I had a nice exchange with songwriter olivia rafferty recently, who said they’re hesitant to leave Instagram because as a musician you must be on social media – it’s the rule!

I asked how many actual opportunities came from all that time they spend on social media.

As a musician, I post on social media so that people find my music and go, “nice! I want to listen to this artist and buy her merch and come to her shows.” So I try to stay active on Instagram. But looking back at the last year, the biggest successes I’ve had have come from funding, emails and live shows. None of them came from opportunities facilitated by social media.

I am not telling anyone to burn their social media accounts to the ground.

But… what’s the opposite of uploading content to social media that 85% of your fans won’t even see?

Posting once a week, perhaps?

Remember what Rick Rubin said; “for any rules you accept… it would be worthwhile to try the opposite.”

Instead of posting 19 times a day, engaging, sharing, uploading… post once a week.

See what happens, I dare you.

Social media won’t like that, though. They’d rather you doom scroll until 1:45am on a Tuesday night.

“Social media companies don’t want you to go out and have fun with your friends—they want you to look at pictures of your friends having fun without you.”

Social Media Escape Club gained 100 subscribers in the last month, and just four of them came from Instagram.

Instead of putting all our marketing eggs into the social media basket and increasing shareholder value for Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, let’s find new ways to meet our fans that are sustainable, and leave us energized.

Go to a show, start a club, learn a new skill, read a book, host an event – opportunities exist outside of social media.

They’re just waiting for you to show up.