Can I get away without using Facebook (or Twitter)?

[Ella]

I had an account on Twitter a few years back and I closed it. The platform is just too childish to me. I was going to sign up to Facebook a few years ago just to keep in touch with family and friends but I have too many privacy concerns to use that site. That being said, in terms of networking and earning online, I have become limited. I am not sure what sites I can use that will do what those do. Can I actually make a solid earning without ever using these platforms? 

[James]

There are so many different traffic sources Facebook and Twitter are not required. Our largest affiliate site right now has no Facebook or Twitter presence at all and is doing fine. We get a majority of our traffic from search, Quora, and referral from people sharing our articles on their sites. Although I am sure that even setting up a page on Facebook and Twitter and just auto publishing the content over there I would likely get a trickle of traffic from the platforms. 

I use Facebook and Twitter on some of our other projects but I do not use it personally. Meaning I communicate with no family or friends on either platform it is just there for me to market to other people. That is always an option so you can ignore all the noise 🙂 

[Ella]

Oh yeah, I always forget about Quora. That is a big site too! I will have to give that a try. Are there any other kinds of social platforms worth giving a go when it comes to marketing? 

[James]

It all boils down to the type of content. Our affiliate site is in the home and garden niche and we use Pinterest to drive a decent amount of traffic without much effort. Just make a pin for each post and organize them on boards. I am sure you can get even better results by working the platform by following other users and commenting on other pins. 

Reddit also has a ton of traffic. They are not fans of self promotion though so be careful and remember to add value. 

If your content would do well if you made it into a video YouTube would be a very obvious place to hang out. Use a tool like TubeBuddy to optimize your video titles and descriptions and put out quality content it should get discovered 🙂

[Emma]

There are alternative platforms such as Minds, Gab, and Parler I believe it was called but because the media has attacked those platforms (I think Minds is still considered to be safe), it can backfire having business accounts on them. 

[Brenden]

I think if you're going to use it for marketing or business, I wouldn't worry too much about it. FB has options to block your account from being searched. So you could easily hide your profile from people, and still run your business or do promotion on site. 

Twitter has ad options as well. No matter what, the sites you use will probably track you and have data on you. It happens. 

But to answer your question. You can get away without using Facebook and Twitter. You don't need to use social media, it'll just be a bit tougher.