Hey guys, listen up – this is a serious question…

If social media disappeared tomorrow, would your business survive?

Most of us love (and hate) social media for how easily it connects us to our audience. It’s a way we can speak to many people, promote services and products to people we’ve never met, and build a community of like-minded business owners. Well, that’s what I use it for.

And it’s pretty awesome. But recently I’ve wondered how it would impact my business if social media shut down overnight.

I mean can you imagine waking up in the morning, grabbing your cuppa and sitting down to scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter etc. only to discover nada – nothing – no pictures – no posts – just radio silence?

What would we all do? It’s not like we can get on Facebook and post, ‘Hey guys, has anyone else’s social media disappeared?’.

But I reckon I’d survive no social media – here’s why.

One of the best things I have for my business is a CRM. It has all the info I need to keep my business running. I can email my connections and keep them in the loop of what’s happening.

Imagine this email – ‘Guys, don’t panic – social media has disappeared but I’m still here, and we’re still connected. I’m currently working on another online platform, so we can keep connecting just like we did on our Facebook group’. You’d stop panicking wouldn’t you – coz you’d still be in contact with me (which is so important!) and you know you’ll soon be connected to the group once again. The world hasn’t ended!

I also happen to know that most of my leads come from Google (thanks Google and SEO talents), so I’d keep making sure I worked on my rankings to maintain a quality website with relevant data. If you’re neglecting your website, maybe you should give it a little love (but don’t stress – I don’t have secret info that social media is actually going to disappear – yet!).

And thanks to my current networks and business connections, I get a lot of referrals through old-fashioned word of mouth. This will always be a sure bet to keep your business alive as I’m sure we’ll never lose the ability to speak!

So, my online groups and training can be moved to other platforms, and I reckon this could happen within a few days. Things will be ok.

What about you? Will you survive?

Do you have anything in place in case you lost social media tomorrow?

I hope if nothing much else, that you’re collecting and saving relevant data for potential and current clients, so you can always promote your services and keep your business running.

If you don’t have a CRM, or if you’re not collecting details of clients or leads, you may be in trouble. Being able to collect email and phone details of people who are interested in your service but haven’t yet acted is important. Most people need to get to know, like and trust you as a provider before they become a client.

People may need to see evidence of your reliability, skills and brand ethos. Social media has always been useful for this but isn’t the be all and end all as you can’t really control who sees what (unless you do paid advertising of course and even that isn’t completely reliable).  However, if you can contact people via email or phone to communicate your message with them, following spam laws of course, you are going to be able to cross those hurdles much quicker.

When you use your own CRM to gather data and get your content out, you can maintain control over the process and even better – you can look at the statistics of the reach. Did your audience react and open the email? If yes – great, keep doing that. If no – change what you’re putting out there. It’s always been much harder to gauge this reaction from social media.

Nothing is forever.

No program, no software, no platform – especially in an ever-changing technology world.

Please don’t put all your eggs in one basket. You need to have a strong setup that supports you to create long-lasting relationships with your audience.

So how do you gather useful data for your CRM? Opt-ins.

Opt-ins are online forms that usually provide a gift as an incentive for your ideal contacts to give you their email address. And this can be hard at times. People are getting over their email inboxes getting filled up with junk, so are only likely to hand over their email if your incentive totally rocks (and you have an unsubscribe option!).

Your opt-in should answer some of the prospect’s questions around your skillset and prove to them that you have the knowledge and methods to ease their pain around this topic.

Some examples include free eBooks, free short courses or free checklists. They should be given to them as soon as they hit that submit button and be an automated process, so you don’t have to lift a finger. There are awesome VAs who can help you set this up too.

And the best part – once you’ve created an amazing opt-in that’s working, it’s done. Your prospects will love you for the info, and you’ll love building your database.

Now, don’t panic, social media is still here, but I hope you’re thinking about the ‘what if.’

You know I love social media and think it’s pretty great. But it’s social we can’t control, and it may not be forever.

So, use it while you can to build the know, like and trust factors, but always aim to send those quality prospects to your opt-ins so you can stay connected and provide more value.

I’d love to hear about your opt-ins and what your business would be like without social media – please comment below!