119: What Happens When Social Media Is No Longer Part of Your Marketing Strategy

In this episode, Jules White shares a very honest, voice-note style reflection on what it really means to say social media is optional and what happens when you decide to step away from it completely.

Jules talks through her growing desire for a quieter, more minimalist way of running her business and life, with less screen time, less noise, and fewer dopamine-fuelled distractions. She explains why even limited social media use can still create FOMO, pressure, and a constant pull to check in, especially during launches or promotions.

Jules also shares why slower marketing methods like SEO, podcasting, PR, and creating content you own feel far more sustainable and aligned.

She introduces her experiment of being done with social media, not as a rule, but as a choice, and reflects on how this shift sharpens focus on building a business that does not rely on feeding algorithms. Jules also talks about her vision for building community outside of social platforms in a more intentional space for business owners who want to grow without constant online noise.

Key takeaways:

• Why social media can still drain energy even when you are not posting regularly
• The difference between healthy dopamine and addictive, screen-based.
• How stepping away from social media creates space for clearer thinking and deeper focus.
• Why creating content you own is central to sustainable, algorithm-free marketing.
• How removing social media as an option forces better marketing decisions elsewhere.
• The role of SEO, podcasts, and owned platforms in long-term business growth.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• The Social Media Is Optional podcast series, where Jules explores the impact of social media on business and wellbeing.
• Episode 105: Why Your Brain (and Business) Deserves a Break from Harmful Social Media
• Find out more about The Website Growth Club membership for learning how to grow your business through SEO, owned content, and a website that works for you.

If this episode resonated and you are questioning the role social media plays in your business or life, Jules invites you to connect.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction: Starting the Journey
• 1:22 The Problem with Social Media
• 2:30 Seeking a Slower Life
• 3:53 Dopamine and Screen Time
• 5:12 Finding Flow State
• 7:16 Protecting Mental Space
• 8:34 Building Community Outside Social Media
• 10:27 Creating Content You Own
• 11:32 Staying Connected Without the Apps
• 13:14 Day One of the Experiment
• 14:12 Marketing Without Social Media
• 15:50 The Algorithm's Design
• 16:36 Join the Movement

Transcript

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT - MAY CONTAIN ERRORS

Introduction: Starting the Journey

Jules White: Hi. So, I thought I would start a little series, very basic, recording it on my phone as a voice note.

There are no fancy mics or anything, so I am sorry if the quality sounds a bit echoey. I am standing in my kitchen.

I just want to record a few voice notes to document my journey. Really, I decided yesterday, after skirting around it for years and years, that social media and I are done.

Even as I say that, I feel a little bit anxious. For a long time, I have had my messaging and I do firmly believe, and have done forever, really, that social media is optional.

I believe that you can and should focus on other things in your business before you turn to posting and the damaging effects of the scroll and everything.

The Problem with Social Media

Jules White: So, I created a podcast series earlier last year that was called Social Media is Optional.

It talked all about the different aspects of social media and using social media in our business. It covered how it affects us personally and how we are buying into a system that is set against us, particularly as women.

It discussed how it is damaging for us and how it still does not get to the results that we want. I think that is the big thing for most business owners that I speak to.

It is not just about avoiding social media; it is not just about the feelings we get from using social media. It is about the fact that we do all this, spend so much time, energy, and stress on it, and it still does not bring in the clients that we want it to.

So, I have been having some thoughts about how I could just make my life less noisy and more minimalist. I want to spend less time on my phone, less time on screens, and just come back to living a slower life.

Seeking a Slower Life

Jules White: I want to live a life where I am not constantly bombarded with all the messages, all the noise, and all the FOMO.

That noise comes from spending so much time on my phone and from being on social media. I do not actually use social media that much anyway.

I am certainly not spending hours scrolling every day, but I have had that as part of my business up until now. I think I was holding onto the optional part of it.

I very rarely actually post on social media. It is incredibly rare that I would do something like Reels and all of that sort of thing, but I do still feel that FOMO.

I still feel that thing of, "Oh, well, if I am launching, if I am doing a promotion, or if I am trying to have a focussed effort to grow my email list."

I get that feeling that, probably, I should post on social. I feel that if I just post on social, then that could be the thing that could bring people in right now.

I think one of the big things that I realise with that is that it is the dopamine hit. That is why I love SEO and focussing on those slower marketing tactics like podcasts and PR.

Dopamine and Screen Time

Jules White: I like all of the things where you do not get that instant hit where you post something and it either does well or it does not.

