This post was inspired by Jill Whalen. She mentioned recently that she was waiting for the blog post “How Social Media Killed My Business” so here it is just for you Jill…
One upon a time, I used to have a thriving online business. I mean I was seriously kicking ass. The money was rolling in every minute of the day. I could do what I wanted when I wanted and didn’t have a care in the world. My life was totally amazing. It was way better than anyone else’s I know and everyone was jealous of me. I had it made!
I had a ton of websites and all of them were constantly bringing in a boat load of traffic and sales every day. My business was running like a well oiled super duper awesome machine. My system was flawless and I had it mastered. I was at the point where all I had to do was write up some content each morning and build some backlinks each evening. The rest of the time I did whatever the hell I wanted and the money just poured in.
But then something happened. My life slowly started falling apart. My business was fading away. I couldn’t control it. There was nothing I could do. It was a habit; no it was an addiction that I couldn’t kick. I didn’t even know it was taking hold of me until it was too late. My online business was ruined, gone forever.
I was told there was no help for what I had. It couldn’t be cured. But what was it? Nobody really knew for sure.
It was just something called…
Social Media!
Looking back it all seemed so innocent and fun. I got a Myspace account when I was in college. Then, Facebook started getting popular so I had to have both. Next, Twitter popped up. Somewhere along the way I also joined Linkedin, Youtube, Digg, Delicious, Mixx, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Hi5, Friendster, Blogcatalog, Mybloglog, and so many more. I can’t even remember them all.
All I know is that I HAD to be on them. I even told myself at first that all these social sites were helping my business and I was really working when I was on them. First it was weekly, then daily, then hourly, and finally every second of every day now.
There is no way out! And more keep popping up all the time. Google+ is my newest craving, desire, addiction. I think about it constantly. This must be insanity!
Now, my business is long gone and I haven’t had a real face-to-face conversation with anyone since I don’t know when. My social media accounts are all I have now. I wake up to them and I can’t sleep at night because of them. They keep me going at all times. I couldn’t exist without Facebook and the others.
So, that is the short story of how social media killed my business. Ok actually I just started typing and made the whole thing up in the past few minutes. However, now that I am done writing, I can see that it really does have some truth to it. Damn you social media, damn you!
