Is social media actually growing your online business—or just keeping you busy?

In this episode, I share my experience of posting consistently for three years on Instagram and Facebook while building a coaching business. Social media helped me establish authority and build relationships, but it also created pressure, consumed time, and kept me focused on content instead of compounding assets.

We talk about:

1. The real effort behind daily posting
2. Why social media content rarely compounds
3. The pressure to show up consistently
4. Comparison and its hidden cost
5. Redirecting energy toward evergreen platforms
6. Shifting focus to backend systems and sales

This is a real conversation about visibility, growth, and what sustainable business building actually requires.

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Transcript generated by Transcript LOL

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Welcome to Episode 3 of Candid Code. Today, I wanted to speak about social media. I know there's a lot of discussion going around people quitting social media. And even when I announced a few weeks ago, I want to quit social media, there were some discussions going on and some messages that I received.

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So I thought, why not come here and speak about is social media actually helping you grow your online business? Now, if you have been in any of my programs, you know, I have always told, start with social media as your business growth. And that comes from my personal experience. I started into online business as a social media marketer.

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That was way back in 2019. I started creating content for Instagram in 2020. And that was a phase when it was COVID era. People were on socials, my account actually had 16K followers back then within just three or four months of consistently posting.

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So I started with a social media heavy business. I know all of this while I have been always telling people social media is not your complete business. You are not an influencer. You don't look at vanity metrics, even though you say it.

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But in reality, for me, if you ask and I have to speak honestly here, I relied on it as if it was my complete business. I looked at the numbers. I have felt discouraged by numbers not growing up. And it feels really very sad to see after three years, not just three years, like from 2020 until 2022, I was into a different phase of business.

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From 2022 until now, 2025, the last three years, I have been building an online coaching business for which you know me now. I was a social media heavy business. I really felt as if I was a content creator. I was creating content every single day for Facebook, for Instagram and sometimes even for LinkedIn.

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There are ways we say you can repurpose content. This goes there and that goes here. I repurposed my content heavily. I batched scheduled content.

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I batch created content. Despite all of this, I felt pressurized to show up on social media. Now I'm talking all about me posting content. As a consumer, you would never find me scrolling on Instagram.

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It's not a habit for me to actually scroll on socials. From Facebook, definitely you would see me sometimes going here and there with seeing interactions normally in the groups that I love, what people are doing, but it's never the educational style of content that I would have to consume. Coming back to today's topic just after giving a brief history of my relationship with social media. I created content for social media and try to be consistent by posting every single day.

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And today when I look at it, I really feel bad about it. I put so much of energy into creating content and you know content creation is not easy. If I would have saved at least 50% of that energy in creating evergreen content, my business would have been at a different level today. By evergreen content, I mean blog, podcast or YouTube, which gets some SEO reach and the content normally doesn't die so soon.

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Social media content dies very faster. So even though I created content, the best pieces of content, my Instagram would have around 900 posts, mostly 900 posts. Even out of those, if I say 500 posts were highly curated, see the efforts put in there into those 500 pieces of content. Now, if that could have been just 100 blog posts or 100 podcast episodes, you know the difference.

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So social media, I feel somewhere is getting noisy. Almost after Reels coming into picture, accounts started going viral. Now for those who are influencers, for those whose business is social media, it's a different vibe. But I'm talking about online business owners for whom the business is the real thing.

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Now for me, I have a business to be built. I have to do create courses. I have to write sales pages. I have to work on automations.

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I have to write emails. I have to host collaborative events. Despite all of this, all of my energy was going into creating content. I have to post something today was the pressure I always had in my heart.

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No one was pressurizing me, but it was self-pressure. It was a guilt if I didn't post for a few days. Now, I remember the moments wherein I wasn't available because I was sick or kids were sick. When I saw my socials, I felt really guilty.

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I haven't been posting for five days. I haven't been posting for seven days. I haven't been posting for 30 days. And whenever I didn't post, It was just social.

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Whenever I didn't post on Facebook or Instagram, I felt I had shut down my business. Whereas I was still working in my business. And why are we building this online business? We are building online business so that it fits our busy lifestyle.

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If you are a mom, you know how much time you have at hand. And if you're building a business that gives you freedom, So that means you can take off, you can take one week off, 10 days off, 30 days off, but if you're going to be heavily relied to socials the way I was, that guilt is real. So what started happening for me, you know, with all of this content creation and feeling guilty, I'm not there, people are not buying from this social. If I would have saved some of that time and utilized it on creating automations, you know, evergreen emails, sales pages, creating new courses, looking into better collaborations, It would have been a different case.

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So what I feel today from my own experience, I honestly feel I have wasted a lot of efforts on socials, which could have been channelized very nicely. While saying this, while saying this, okay, I don't want to say that social media is bad. Some of my great connections are made on socials. I really enjoyed being on Facebook.

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Now, I loved Instagram. As you know, I always loved Instagram. But I won't be able to tell you at least 10 connections I made on Instagram. No, I didn't.

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On Facebook, if you ask me, I would be able to name 100 plus connections made on Facebook. And all of these connections are not via people reading my content. It is all by being into different communities. Maybe those are membership communities, some course communities, student-only communities, free Facebook groups.

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All of these relations were made with interaction with people, not by me creating content. Whereas, on the other hand, the energy I put into creating content for my lead magnets or whichever I promoted to get people into my emails, those were relations because people loved my content. Even though I tell you social media is not good, it is also good in some ways. And even today, I still believe it's the best way for someone to start with.

