Navigating a Social Media Exodus as a Spiritual Business

How Metaphysical Shops & Spiritual Practitioners Adapt When Users Leave a Platform

There you are trying to grow a metaphysical business to feed yourself and your family and here comes The Great Deactivating of 2026. Users are deactivating their TikTok accounts en masse this week and while you may agree with them on a personal level, this creates a roadblock for your business if you use it for discoverability or to connect with repeat customers. Maybe you have similar feelings about Meta (Instagram, Facebook, Threads), but they provide you with the bulk of your leads and leaving could destroy your business. Maybe you feel this way about Google, but they own YouTube, where you have a thriving and profitable channel. It's rough.

The TikTok exodus this week reminds us that audiences can migrate overnight, rendering the most thought out social media marketing strategies useless.

The Core Reasons Behind "The Great Deactivating"

Why are people walking away from social media apps that were once so ingrained in daily life that opening them became an unconscious reflex? If you engage with platforms like TikTok, Reels, or Shorts as a regular consumer, you may have some idea why. As a business owner, you need to understand the precise frustrations driving audiences away in order to find solutions. At its core, this shift is the rejection of a broken experience.

First there's the feed pollution. User feeds feel dominated by promoted ads, undisclosed ads, and irrelevant suggested content, rarely showing updates from the friends, creators, and small businesses they chose to follow. The sense of a personal, curated space is gone.

This is on top of a broken data bargain. There is a mistrust in the "data-value exchange." For years, there’s been a growing realization that if a service is free, then the user is the product (for advertisers). While ads were annoying, users still accepted this as an exchange for a good experience. Legal and regulatory protections like GDPR, limits on sensitive data use, and purpose limitations, and more, gave users a sense of security. Recent changes, however, have made users feel like the personal information being gathered is too extensive to justify (i.e. citizenship status, precise location, religious beliefs, etc). Concerns about who this data is sold to and for what purposes are a major driver of departure.

And they have AI Slop Fatigue. I sure do. The uncanny valley is real. Sure, there are some people who can’t tell the difference or don’t care as long as the slop makes them laugh (oh, bless). And I’ve definitely seen AI slop in the spiritual space. However…for the most part, people in the metaphysical and spiritual space are seeking a real connection. So when they open the app and have soulless faces and voices fed to them, they disengage.

Your Business Trilemma

This mass exodus places your metaphysical business in a difficult position, where each path has clear trade-offs.

Path A: Stay on the Major Platform

If you remain on the platform everyone is leaving, you operate under increased surveillance. Your spiritual practice could be data-profiled or used against you by nefarious third parties. Your organic reach may diminish due to the new algorithmic bias or because a significant portion of your potential customer base has already left. You are marketing in a shrinking and more adversarial pool.

The potential upside to staying on the platform is that your direct competition may have decreased if other practitioners have left. It will be easier for you to become a trusted source, if not a complete and total relief to come across, amongst clients who remain on the platform.

Path B: Deactivate and Leave the Platform

Leaving results in an immediate loss of access to all remaining potential and repeat customers on the original platform. If it was your primary marketing channel, you face the daunting, resource-intensive task of starting from zero elsewhere.

Leaving is the most direct action to halt that platform's specific data collection on you and your business. However, this assumes other platforms you join do not engage in similar or worse practices behind less transparent policies. You may be trading the devil you know for the one you don’t know.

Path C: The Dual-Platform Strategy (Stay and Grow Elsewhere)

Just like in polyamory, the "why not both" approach is the most exhausting path.

In order to do this well, you need to run multiple distinct marketing operations with the same intensity. It strains precious time, creative energy, and budget. (If you go down this road, I'm always happy to help.)

This is the only path that systematically reduces long-term risk. It allows you to maintain current revenue streams while building a more sustainable, owned audience foundation elsewhere. This way, no single platform can determine your business's fate.

Recommendations for Each Choice

Your decision depends on your capacity and risk tolerance.

If you choose to stay and compete, you must work smarter within the platform's new rules.

You'll need to hyper-focus on community. Prioritize replying to every comment, hosting Q&A sessions, and using direct messages to build relationships. Become a cornerstone of the niche community that remains. Remember, other business owners are leaving. This is your opportunity to attract the audience that didn't follow them elsewhere.

Audit and secure your presence. Review all posts, tags, and linked data. Remove outdated information that could be misused. Use the platform's privacy and data download tools to understand what is being collected.

Then create "algorithm-proof" value. This is content that is so useful, it gets saved and shared, relying less on the algorithm. Easier said than done, I know.

If you choose to leave and build elsewhere, own your audience first. Before deactivating, direct your existing followers to an owned channel. This is non-negotiable. You should be doing it anyways. Offer a valuable guide or exclusive content in exchange for an email sign-up. Your email list becomes your primary business asset.

Then select a new platform strategically. Don't jump to the "next TikTok." (Sidenote: be wary of apps that pop up overnight. If someone rushed to make it, they may not be secure. Your data could be at more risk. And maybe that was the point.) Choose a platform designed for engagement. For visual crafts, Pinterest may offer sustainable traffic. For conversation and community, a Discord server or forum might be where your ideal clients are now congregating.

Redirect your creative energy. Take the time you spent creating daily TikToks and reels and invest it in building a simple website blog or a podcast. Anything that creates evergreen, searchable content that attracts clients for years.

If you choose the dual-platform path, you must be efficient and disciplined to manage the load. Or, you know, hire me.

Repurpose. Repurpose. Repurpose.

A long-form YouTube video can be excerpted into TikTok clips. A blog post can become a carousel post on Instagram and the script for an email newsletter. One core piece of content should fuel all your channels.

Schedule and automate using scheduling tools to maintain a consistent, minimal presence on the legacy platform. This frees your active energy for more meaningful engagement and content creation on the new platform you are growing.

Make sure to set clear channel goals. Define the specific purpose of each platform. For example, you can use Instagram for client testimonials and quick FAQs, but your email newsletter will be for deep dives and new service launches. This prevents mission creep and wasted effort.

“The Great Deactivating" has reminded us that social media platforms are not stable ground. There is no perfect, risk-free choice. Navigating mass cultural shifts like this one will be yet another reason why your business is successful and resilient.

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