In those situations, you feel like you get that instant gratification, really. The reason that I have kind of gone down this route is I have been thinking about a dopamine detox.

I have been reading a bit about that. I think from what I have read, it is not a particularly helpful or accurate term.

But maybe, for me, it is more about the screen detox. The instant gratification of that dopamine hit is what I am trying to avoid.

We need dopamine; it is something that is part of our natural hormones that help us to be motivated. It helps us to do the things that we need and want to do in our daily lives.

So, we cannot avoid dopamine altogether. I actually spent a big chunk of this weekend doing a jigsaw.

I like doing jigsaws, but I have avoided them for a while because I get a little bit addicted to them. What I end up doing is spending too long on them.

I sort of agonised a little bit over this over the weekend and I was beating myself up about it. It is ridiculous because if I had made a choice to sit and read a book all day, I would not feel like that.

I would not feel like, "Actually, I could not put my book down. It was so good; I could not put my book down."

Finding Flow State

Jules White: I would not blame myself for that. It is a different kind of dopamine to doom scrolling.

Yes, I had that little bit of feeling bad because I had spent probably longer than I intended to. But when I was doing it, I was also in a complete flow state, which is really good for our minds.

I was not thinking about anything else. I find it really hard to switch off from work, but I was not thinking about anything else while I was doing that jigsaw.

I was just thinking about the pieces and just thinking about what I was doing there. I was talking to my mindset coach last week and we were talking about the ways that I can put these escapes into my life.

We looked at things that force me to switch off from work. These include things like getting out in the garden, getting on my yoga mat, or going for a cold swim.

That is absolutely my non-negotiable; I have to go for my swim at least once a week. I get my buzz and release the stress into the water.

I definitely feel like that happens when I go for a cold swim, and I just feel amazing afterwards. Honestly, it is so good.

So, I was thinking about how I can build these things in. That led me down a bit of a rabbit hole in terms of just thinking about reduced screen time and how I can protect myself from this.

Protecting Mental Space

Jules White: Social media is a big part of that. Social media is a big part of those feelings of FOMO.

It contributes to those feelings of not feeling good after you spend time on there and feeling that pull to constantly check. It is not constant, but if I am checking social media three times a day and that is taking me ten minutes each time, that adds up.

Actually, if I spent those thirty minutes meditating, going for a walk, or being in my garden, I guarantee that my brain would feel clearer. I would have less shiny object syndrome, less FOMO, and fewer feelings of failure and inadequacy.

So, I just had this idea pop into my head of, "Okay, what if we were done?" What if we were done with social media?

What if we said, "No, that is not something I now do in my business," just as an experiment? Even just give it a go and see how it goes.

What if this was part of the movement and the community that I build? I want to bring people together who want to build a business on their terms.

I want to help people who want to build a business that does not require them to feed the algorithm and become a content creator for somebody else.

Building Community Outside Social Media

Jules White: This is the bit I am most excited about. I have had this thought and this feeling that I want to create a community outside of social media.

It is one of the things I would love to do this year. I have not posted in my Facebook group for a long time.

I cannot actually remember the last time I recorded a live podcast, which was all I used to do when I was actually using it. Facebook kind of killed Facebook groups a little bit by making it so you could not schedule posts in there from outside of Facebook.

They also made it so the content was deleted after thirty days. Coming back to building a community outside of Facebook, I do have this dream of being the place where people come and intentionally use a community that is not social media.

It might mean that it is not as noisy in there. As I said that out loud, that sounds like a good thing—it not being as noisy in there.

What I was actually thinking was it might mean that it is not as busy or buzzing in there. I feel like a lot of Facebook groups have lost that now anyway.

It means that people come there deliberately. I am not just interrupting people's day or interrupting people's scroll because they happen to catch what is going on in my Facebook group.

So, I am excited to do that. I would really love this to evolve for the Website Growth Club to become more than just getting your website in order and getting your SEO working for you.

I think focussing on our own content is the most important part of escaping social media. We should focus on the relationships that we build with people and on the content that we put out there on our own website.

We should focus on the content that we own, such as our own website and our own podcast.

Creating Content You Own

Jules White: If you want to do podcasting, I think that is one of the most important messages. It is something I have always talked about.

I have always talked about the fact that we need to create content that we own first. Then, no algorithm can take that away.

You are building something that is sustainable and does not disappear in a few hours or a few days. It is an asset for your business.

Quality content that shows you as the expert helps people to actually connect with you. It helps them understand what you do and understand how you help them.

It is all part of making sure that is working for us and working for our businesses. So, if you are listening to this episode, you can always send me a message.

