4 Step Process to Build Your Health Business

Do you want to know how to use social media instead of allowing it to use you?

I’ve got a little secret that I’m going to share with you in this video.

My name is Yuri Elkaim, and I’m the founder of Healthpreneur in case you don’t know me. We help health and fitness entrepreneurs turn their expertise into awesome coaching businesses.

Should Social Media Be Your Primary Lead Gen Source?

A lot of our clients sadly rely on social media as their primary fuel source, if you will, for generating new leads and clients. Social media is great. It’s all good. I do believe it’s a nice thing to have on the back burner to build up your platform over time, but it can’t be the primary focus of your business.

The challenge of social media is that it’s been devised and built with the human condition in mind. What I mean by that is that social media has been built, the newsfeeds have been built with a very specific process whereby they know that if we keep scrolling, we keep scrolling, we keep scrolling, eventually, we’re going to see something we like.

If we see something we like, that triggers the dopamine response in our brain. If you’re watching this, you probably know what dopamine is because you’re probably a health expert. Dopamine is a very addictive neurotransmitter, neural hormone if you want to think of it that way.

The more of it we get, the more of it we want.  The power of social media is that it’s intermittent reinforcement. We sometimes get dopamine. We sometimes don’t. You’re scrolling through the newsfeed, and you’re like, “Eh, nothing, nothing, nothing. Oh, good. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Good. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Good.” That’s how it’s so powerful.

How To Avoid Falling Down The Social Media Rabbit Hole

How do we avoid that setup to derail you from your day because we all know, and I’m guilty of this more than anyone,  is once you start, it’s like Pringles. Once you pop, you can’t stop. Once you go on that newsfeed rabbit hole, it becomes an endless rabbit hole that just sucks up like an hour or two of your time. You’re like, “What happened to my day?”

Here’s the key. You have to think of yourself as a fighter jet. You’re a fighter jet. You’re going over your target. You’re going to drop a missile, and you’re going to fly out. In this case, we’re going to drop some knowledge or wisdom bombs, not actual bombs, and we’re going to leave the platform.

Here’s the takeaway.

To navigate and feel good about social media, you have to use it instead of it using you, which means you have to create instead of consume.

I’m going to share a really good Chrome extension with you, which, I don’t know if I should share this with you because maybe you won’t see my stuff then. It’s called Kill Newsfeed. What it does is it kills your newsfeed on the Chrome browser. You’re actually going to not see your newsfeed. You’re only going to see a blank screen, and then whatever groups you want access to. Sadly, on mobile, there’s nothing like that, so you’re screwed if you’re on mobile.

Are You Creating, Or Are You Consuming?

But the key with social media is you have to think, here’s the thing, you have to be conscious of what you’re doing. Before you even log onto Facebook or Instagram, you have to think to yourself, “Am I going out of boredom? Am I sitting on the toilet and just scrolling through my newsfeed?” Come on, guys. We all know we do that, right? Let’s be honest. “Or am I going there to add value? Am I going there to create, or am I going there to consume?”

I want to challenge you to really become aware of your actions and think to yourself that if I’m not creating something, if I’m not adding a post, if I’m not adding value, don’t even go on because it’s not the most important use of your time to look at what other people are doing. You’re going to feel worse about yourself, as studies have shown. You’re going to be taken off tangents, which is never good for a focused entrepreneur, and it’s just not a really good use of our time. If you’re going to be using social media, go in with an intention to drop a wisdom or knowledge bomb. Share a post, share an image, inspire somebody, add some value. Leave.

You may want to hang around for 10 or 20 minutes just to answer some questions and engage in the comments, but that’s it. Give yourself an addition to that very specific times during the day where you will be on social media.

For instance, first thing in the morning, no-no. One of the things that I do at night is I turn off my phone. I actually power down. I throw it in my drawer. I don’t even open my drawer or turn on my phone usually until mid-morning or lunch time the following day. I’m not checking email. I’m not checking social. I’m not doing any of that stuff because I’m getting my most important stuff done because, otherwise, you become at the mercy of other people’s agenda and other people’s stuff. Whether we’re checking email or social media, it’s very reactive instead of proactive. That’s a big mistake we want to avoid. But in terms of being on social, get in there, create something, add value, and then leave; otherwise, excuse me, your day is gone.

That is the social media success secret. If you like this, let me know your thoughts below. If you’ve got another little tip that you like to use to navigate this exciting and crazy social world, then I’d love to know in the comments below, but for now, hope you have an awesome day. I’m going to continue my walk, and I will see you soon.