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You get connections, you already have some kind of people there, you have so much of networking opportunities. But at the same time, think about how much time you want to spend into creating content. You are not a content creation engine. You are not a content creation engine.

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You are not meant to define your entire worth by how much content you have posted. how much people are liking your post. It's not that. An online business that you are building also needs systems in place.

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Now, I know I started learning online business from people who were business coaches on Instagram and I've always seen them as business coaches on Instagram because apart from Instagram, I haven't seen them having a business like actually selling through energy. Do this, do that. You have to show up. You have to sell on your stories every single day.

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Now, that may be good. But for someone who is building business with limited capacity, limited time, most of the time I'm in the most shittiest outfit you could see me. It wasn't easy. It was very difficult to do all those things and I felt exhausted.

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I felt burnt out and I was overwhelmed with so many things I have to do. Where else? Shifting off socials. It was easy, like writing an email.

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You don't have to get ready to write an email. Creating a course, recording a course. You don't have to get ready for it. Writing a blog post, you don't have to.

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You don't have to be the best designer. You can create, you can schedule. Even this is a work. I'm not saying this is not the work.

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Even this is a work, but it pays off. It pays off even in long run. Now, while I was creating all the content for socials, while I was so busy in there, I was ignoring sales. I was ignoring automations.

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I was ignoring so many important things that should have been prioritized. Now for you, if you love social media, I would always say channelize those people into your email list. Email is always the great asset to have. Nurture people onto your emails.

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You can be on socials, but don't nurture people too much on social. Don't spend all of your energy on there. That's me as a creator for social media. Now, me as a consumer for socials, you won't find me scrolling on socials.

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Like Instagram, I never scroll. Facebook, sometimes I'm there in the groups. But even with this, okay, even with having minimum 10 minutes, like the least, sorry, the maximum 10 minutes of time on Instagram, I really felt pressurized because every single post I see, every single story I see is like, you have to invest. You have to do this.

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You know, this is what I did. That is what I did. Somehow, subconsciously, I went into comparing myself. Oh, this person started business 12 months ago and she's making this much money and I'm here three years in business and I'm still here.

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So I went into comparison loop, started feeling low about myself. So that are also side effects of being on socials. So for today's episode, if anything that you need as a clarity or maybe you need, is social media really helping you grow your online business? I want you to think from all the perspectives.

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I know a lot of people talk about quitting social media with social media burnout and social media burnout is absolutely real. I have experienced it. I was someone who has posted every single day. I was someone who has posted four times a week.

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I was someone who has posted three times a day. So I have been in all the modes of social media. I have been a huge fan of social media for a long time, but I have felt the burnout. I have felt overwhelmed with it.

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I have been so much occupied in only the content part of it. The actual business was never built. And after three years, like I took three years to actually achieve six figures in my business. And then I realized I was putting all of my energy in the wrong direction, which wasn't required.

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And then when I decided I'm going to ease off social, I wouldn't say I have quit social totally because I still use Facebook for finding collaborators. I still use Facebook to market a couple of things out there. And maybe I would still create some sales post for Facebook. I don't know yet while I'm recording this episode.

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I might show up on Instagram. I'm not very sure. That could be repurposing content. But while I say this, easing social media, not adding the pressure, was a great relief for me.

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So, for someone who really felt the guilt, I have to post today, and 3-4 hours, whatever you work, is totally going into creating a piece of content, to not worrying about social media. And it wasn't easy for me. It wasn't easy. Quitting social media wasn't easy.

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The first few days, I decided I am not going to post. I always felt like I have to post. My feed isn't looking good. It's looking off brand and I started posting anything else there.

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What would people feel? I'm not an authority brand and all of those things out there. But remember, people don't just see you in one channel. People see you in multiple ways.

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People connect with you in multiple ways. There are so many things out there that you may be missing out by being heavily relying on socials. And as a consumer, if I have to tell you something, if you are scrolling a lot on socials, be wise with your time. I have seen people scrolling for hours and hours and hours on socials and it is all unproductive.

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That could have been utilized in your business. So just today while I'm recording this, I just wanted to share things like if I would have utilized the same energy and it is not that I don't like showing up. I like showing up on camera. It's not it's not I would say like it's not bad for me to show up on camera.

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It's not. difficult for me to create content. It's not difficult for me to design posts in Canva. Everything is easy.

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As I was batch scheduling, batch creating, but despite it all being easy, I was burnt out. And then I decided I'm going to put all of that energy into evergreen content. And evergreen content is also not easy. If you want to do collaborations, you have to put in the work.

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You have to put in the work to write a blog post. But at the same time, it gives me ease that I'm not pressurized by something. I'm not pressurized by perfection. So what your business needs today, what your business needs now is your thoughtful decision on whether social media is really helping you grow your online business or is it just keeping you busy.

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If you are behind only creating content and using social media as if that's the only way, maybe it's just keeping you busy. And if you're someone who is using social media very wisely, being there with intention, not pressurizing so much for yourself to show up there, maybe it's helping you grow your online business. But whatever it is, from today's episode, I really want you to think about how you're using social media in your business. Is it really serving you or is it against you?

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And anything that you feel resonates with the episode or anything you have to share from your experience, I would love to have it.