You can text the show, or if we are connected on WhatsApp, you can send me a message there. If not, you can send me a message on Instagram.

One of the great things I have realised about using GoHighLevel or FEA Create is that I can still get Instagram DMs without actually going on Instagram.

Staying Connected Without the Apps

Jules White: I am very excited about that because of DMs or instant messages. If we want to connect with people and have a conversation, I definitely prefer that way of communicating rather than email.

So yes, if people can send me a text, a WhatsApp, or a DM on Instagram, then that is fine and I am okay with it. I am okay with that being involved in my life and my business.

I will not delete my social media profiles. I do not have the apps on my phone, and I have not done so for years.

I have a block site tool that I use that stops me going on there. It just blocks me, basically, and I have to switch it off to get onto social media.

So, that is helpful to have that as well. I have a News Feed Eradicator as well, so that is also something that just helps to cut down the noise that I see.

I might start using that for YouTube. I do not spend a lot of time on YouTube, but quite often, if I go in there to add a video to my channel, I end up watching other videos.

YouTube is different from social media, I think; YouTube is more like Netflix, really. As much as binging on there is not healthy, there is not so much FOMO there.

There is not so much shiny object syndrome. There is not all the messaging, the back and forth, and all of that kind of stuff.

There is noise on YouTube, but it is not the same sort of noise as social media. So, I may well delete the apps from my work phone.

I have already moved them into a hidden folder that I do not look at all the time, and I am just going to see how it goes.

Day One of the Experiment

Jules White: Yesterday was the start of this experiment. So, it was the 26th of January, 2026.

I am going to document how things are going. I am going to see, just by taking notes of the feelings that come up, how many times I get that pull.

I definitely had it a few times yesterday—that pull of, "Oh, I should just quickly..." and you know, I do not want to be doing that. But I think, and I know from when I have had social media breaks before, that the longer you go, the easier it becomes.

The longer you do not use it, the less FOMO you get. You experience fewer feelings of inadequacy and more feelings of freedom and joy.

Even just making this choice and making this decision, I already feel freer. The great thing about marketing your business and not having social media as an option is it does make you really focus on the other areas.

Marketing Without Social Media

Jules White: So, it is making me think more about how I can grow my podcast. I have actually grown the podcast without promoting it on social media or paying for ads, and that is something I am so proud of.

That is my biggest success story for my own business: the fact that I have got to over 10,500 downloads when I checked last without using social media for my podcast. I love that. I love it.

Without having that thought of, "Maybe if I just posted on socials, maybe it would grow more quickly," things are simpler. Maybe it would, but the price of doing that, from my point of view, is not worth the effort.

So, this has been a bit of a different episode of the Website Success Show. I hope you enjoy it.

I would love to know how you feel about social media and using it in your business or your personal life. I am curious about the amount of time that you spend on there.

Let me know if you feel like it is robbing you of things, like time that you could spend elsewhere. This might be marketing your business in more effective ways or in ways that you feel could help you more.

Alternatively, you might feel like it is robbing your personal life. If you feel like it is robbing you of time with your family or time that could be spent doing more creative, hands-on, real-life things, then let me know.

I think it is one of those things that we can use as a stick to beat ourselves with. I recorded an episode about why we cannot stop scrolling and why social media is addictive.

The Algorithm's Design

Jules White: These platforms are designed to keep you there and keep you feeling inadequate. They keep you feeling those stronger emotions, whether that is hate, anger, or outrage.

Those are the kinds of things that drive people to their more extreme content. I will link to this episode, but it is actually the way the algorithms are designed.

They keep you there, they keep you scrolling, they keep you feeling inadequate, and they keep showing you ads. They are also gathering data on you.

They gather data on the type of content that you like and the type of content that keeps you there and keeps you scrolling. That is how they make their money, and that is what these platforms are all about.

Yes, there is so much damage that it does.

Join the Movement

Jules White: So, if you feel like that—if you feel like social media is stealing your life—and you want a more conscious way of marketing your business, come and connect.

I am talking about more sustainable marketing and less "dopaminey" marketing. Come and connect with me.

You can text the show, or you can email me or send me a WhatsApp and let us connect. If you are looking to actually grow your business using SEO and actually showing up in search, come and join the Website Growth Club.

This is all about how you can actually create your content for your own website. It involves setting your website up in a way that helps you to actually show up when people are searching for what you do.

People are out there searching for what you do or the problems that you solve for them. So, come and join us and hopefully, I will see you soon.

Bye.