 'discoverability' — a more passive, laid-back approach to marketing that does not require constant presence on social media, where people from your target audience find you through intentional online research and search engines.
Practically none of my paying clients or students discover me via social media. They find out about me during their quest for information on a specific topic — and this started happening without me doing any intentional search engine optimization (SEO).
That's why I still enjoy Instagram, because I don't have to be there. Instead, it's a place where I can play. It's a vehicle for artful self-expression. It's a social media platform I can dip in and out of as I please without feeling pressured to constantly grow my followers.
Simple ‘old-school’ marketing that works wonders
Back in the late 1990s when I was the branch manager for an employment service, marketing was pretty straightforward. I just had to make sure we had our annual listing in the Yellow Pages. That was it. Job done. Oh, how I would love to turn back the clock.
There are, however, some old-school marketing strategies that we still have access to but are often overlooked in favor of social media marketing. Here are some that have resulted in clients for me and improved my online visibility:
Paying for premium listings in practitioner directories: This was super effective in my early days and gave me some of my first clients.
Hosting local events: I've used Meetup.com to create and fill events over the years, helping me connect with my target audience in person.
Publishing a book: People discover my book both via word of mouth and Kindle suggestions, increasing my brand awareness and online presence.
In essence, marketing without social media is not only feasible, it's also personally fulfilling if you explore what's possible through the lens of "what content creation would feel like art to me?"
Has this blog post been helpful for you? If so, let me know in the comments.
Danielle Gardner
The Quiet Marketer
View my bio
P.S. If you are interested in working with me in some capacity, start here ⤵
