how to quiet-quit social media, pt. 2: building traffic, leads, and customers off of instagram
In Part One of this impromptu series, we explored the why behind quiet quitting Instagram—the philosophical shift from hoping to stay relevant through the feed to deeply serving your community. We talked about shifting from broadcasting your story to building meta-worlds (more on this soon). We talked about honoring your ecological niche instead of chasing vanity metrics.
But here's what I see happen over and over again → entrepreneurs get inspired by these ideas, they decide to pull back from Instagram, and then... it crashes and burns. Not because the philosophy was wrong. Not because they weren't committed. But because they tried to leave without building the infrastructure first.
Today, we're talking about how to solve the real problem with going offline so you can actually live out that quiet quitting philosophy without tanking your business.
Why Going sans-ig tends to Fail
Most people who try to step back from Instagram hit a wall within weeks. They stop posting as frequently, their visibility drops, their leads dry up, and suddenly they're in a full-blown panic.
They rush back to the app because it feels like they have no other choice. And then they feel trapped. Resentful. Like they're stuck on a hamster wheel that's draining their life force, their attention, their self-worth, their capacity.
But the problem isn't that they can't leave Instagram. The problem is that they tried to “quiet-quit” without solving for where their traffic, leads, and customers would come from.
The truth is that most people who go offline have no idea where their traffic is coming from, and therefore they can't create leads who convert into customers.
We have to solve that problem first before we can even think about spending more time offline.
The Infrastructure You're Missing is “tlc”: Traffic → Leads → Customers
“TLC” is the infrastructure that allows you to actually quiet quit Instagram instead of just talking about it.
( P.S. — I go this framework from brilliant, wild-hearted strategist, James Wedmore, and am passing on the love in our language.)
Without traffic, you can't generate leads.
Without leads, you can't create customers.
Without customers, you don't have a business.
Instagram has been doing all three of these things for you—or at least, you've been hoping it would. It's been your traffic source, your lead generation machine, and a core part of your sales platform all rolled into one.
But if you’re feeling extremely burned on the IG Hamster wheel, you know that it’s time to create space as soon as possible.
Because, remember what we talked about in Part One? Instagram is not designed to honor the soul work of entrepreneurs and creatives. It's optimized to keep people scrolling for as long as possible. It's designed to harvest your life force and not in some weird laboratory kind of way, but in a very practical "this feeds the algorithm and makes Meta more money" kind of way.
And when you look at Instagram business tools, there are no creator tools for actually building a viable, sovereign business. They don't care about your liberation or you being able to do the work you love full-time online. What they care about is giving you tools to go viral, to become an influencer who sells other people's products and gives your life force away to the feed.
So, when you remove Instagram without replacing those three functions—traffic, leads, customers—everything falls apart.
But the solution isn't to stay trapped on Instagram forever. The solution is to build alternative systems for each part of this flow.
Solving for Traffic: Building Your Visibility Outside the instagram App
If Instagram is no longer working for you, you need a way for people to connect with your work outside of the app. More specifically, you need a traffic source.
Traffic is how new people discover you. It's how your audience grows. It's how potential clients find their way into the world you're building.
When you quiet quit Instagram, you're not eliminating your need for traffic. You're just refusing to let one algorithm-driven platform that suppresses your offers be your only source.
Remember: Instagram has an algorithmic function baked into the platform that incentivizes you sharing without selling, sharing without offering your services. They suppress content when you promote your own offerings because they say "we don't want people to be sold to."
We have to soberly see what's going on here and not spin our wheels hoping the algorithm will be kind to us one day.
Are You Ready to Step Back from Instagram?
Before we dive into building alternative traffic sources, let's get honest about where you are right now.
It may not be a good time to leave Instagram if:
You don't currently have an email list or any traffic source outside of Instagram
Instagram going dark for a month would completely tank your income
You don't have financial runway or savings to sustain a transition period
You haven't built the infrastructure yet (no lead generator, no customer journey, no alternative traffic in place)
Your business model is still dependent on Instagram visibility for sales
If any of these are true for you, that's okay. This doesn't mean you can't start quiet-quitting. It just means you're going to use Instagram strategically as a bridge while you build alternative sources.
And honestly? That's what most of us need to do. This is why I call this "quiet quitting" and not full cold turkey, full-blown quitting and putting Insta in the trash.
You're going to start phasing into making your traffic flows exist outside of the app. And while you're building those flows, you're going to use Instagram differently—as a traffic source only, not as the worldbuilding platform itself.
What Makes a Sustainable Traffic Source
A sustainable traffic source has a few key qualities:
It's not entirely dependent on an algorithm you can't control. Your content doesn't disappear after 24 hours or get buried in a feed. It continues working for you over time.
It builds deeper trust than surface-level scrolling. When someone listens to your podcast, reads your blog, or watches your YouTube video, they're spending real time with you. That's the kind of presence and attunement that leads to actual relationships—not just "followers" that Instagram has trained us to see as metrics instead of full human beings.
