AP 0898: I Help People Quit Social Media; Is Using It Hypocritical?

AskPat 898 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 898. We're closing in on 900. Something special coming at 900 by the way. Anyway, thank you so much for being here, I appreciate you. As always I'm here five days a week to help answer your online-business questions.

We have an awesome question coming in from Muj today. But before we get to his question, I want to thank FreshBooks, it's one of my favorite companies. They've served me so well and served millions of other small businesses because they help us manage our business finances and they can help manage yours too. And what that means is, helping you keep track of your income, which is obviously important, automatically keeping track of your expenses so you know what you're paying for, especially with those credit cards that you have and those auto bills and those kinds of things. Plus the ability to help you create invoices really fast, in less than thirty seconds. It'll look professional, it'll help you get paid faster. It'll help you keep track of how much money you're owed and who has yet to open those invoices. It's great. If you want to check out FreshBooks for free for thirty days, all you have to do is go to FreshBooks.com/AskPat and just make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us?” section. Sweet.

Right, now here's today's question from Muj.

Muj: Hey Pat, it's Muj here. First off, thanks for everything you do. And thanks to your email promotion, I've kind of created an email challenge for myself where I'll try to earn a 100 to 200 people on my list in about 60-ish days. So thanks for your email promotion with AWeber there. And secondly, I'm having an issue in my head where . . . rather the topic that I've chosen is the topic of quitting/controlling social media. Now, in today's day and age, people lose a lot of time because of internet surfing and browsing and all these things. So I think I can carve out a productivity spin on the whole idea of social media in and of itself. So I think I can make it work.

But, now, is it hypocritical for me to be on social media or use it to acquire views to my site and whatnot? Or, should I just try to focus on my AdWords-type targeting and hope that the people who are searching are the ones who are going to find it? So, now it isn't up right now, but hopefully it will be soon. I hope to hear from you. Thanks again.

Pat Flynn: Hey Muj, Thank you so much for the question. I guess in a sense it's kind of ironic and hypocritical, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. I think you're thinking too deeply about that fact that you are targeting people on social media to help them get off of social media. I mean, it would make sense that a company who is helping people get off of social media—to target people on social media. Because guess what? That's where people are. And so what's really important is not where you are reaching out to them. I would actually stay away from AdWords for this. I would stick on social media, stick on Facebook. I mean, I'm imagining an ad, for example, that I see that says, “Hey, if you're seeing this ad, you're probably wasting your time. Here's more information.” You know, that catches my eye. So, what I would recommend focusing on, is not worrying about using social media to find people. I mean that's where people are. This is right where the problem is. So go there.

What I would worry about is the message that you're sharing with them and the benefit. Helping not only capture people's attention but helping them realize just how much of a struggle this is. I think you're going to get two types of people. One type is the people who don't even really know they have a problem. And so they're going to have a specific type of messaging that's going to be required to help them convert to, “Oh my gosh. I do have a problem. What can I do about it?”

To the people who know they have a problem, that's the second type. They know they have this issue. I'm guessing to say that 70 percent of the people out there who are on social media who are on it too much, know they're on it too much. It's almost like the people who know they need to go to the gym more. I mean they know that, but they're not changing their habits. So how are you going to convince them to understand that, “Hey, you know what? I know you know that this is bad. It's like smoking, it is almost like an addiction, right? Here's how you can get over the addiction.” I think those are the keywords that you'll need to use for that particular crowd.

So, you don't want to tell people who don't know that they're addicted, that they're addicted, right? They always say, “No. I'm not addicted,” you know, so you're going to approach it a different way. But the people who know they're addicted, saying and calling them out on it, is going to be a really strong and powerful way to get noticed and get their attention. So no, I don't think it's hypocritical. Stay on social media. Find those people but deliver the right message for them in the specific mindset that they have with their addiction or their problem.

So there you go Muj. Thank you so much, I appreciate you. Hopefully that's helpful and I want to wish you all the best. And I want to send you an AskPat teeshirt as well for having your question featured here on the show. My assistant Jessica will be helping you out there and collecting your information very soon. So you'll hear from here in the next few weeks or so. And then we'll send that to you free of charge.

And always, if anybody else out there has a question they want answered on a show just like this, or on this show just like Muj, you can head on over to AskPat.com and you ask right there on that page. Also, by the way, you can catch me live on Facebook, on Periscope, which is Twitter's live streaming platform, as well as YouTube. My YouTube channel, by the way, is YouTube.com/smartpassiveincome. I go live 1:30 p.m. Pacific every single Friday, or at least Friday's that I'm around, and we just answer as many questions as I can for you. That's what's called AskPat Live. So look out for it. It's being broadcasted from my brand new studio that I just leased and decked out with all this crazy equipment so that I could better serve you. That's just one of the ways that I'm using this studio. So AskPat Live 1:30 p.m. Pacific on my Facebook page, or YouTube, or on Twitter @PatFlynn and looking forward to seeing you guys there. Actually if you're listening to this on the day it comes out, which is the 29th of June, which is a Thursday, AskPat Live's happening tomorrow. So again, hope to see you there.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you and here's a quote to finish off the day by Vince Lombardi. He says, “Winning isn't everything—” He also didn't squeal or sound like a guy going through puberty like that. Let me try that again. “Winning isn't everything. But wanting to win is.”

Okay guys. Take care, thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.