Hey Reader,

🎉 Happy New Year! I hope 2026 will be your best year yet!

I chose to kick off this year with a playbook for thriving off social media because, let’s face it, we all have a love-hate relationship with it.

For instance, most solopreneurs in the State of Solopreneurship report said that the bulk of their business came from LinkedIn.

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Yet, when asked what channels they will double down on this year, social media was not their first choice. My interpretation is that social media platforms are less and less useful — they’re at the end of the rise-and-fall cycle, and users who depend on them for business are the first to feel the consequences.

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So I want to talk to you about what you can realistically do without social media. I’ve written about non-social-media channels before, but this time I want to dig deeper and go into the how, too, not just the where.

But before that, an invitation for you.

📣 Brought to you by 📣

The Council, A Strategic AF Society

I started The Council in late 2025 precisely because I knew social media was less and less dependable. It’s YOUR anti-noise space, where you can connect to like-minded peers, grow, and learn together.

We will have regular AMA-style calls (Decision Clinics), sprints, and more. Plus, you get access to ALL my products — current and future, which means you’ll never have to spend another dime to access my products.

Right now, there are 11 awesome people in there. We have our kick-off call on January 7th. In the meantime, you can binge all my courses, try my templates, and schedule your intro call with me.

urious what I have planned for The Council? and how you can get access H

Reply to this email nd I’ll tell you more about it.
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Want your name up here? Reserve your slot! (sold out until March 2026)
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These days, I see social media as a content casino. It’s fun to be there for a while; yet, it’s a bad idea to bet the farm while you enjoy the seemingly free seafood buffet.

I’m not telling you to abandon social completely. Treat it like a flyer. A welcome mat. A signal flare. Use it, then get people into channels you actually own and can sustain.

Here’s why:

The problem: scrolling ≠ stability

People still scroll a lot. Average social media use is over two hours a day globally. But scrolling and caring are different habits. So are scrolling and buying.

The writing on the wall says something different:

• ​7 in 10 consumers say email is their preferred way to hear from brands.
• Email delivers an average ROI of $40 for every $1 spent, year after year.
• ​88% of people trust recommendations from friends and family more than any other form of marketing.
• Online communities correlate with higher loyalty and retention, and can drive double-digit lifts in customer spend.

So your buyers aren’t allergic to marketing. They’re allergic to being screamed at by 400 strangers in a feed that looks like Times Square on caffeine.

On social media, you don’t just compete with your competitors. You compete with every news cycle, every funny cat video, every lifestyle influencer, and more.

You are part of the scroll.

But there are many less noisy corners of the internet.

1. Email strategy: your off-social headquarters

Email is where all your other efforts should eventually land. Not because “email is back” (it never left), but because it behaves like an asset instead of a roulette wheel.

You already know that having a newsletter or an email list is a great moat, so I won’t dwell on its benefits. Here’s how to go about it.

1.1. Your newsletter as a strategic asset

Think of your newsletter less as “weekly musings” and more as the spine of your business:

• It’s where you show your thinking regularly enough that people trust you with their money.
• It’s where you direct attention to whatever needs selling this month instead of guessing which post might take off.
• It’s where people get used to seeing your name in a context that isn’t competing with 19 memes and a cousin’s engagement photos.

This is a good primer on being VERY intentional with your email content.

1.2. Private backchannels: email as a conversation instead of a broadcast

Broadcast emails are one layer. Backchannel emails are where a lot of the actual money comes from.

This can look like:

• Short, personal emails to past clients with a Loom breaking down “here’s the next thing I see for you”
• “Office hours in your inbox” days where you invite your list to reply with their biggest question and you answer as many as you reasonably can.
• Private launch invitations where the offer never appears on your website, only in email (this is what I did with The Council, BTW. No one can get access to it without a conversation with me first.)

In this email strategy model, you’re not chasing reach. You’re deepening relationships with people who already know you exist.

It’s also where you get the best market research. Replies, polls, link triggers — they all act as signals of interest.

1.3. Inner circle lists: segmentation, tagging, and more

Most people underuse their email marketing tool (hi, it’s me, I’m most people! I could do so much more with Kit).

Here’s what can make you more profitable with a few simple clicks:

• Link triggers: when someone clicks on an offer, you can automatically mark their profile as “interested in [offer X]”, so you can follow up with them manually or through an automated sequence.
• Segments: if you cater to more than one type of audience, these are a must.
• Personalized welcome sequence. Since I’ve implemented mine, I’ve consistently seen 70%-80% open rates on the first emails. You can grab a copy of the process + templates here.
• Polling and surveying. Most ESPs have this option, so use it to do market research and also to get people clicking.