It gives you an asset you own. Your email list, your podcast feed, your website—these are yours. Meta could change its terms tomorrow (AS IT OFTEN DOES), and you'd have no recourse. Build on land you “own”.
Now let's talk about the specific traffic sources you can start building—and why they work.
Traffic Sources That Honor Your Soul Work
Let's get specific about the traffic sources you can start building while you're still using Instagram as a bridge. I'll be doing separate deep-dive posts on each of these, but for now, I want to lay substantial groundwork so you know what to do and why it works.
1. Podcasting
Do you have a podcast? Are you interested in doing a podcast? Even a mini micro podcast that is a limited series can do wonders for your traffic building.
You're inviting people to get to know your voice, get to know your heart. They're getting to see into your world—your teaching style, your guiding style, your facilitation style. It's an amazing tool.
2. YouTube
For those of you who aren't shy about showing your face on video, YouTube could be an incredible option where you can do similar content. The rules of YouTube feel so much different than the rules in the world of Instagram. Play that to your benefit.
3. Substack or Newsletter Platform
Look at Substack or an alternative newsletter platform and start to build. I recommend starting on Substack because it has built-in traffic. I've seen other people—once they've built a substantial newsletter of people who trust them and their content—migrate to another platform. In my opinion, Substack is just another social media platform at this point. It's not really necessarily dedicated to newsletters in particular.
4. SEO-Rich Blog and Website
You can get SEO rich with your blog and your website, positioning while using tools like Pinterest to help people find your work. This is a long-term strategy. Actually, all of these are more long-term strategies.
While you're starting to phase out on Instagram, only using it to generate traffic and leads and bringing those leads into your business, you're not using it to pour your heart and soul out onto the gram. You're not using it as a living journal entry. Sometimes you can do that, sure, go for it. But if you're wanting to phase out, creating that space and starting to shift the way you do content—starting to build a world off that platform that feels enticing for people—that is the way to go.
Utilize these longer-term strategies on the backend to start preserving that effort. SEO-rich blog, website, putting your podcast episodes on that blog, making sure you have SEO-rich metadata that can help people find your work. I say this is a long-term strategy because it can take months for that metadata to start tracking and for Google to start recommending your work inside of search engines.
5. In-Person Presence and Physical Networking
Another one I really love is in-person presence and physical networking, also digital networking. Taking part in summits, getting involved in founder circles, getting exposed to other people's audiences.
This is a really great way to start expanding your reach. Doing PR-style events—whether it's a free workshop online or a free series in person—these PR-style events help people learn about you, learn about your work, and get attuned to your world. You can invite people to add their email to your newsletter list, and then they're on your email list, they're part of your ecosystem, and you can welcome them into your world.
6. Strategic Collaborations and Partnerships
Finding your core people, finding your coven, your caves, your conversations where these juicy things happen, and inviting people into partnership and collaboration and allowing yourself to be invited into partnership and collaboration—this is a really great way to start percolating traffic sources outside of your own efforts.
Pick One to Build
As you start to phase out, pick one thing to build on. You don't need to start all of these at once. In fact, please don't.
Pick one. Or if you feel comfortable enough, pick one online thing and one in-person thing to start building and nurturing. Give yourself time. This is a slow process. This is not something that's gonna work for you if you quit Instagram today—it's not gonna start working for you next week. This is a slow build process, and it is strategic.
Think about what aligns most with your medicine. Which one feels like it honors your energy, honors your ecological niche?
If you're an introvert who loves deep thought and thinking, and you have an incredible intellect: Start a blog or a Substack, and then start to share that with key people who can share it with their network. This may feel crazy to ask, but it is a strategy to help people get to know more about your work. Doing that in a way that is warm, relational, and thoughtful will take you so much further than just cold pitching and cold sending your stuff all over the world.
If you're someone who processes verbally and loves conversation: Podcasting may be something for you. Start to percolate that traffic source. Allow yourself to get really specific—talk to a very specific group of people, solve a very specific problem. That's what's gonna start to generate that traffic.
If you're visual and you enjoy teaching: YouTube might be on the docket for you. Try that.
If you're energized by physical presence and real-time connection: Maybe it is in-person networking. Maybe you're showing up at conventions or conferences or micro-summits, or creating your own spaces that are deeply intentional and coded in beauty and intimacy and essence. People know coming in: this is by such-and-such company, it's founded by X and Y person, and wow, I'm so excited about what they're doing. I love the way they talk about X and Z.
When you're doing this, you're not necessarily compromising your essence, the work you do in the world. This may be harder if you live in a more rural place or a smaller place, but if you're in a city and you see even a little bit of evidence that there may be a place for your work, start languaging that. Start positioning it. Start creating space for what you're doing to be known and for people to be energized by what you're creating.
Pick one. Start building it now, even while you're still using Instagram. This is how you phase out. This is how you start to create that traffic flow outside of the app so that eventually Instagram starts to become more optional.
