Google used to be the dominant platform to get your name out there. Small businesses like mine would rely heavily on the traffic they would get to survive or even thrive. Apparently that isn’t true anymore. Google has changed and isn’t the best way to make yourself known.
It was not a good news for me, as I was expecting it to reign supreme forever and thus was giving it my utmost intentions. I needed more information. So, I put my so called ear to the ground. First, there was the drying up of request from potential customers, even if I was advertising. There was also an article in a serious magazine talking about just that: Google isn’t predominant anymore.
I could have gone into a bad funk and be depressed for a long time. I could have seen the number of my students slowly shrink to nothing and get desperate, so desperate that I would have to go back to France and every body here would be happy cause nobody likes me and the world is so unfair. Boohoo.
Something helped me stay on top of it and enjoy my business: working out. You were not expecting that, were you? You probably went and finished that sentence differently. Keep reading, there might be more surprises.
So, working out has improved my thinking. Oh, don’t you worry, it’s been incremental, I’m still an ape, but still, instead of agonizing, now I take action.
To solve the little riddle of “how to phase out Google”, I started to hunt for answers in familiar territories: I asked my students. Since I see quite a bit of people every week, I knew I would get some kind of a lead by at least one of them. And, lo and behold, I did! One of my student told me about that ancient art form of social media called Facebook. If I were to post regularly there and do a few key things, I would be able to spread my name around.
I did just that. I am still doing it. And it is working
What is the moral of this story, where am I going with this? Simple: don’t spend a minute in despair, spend all your time working on solving whatever problem you’ve got. For example, for me, I might do some videos on YouTube (Learning to use a video editing program will be fun, shooting the video, finding the themes, the language, the catchphrase, will be a joy.) I can’t wait. As a matter of fact, I’m off to do just that. See you on the other side.