2. Communities as the rooms that replace feeds

Communities are having a moment again, but not in the “let’s launch a chaotic Discord with 47 channels” way.

I am part of three amazing communities, not counting The Council: Growth In Reverse Pro (Chenell Basilio), The Lab (Jay Clouse), The Roost (Louis Grenier). Each of them has been a massive growth (and entertainment, occasionally) lever for me.

Not all communities can deliver that, though.

People are over giant groups where you wade through 400 posts a day and leave more confused than when you arrived.

They’re hungry for:

• Smaller, calmer spaces
• Clear purpose
• Shared language
• Recurring calls where they actually make decisions and move on

That can look like:

• A membership like The Council
• Peer mastermind groups
• Industry-specific Slack circles (although these tend to be kind of noisy)
• Quiet little paid communities that never trend on X, but change people’s income

There are two plays here:

1. Be part of strong communities as a peer. Show up with sharp questions and clear thinking. Not to poach. To contribute. That alone leads to “hey, can you help me with this?” conversations.
2. Host your own room. Yes, it’s a lot of work. Yes, it’s worth it.

This is exactly why I’m building The Council: a strategic society for solos who want one clear place to plan, refine, and execute their marketing without chasing every algorithm tweak.

Inside, we’ll do things like:

• Decision Clinics where you leave with one concrete decision made, instead of “25 new ideas” and no direction
• Compass sessions to align offers, pricing, and channels with your actual life and energy
• Focus sprints where we stop intellectualizing and actually ship the damn things

In other words: less content consumption, more progress.

3. Referrals and word of mouth

Word of mouth is still the most trusted channel on Earth. The numbers haven’t budged much in years: close to 90% of people say they trust recommendations from friends and family more than any ad you’ll ever run.

Most solopreneurs treat referrals like a happy accident: “Sometimes people recommend me, I am grateful, the end.”

You can be more intentional without turning into a pyramid scheme.

Make yourself referable:

• Your positioning has to be referable in a sentence. “They help X do Y without Z.” If your clients can’t summarise you like that, they won’t refer you often.
• Your process has to feel safe to recommend. Clear boundaries. Clear expectations. No cringe tactics that make your referrer look bad by association.

Then actually ask.

You don’t need a “referral programme” with bronze, gold, and platinum tiers and points. You need simple, specific prompts:

“By the way, if you know another [job title] who needs similar results, send them this link.”

You’d be amazed at how many intros appear once you start planting that seed.

For bonus points, you can also offer a referral fee or a commission. But, in most cases, people just need to be reminded that you’re open to referrals.

4. Ecosystems, partnerships, and collaborations

Feel like you default to “my channels only”: my list, my socials, my site. Yeah, most of us do.

But there are SO many overlapping worlds out there and ways to tap into other people’s audience.

My personal favorites are cross-promos, but they’re definitely not the only thing out there.

A few starting points to consider:

• Tools you/your peers use (email platforms, CRMs, course platforms)
• Communities they/you belong to
• Courses and programmes they’ve already bought

Your job is to find the overlaps and slide in.

This can look like:

• Guest workshops inside someone else’s community or programme
• Co-branded trainings with tools you actually like
• Your templates or low-ticket products bundled as bonuses in other people’s offers
• Simple newsletter swaps or recommendations where you each feature the other to your readers

You’re borrowing trust instead of brute-forcing reach.

It’s quieter than blasting content into the void every day. It’s also how you end up with “I first heard you on X’s workshop and now I’m ready to work with you” clients.

5. Events, networking, and experiences: rooms where decisions get made

Networking events have traumatised enough people, I know. But “events” don’t have to mean nametags and awkward small talk about the coffee.

There are networking programs out there specifically designed to help you grow and put you in the right rooms, like Success Champion Networking (not an affiliate, just an honest recommendation).

Whatever industry you are in, you can find a room where decisions get made. Just don’t get hung up on format. They can be:

• Networking companies, like the example above.
• In-person events
• Online communities
• Local communities
• Subreddits
• Obscure forum-like platforms

A LOT is going on outside of social media and other mainstream channels. And this is usually where decisions and business are made, because these intimate rooms are safe from the usual online noise.

So where does this leave you?

If social vanished tomorrow, what would still bring you leads and sales?

If your answer is some variation of “I guess my list, but I ghosted them in August” or “a handful of random referrals”, consider this your sign to build that moat algorithms can’t touch.

You may have noticed that none of the above are glamorous, hack-y, or completely novel. What they are, though, is stacking assets. Boring always wins.

Have a fabulous 2026, my friend, whichever channel you choose to spend your time on!

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That's it from me today! See you next week in your inbox. Here to make you think, Adriana ​

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