Why Yoga Teachers Shouldn't Rely Just on Social Media Alone
‘I don’t need a website for my yoga business. I have social media.’
I hear this a lot from yoga teachers (and other wellness pros) when it comes to having a website and running their business. They think that being on Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook is all they need.
In reality, there is more to running a sustainable yoga business model, and I’m going to share the two things yoga teachers and others should add to their business strategy and systems to support and protect their business.
Prefer to watch or listen rather than read?
I’ve got you covered!
Head on over to get the full skinny on my companion YouTube video!
Otherwise, read on, my friend.
Relax! You do not have to give up social media!
Don't worry, I am not here to tell you that you shouldn't be using social media or that you need to ditch it altogether.
Absolutely not!
Social media is a great place for us to be able to:
speak to our audience
build a community
allow folks to get to know us and
market and sell our products/services
Social media has a really important place in an online business strategy, and if you enjoy being on social media, there's absolutely no reason you shouldn’t have a presence on your platform(s) of choice.
(I mean, hello, I use it too!)🤓
Keep going! Enjoy it! Use it to its fullest capacity!
However, I don't believe that you should be using social media as the only place to run your business, or as the sole platform for supporting your business.
I'll share with you why I think it's essential that you distribute your business strategy and systems beyond social media.
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Rely Only on Social Media
No ownership or Control
On social media, you don't have control or any ownership of those platforms and the content that you put on them.
You have no control over the algorithms (which seem to change on a daily basis). You don't get to control who sees your content and how often or how long your content remains relevant.
Hackers & Jerks
A sad reality of the current social media landscape is that you’re also at risk of having your account or profile hacked. Or, in some cases, maybe somebody with a bone to pick or just wanting to be a jerk reports your account for some reason.
If this happens, you could potentially lose access to your account, your content, or worse, lose them altogether!
Pro tip: Whenever possible, set up Two-Factor-Authentication on your social media accounts. This will drastically reduce your chances of being hacked.
Outages & Glitches in the Matrix
This is the biggest issue, in my opinion, because it’s not a matter of if this will happen but when.
I spent decades working in technology, and I’m here to tell you outages and glitches happen on even the most technologically advanced platforms.
We've all been there on those days when Facebook or Instagram has either been unavailable for an hour or several hours or maybe an entire day, or they're experiencing glitches that just make it impossible to deal with.
Why are the text and captions on my Reels all messed up?!! Why?!!!
It's no fun, and if you're relying on running your business out of these platforms entirely and something like that happens, what are you gonna do? You might be outta business for a day, or maybe you'll lose your account.
Just this month (11/22), Instagram had an issue where people couldn’t access their accounts for some time and some had temporary impacts on their follower counts.
It's just not a great place to find yourself in, so you need to have some things to back you up and support your business, your community, and your clients.
Two things to Add to your small business system strategy
First up, and I’m not gonna surprise you here, I don't think, but it's a website! And number two is going to be an email list.
Think about it. If your social media platform of choice craps out on you one day, what are you going to do?
What if you're running your classes through your social media, or everybody books you through that, and it's not available?
You could be dead in the water.
Why a Website?
If you have a website that supports your business, and that's where clients can book classes or appointments with you, or that you stream your classes or your content from, you can still run your business that day, despite whatever's going on in social media.
So sure, maybe that killer post you were planning on sharing that day doesn't get posted. But,
You can still run your business.
You can still meet with your clients.
You can still run your classes.
The Power of Email
It’s incredibly important that you have an email list. It’s another place where you can engage and grow your community and your audience.
When people sign up for your email list, it's because they want to hear from you. They're interested in what you have to offer. Having that email list in your back pocket when something goes wrong on other platforms, social media, or otherwise, you still have the means to be able to communicate with your audience!
You can blast out an email to them, tell them what's going on, and let them know how they can contact you and work with you while the other platforms are unavailable.
Final Thoughts
So remember how at the beginning of this article, I said that ownership was an issue? With a website and especially an email list, you have ownership over those assets!
That email list and website content are portable!
This is why I believe it’s important to build those two as foundations of your business platform with social media layered on the top.
They interconnect and support each other while distributing your risk. If one of those pieces is not working correctly one day, the others are there to support it and fill in.
So this is a gentle reminder that you need to think of your business as a business, and when you're ready, build out that website and that email list, and start creating a system that supports your business and client needs in the long run.
In the meantime, continue to enjoy your social media presence! It's a great place to establish yourself, and grow your business.