You will love hearing why I deleted accounts that had over 2 million followers combined on them in 2023, including my Facebook page, my TikTok profile, my Instagram profile, my LinkedIn, and others. I am a full-time creator. Most of my views are on YouTube, although my impressions on X are consistently going up at this time, and I also am publishing music and all these videos. I'm publishing them as albums and courses on music platforms as well, so that they could be out there everywhere.
I let go of millions of followers on these accounts in 2023 because they were not giving me a fair share of what I was contributing.
Only stay in situations with equals
I've learned that it's really important in life, if you're in a situation where you're being taken advantage of or being exploited — or the opposite scenario, if you're in a situation where you're domineering and using someone else — that if you want to be happy and reach your full potential, you want to be only in situations with equals. Equals are people that you have a horizontal relationship with, where you feel they are an equal and they feel the same about you.
For me as a content creator, this means I only want to show up on platforms that are giving me a fair deal. YouTube, out of everywhere I've created, gives me the most fair deal that I've seen anywhere. I've been on YouTube 13 years. They've given me a more than fair amount of impressions on my videos, and they give me a fair amount of income based on what my videos actually earn for them, especially considering the cost they have to bear to serve my videos.
On X, while I currently don't earn any income directly on Twitter, my videos are getting out there and reaching lots of people on X, which is fantastic. And it is setting up to earn income later, which is pretty nice — considering my account is just a little over a year old, after I deleted my old X account.
Closing doors opens new ones
I've also felt so free with having these accounts deleted, because many of you told me, well, why don't you just deactivate your account? Why don't you just leave it and not use it? And yes, there have been times when I wished I could put out a post saying my new album just released, and tens of thousands of people would see it immediately. But what I've found in life is that if you are willing to just close doors, it will help you open new ones. If you want a new life, so to speak, if you want something to come into your life, you need to get rid of things in other areas of your life that are blocking that.
And I found that my Facebook, my Instagram, my TikTok, my LinkedIn — these were blocking my success on YouTube. Because as long as I had all these accounts, I couldn't help but think about them all the time. And I couldn't help but try and maximize the results on them all the time. Because I was doing that, I was distracted and not making my best YouTube videos. I was missing opportunities, like putting out my videos as an audio format, putting them out on all these other platforms that most people don't do, like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and so on, to make my creations available everywhere — difficult to censor, open to all kinds of magical opportunities.
I've seen this very clearly in relationships, where if you'll just delete a relationship from your life that is not working, it'll make room for a great new relationship to come in and allow you to focus.
Where am I giving the most value?
I've also just stopped streaming again on Twitch. And that's been really helpful, because I've looked at, where am I giving the most value to the community? What am I doing professionally that is most appreciated? Where am I making something, doing something, that is giving value? And that is clearly the videos I'm producing.
The live streams — there were definitely people who enjoyed those. My Facebook posts, my TikTok videos — I've met people in person who've said, oh my gosh, I saw your TikTok videos, I really love those. And yet, that was mostly a distraction, because when I was making videos on TikTok, it was screwing up the main place people have watched and loved my videos historically, which has been YouTube. The main place that has provided me the income over 13 years of having a business online, the main place that's helped me earn enough to be a full-time creator, has been YouTube.
So it's been so nice. I'm glad I had the courage to finally delete that Facebook page. This has helped me really lean into YouTube and to give more to YouTube. And YouTube has been giving more back to me. Since I've deleted my Facebook page, my YouTube videos have hit all-time highs in terms of the amount of viewership. This is a big part of why I'm focusing all my energy back on YouTube, and it's the kind of decision I talk through with our community in the Jerry Banfield Family.
Why do I create?
That has led me to dig into, why do I create? Do I make videos just to get money and to get views on my videos? Or do I make videos because I'm offering real value to the community, because I'm saying something that matters, because this is what I need to share, and this is the gift I have to give?
Most recently, I've been coming into what you might call a learning opportunity, or a potential conflict. What is my goal, my first primary goal, for making a video? Is it to get as many views as possible to make as much money for myself? Or is it to give the best gift I have to give the community? Because sometimes when I have a video to make, it's something very alive that I really need to talk about, something that has been a struggle, but it's not going to get watched as much — at least in the short term — as other videos. If I just crank out a video about the ICP price and hype up the Internet Computer Protocol, those get a lot of views. But haven't I said that enough already? Many days, it's like, I don't want to talk about what I've already talked about a bunch of times. I've noticed that by clearing up distractions, I could stop thinking about how I'm sharing on all these other platforms, which then allows me to really do my best work on the platforms I'm on.
What I gained by clearing house
Since I deleted all these other accounts, I've actually made more YouTube channels. I now have eight YouTube channels, and I'm publishing more music than ever to all these platforms. There are so many people that use Spotify, and not only is my music on Spotify, but now all of these that I record as videos will be able to be up there as well. So I'm so grateful I took that difficult step, which at the time I'd tried to do off and on for years, and I feel so free. It's been extremely freeing to get off these exploitative platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn, and to focus.
I hope this is useful for you, to always remember to clean house. As you accumulate new things, you need to get rid of things to keep the same space in your life. A life that feels busy and overly stressed is often a life that's too full of things, and clearing things out will get rid of that feeling as well. If you enjoyed this, you can watch my newest videos in my YouTube Coaching playlist.