Solving for Leads: finding potential customers outside of the instagram feed
Traffic without a lead capture system is just... traffic. It flows through and disappears.
You need a way to capture that traffic and turn it into leads—people who have raised their hand and said, "Yes, I want to be inside the world you're building."
This is where your lead generator comes in. But not just any lead generator.
You need something so valuable that people would actually pay for it.
Not a flimsy worksheet. Not a generic PDF that took you 10 minutes to make. Something that makes people think, "If this is what they give away for free, imagine what they charge for."
This is about worldbuilding, remember? Your lead generator should feel like stepping into a fragrant used bookstore that has lured you in with its colors and textures and antiques. It should be a space people want to spend time in, that they remember, that they want to return to.
When someone discovers you through a podcast, a guest post, a real conversation—they need a clear next step. That next step is joining your world outside of Instagram. Downloading your lead generator. Getting on your email list. Entering the meta world you've built.
This is how traffic becomes leads. This is how people move from "interested stranger" to "part of my ecosystem."
(We'll dive deep into creating an incredible lead generator in Part Three, along with the tangible strategies for making all of this real.)
Solving for Customers: Building the Journey
Leads are beautiful, but leads don't pay your bills. You need a way to convert leads into customers.
This is where most people get stuck. They have traffic. They even have leads. But those leads just... sit there. They never convert.
Why? Because there's no journey. No intentional path from "interested stranger" to "paying client." No world for them to move deeper into.
Do you have a customer journey for your clients?
When someone enters your world through your lead generator, do you know where they're going? Do you know where you're taking them?
Most entrepreneurs don't. They get someone's email and then send random newsletters, sporadic offers, unrelated content. There's no conversation. No attunement. No clear invitation deeper into the world you’ve built.
What an Actual Customer Journey Looks Like
Remember in Part One when we talked about making your audience the hero of their own story? When we talked about decentering yourself and entering into a dialogue with your customers?
That's what a customer journey is. It's not you broadcasting at people. It's you building a path that honors their transformation.
Discovery: They find you through your traffic source
Entry: They download your incredible lead generator and step into your world
Dialogue: You have real conversations through your emails—not educational content robots, but the kind of dialogue you'd have if they walked into your favorite coffee shop
Invitation: They understand what working with you looks like and how to take that step deeper into the world
Transformation: They become a customer, and you advocate for their liberation, their health, their freedom—whatever your medicine is in service of
Every piece of this journey should be intentional. Every email should serve the conversation. Every piece of content should honor both your medicine and their need.
(We'll break down customer journey design in detail in Part Three.)
Why you need infrastructure Before your business’ worldbuilding Philosophy Can Fully Land
I know you might be itching to get to the tangible strategies—how to create that lead generator, how to structure a campaign, how to design your customer journey while staying in your body.
We're getting there. That's Part Three.
But I need you to understand why we're solving for TLC: traffic, leads, and customers, first.
Because if you try to quiet quit Instagram without this infrastructure, you will fail. You will panic. You will end up back on the app, feeling even more trapped, giving even more of your life force away.
Remember what we talked about in Part One? This is about taking a phased approach rather than disappearing overnight. For some people, going cold turkey works. But for most of us, a complete social media blackout could tank our businesses.
When you solve for traffic, leads, and customers before you fully step back from Instagram, you set yourself up for stability.
You're not abandoning your business. You're not hoping the algorithm will finally see you. You're not crossing your fingers and pouring your heart and soul into posts that disappear into the void.
You're building a sustainable system that honors your medicine and serves your hyper-niche, whether Instagram exists or not.
You're creating:
Traffic sources that align with your actual energy and presence
A lead generation system that brings people into a world they want to inhabit
A customer journey that respects the dialogue between your medicine and their transformation
And suddenly, Instagram becomes optional. It becomes one tool among many. It becomes something you can campaign on 2-3 times a year without needing to live there, without giving more of your energy than required.
What's Next
In Part Three of this series, we're getting into the tangible strategies:
Creating an incredible lead generator that people would actually pay for
Running short campaigns 2-3 times a year (and then going back into your cave)
Worldbuilding through customer journey design
Building your mission—the advocacy that's bigger than you and your feed
Using your website as the actual home for the world you're creating
But for now, I want you to sit with TLC: Traffic → Leads → Customers and ask yourself some questions
Where is your traffic currently coming from? Is it all Instagram? What happens if that dries up tomorrow?
How are you capturing leads? Do you have something truly valuable to offer them?
Do you have a customer journey, or are you just hoping people will eventually buy from you?
These are the questions that matter. These are the problems we have to solve first.
Because quiet quitting Instagram isn't just about doing less, it’s about building better systems—systems that honor your soul work, your ecological niche, and your finite energy—so that you can spend your life force on what actually matters:
Serving your clients. Creating your work. Living your life. Building worlds that people love being inside of.
Not feeding the algorithm. Not allowing Meta to harvest your lifeforce for free fo. Not playing a game that was never built for you to win.
