Can you run a successful freelance business without social media?

Greetings, Training for Translators readers, I hope you’re all doing well! Here’s what’s up with T4T this week:

Upcoming classes

• The June session of Direct Client Research Lab is sold out. E-mail classes@trainingfortranslators.com if you’d like to be on the wait list for a future session. 
• Free webinar! On June 17, guest instructor Laurie Bennett teaches a one-hour session on How to plan a book-length translation. We have 250 spots available and everyone who registers will receive the recording. 
• This month’s master class: On June 24, guest instructor Stacey McCormack teaches a two-hour master class, Optimizing your website for search engines and generative engines (SEO/GEO). This class will teach you the basics of how to get ranked by traditional search engines like Google, how to get recommended by AI engines like ChatGPT, and how your social media and content presence affects your website’s rankings. Registration is $75 and includes the recording. 

This week’s topic: Can you run a successful freelance business without social media? 

I picked this for a newsletter topic after getting this question from multiple students and readers. Some variation of:

• I loathe social media, do I have to be on it?
• Is it possible to find clients without being on social media?
• Social media is terrible for my mental health; I try to get on and get off, but I end up scrolling, full of doom and FOMO, and there goes the day. Can I quit??

Short answer: Keep the free in freelance; anything that makes you miserable needs to get out of your life 

I really mean this: I’ve said many times, if you’re OK working for a horrible boss, work for a horrible boss who at least gives you paid vacation and a retirement plan. Don’t be a horrible boss of yourself, forcing yourself to do things that you hate. If you truly despise social media, quit it today!

The real question: What are you actually asking?

This is important. You can 100% quit social media. But if you’re actually asking, “Can I have a thriving business where I do no marketing at all, I’m basically invisible, and the high-paying clients with interesting work somehow discover me, knock on my door, and beg me to work with them?” then my answer is going to be a hard no.

“Let the clients come to you” was just barely possible when I started freelancing in the early aughts and agencies still paid well for “pure” translation. In my opinion, it’s now very difficult/next to impossible to run a successful freelance business without some type of active marketing. What kind of marketing is up to you, but you can’t just work on what lands in the inbox, unless you have very specialized skills that clients know about and will pay well for. 

It’s also important to identify what you really hate about social media. My guess is that it’s the feeds: the part of social media that tempts you to compare everyone else’s highlights with your lowest moments as a freelancer. The FOMO. The guilt. The dread that, as well as your business might be doing, things could crumble to dust tomorrow. The people complaining about AI. The people complaining about the people complaining about AI. That’s probably what you’d like to quit. More on this below. 

For what it’s worth, it’s also possible to be on social media and feel OK about it. I honestly enjoy social media, partially because I’ve developed a combination of “you do you” (I know my priorities and what makes me happy, and I stick to those things), and an ability to get on and get off the social media that I enjoy. I go there for a specific purpose, and when that’s done, I log out. 

A freelancer who quit social media and now coaches other people on how to do the same 

This year, I’ve been trying to branch out of the translation and interpreting echo chamber and get some new perspectives on freelancing. My friend and colleague Abigail Stone suggested Austin Church‘s Advanced Freelancers Summit, which I attended and really enjoyed. Although I’m not planning to quit social media, one of my favorite presentations was about that very topic. 

The presenter, Amelia Hruby, is a six-figure freelancer who makes money as a podcast audio engineer, and as a content creator focused on helping freelancers thrive without social media. Here’s her website, Off The Grid, and I’ve started listening to her podcast by the same name. I was interested in hearing the details of Amelia’s income breakdown, so I also subscribed to her $5 per month Clubhouse, which gets you members-only podcast episodes and a newsletter. I really admire that Amelia does detailed income breakdowns, and talks about topics that are adjacent to quitting social media (i.e. selling a self-published book without depending on Amazon). 

It’s true that Amelia is not on any feed-based social media, which is impressive. You can look at her LinkedIn and Instagram profiles that publicly announce this. She does have a very active podcast (see above) and a Substack, which might or might not be considered social media. But as I said above, I’m guessing that what you really hate about social media is the feed, and Amelia is proof that you can be a six-figure freelancer without being on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc. etc. 

The real key: What ARE you willing to do to market yourself? 

To me, this is the heart of the question. If you hate social media, quit it today. But immediately after logging off LinkedIn for the last time, you need to assertively pursue some other marketing strategies. Amelia has tons of ideas for you in her free toolkit. You’ll need to accept, from the get-go, that the visibility you get from social media needs to be replaced with other things, possibly including:

• Attending in-person, client-side events
• Gaining visibility by hosting a podcast, writing a blog, hosting online or in-person events
• Writing things that your potential clients would like to read and publishing them on your website, Substack, Medium, etc. 
• Writing an e-mail newsletter
• Getting together in person, one-on-one, with potential clients
• Improving your website’s SEO
• Volunteering your translation/interpreting/writing skills in exchange for referrals or testimonials 
• Writing fan letters to people you admire, who might then recommend you for work 
• Writing articles for trade publications that your potential clients read 

As an example, I’ve talked to a growing number of Europe-based freelancers who feel that their target clients just are not receptive to direct marketing. They want to get to know someone before working with them. So, these freelancers are mostly focusing on in-person events, often hosted by local business incubators or startup communities. Then, they follow up the old-fashioned way: sending “great to meet you” e-mails, inviting people for coffee, offering to speak at events, etc. etc. If direct marketing grosses you out, this is an option to consider. 

Wrapup Q&A 

Can you quit social media? Yes! You can quit today if you want! If you aren’t giving yourself that kind of permission, I’d ask why you’re freelancing? 

Are there going to be tradeoffs? Of course! Every “against the grain” business decision has tradeoffs. When you go to a networking event and tell people, “I’m not on LinkedIn, send me an e-mail!” there will definitely be some raised eyebrows. 

Are successful freelancers quitting social media? Also yes. That doesn’t mean they’re going under the radar (unless they don’t want clients). But there are definitely examples of successful freelancers who have outright quit the feed-based platforms like LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook, or who have significantly decreased their use of them. 

Can you quit social media and just sit there? Nope! My advice: before quitting social media, think about the ways in which you are willing to market. Particularly, think about whether you’d be willing to participate in real-life or virtual networking groups or referral circles. 

If social media is making you nuts, I hope these tips are helpful! Have a great week.

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