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What happens to your anxiety level and blood pressure when you think about Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram going away? Does it rise? Does it stress you out?
If Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or Snapchat were to drop off the face of the earth tomorrow what would happen to your business? Would your business be negatively impacted? Would it thrive or would it crumble under algorithm changes and paid media models being aggressively implemented by every social network that hits prime time.
Are you building your business on digital property that you own? Or are you too dependent upon the social networks and larger social ecosystem for your business success?
Are you building your business on rented land? Are you building your business on social land that is far from a solid foundation to build your life and business upon?
Building your business foundation on digital and social networks you don't own puts your business at much risk. You have no control on what these social networks do, what happens with their product roadmaps or how your audience and ideal customer react to their upcoming changes in the future.
Simply take a look at Facebook, Twitter and any social network for that matter and you'll see how quickly they are changing. Facebook organic reach is in the tanker. Brand and digital marketers who put all of their social eggs in the organic Facebook basket are being hit incredibly hard.
Don't let this happen to you. You need to build your own plan, strategy and integrated platform that inspires, attracts, engages and nurtures your ideal customer. You need to look past the numbers and market segment statistics and connect with real human beings in real ways on your owned digital property. You should be integrating influencer marketing, content marketing and tapping into the power of the OPC (other people's content and community) and the list goes on.
The social networks should be igniting your business and helping you achieve your goals, not be your only oxygen for survival. Big difference.
Take a listen to the 144th episode of the Social Zoom Factor podcast to learn why you must not build your business on rented social media land.
Be sure to subscribe to the entire series on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud!
In this 15 minute podcast you will learn:Â
- Why you must stop building your business on rented social media land
- Why you need a digital and social home base and integrated marketing hub that you own
- The importance of integrating email marketing and other tactics for growing community and nurturing relationships
- Importance of increasing number of subscribers to all of your platforms
- Why you must stop Random Acts of Marketing
- You can now blog on numerous platforms such as Medium, Snapchat, Twitter vs just a traditional blog
Supporting Resources:
- 10 Tips to Stomp Random Acts of Marketing (white paper)
- 15 Tips to Build an Integrated Digital Platform that Works When You're Not Working! (episode 90)
- 10 Stupid Social Marketing Tactics You Must Stop Now
- 10 Ways to Activate Your Audience (episode 124)
- 10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog & Digital Platform (episode 116)
- Digital Marketers Must Learn to Lead and Say No! (episode 114)
- You Are the Media: 10 Reasons You Need a Blog (episode 111)
- Audience Analysis Worksheet
-  Steps to Develop a Social Business Plan (white paper)
Hey Pam,
I couldn’t agree with you more and it continues to boggle my mind at just how many people are relying way too much on social media to build their businesses. Their excuse is always that their audience hangs out on the social media platforms so they’re more interested in just hanging out there instead of getting them interested in what they share. That all starts by just having some conversations but I feel that way too many people just aren’t going that extra mile.
Thanks for bringing this to the forefront again. Good to know I’m not just crazy. LOL!!!
Have a wonderful week.
~Adrienne
Happening on YouTube also. what you want, now isn’t what you get when you do a search. :-)
Hi Pam,
What a much needed topic today! I’m running across this more and more and it fly’s in the face of common sense in my opinion.
Not only are you at risk because of what could happen to your engagement if these sites disappeared, but what if they change the terms of service or their service all together like TechCrunch did a few years ago.
I teach my clients after they have gained clarity around their business and message how the internet works holistically together. I use a bicycle wheel and explain that the only space on the web you own is your website. Your website ought to house your blog, podcast, etc.
That includes comments and engagement. Use the tools on the outside of the wheel that connects through the spokes (like social media) to drive traffic to you not away from you. As you said, if these sites go away or change it doesn’t affect you nearly as much as it could if you were dependent upon them.
Fantastic post Pam. I’ll be sharing.
Have a great week!
~ Don Purdum
Hey Pam,
I can remember when I first started blogging many bloggers I looked up to emphasized building your own list, having a self hosted blog, and not to rely solely on social media to grow their businesses. It’s sad to see that there,are still a lot of people that want to only go the free route instead of investing more into their businesses.
But yes it’s true if social media were to go away then what do you have? Not much at all! This is why you must diversify your marketing efforts to mainly grow your own list of leads and subscribers. You want a loyal following that will move with you no matter what direction you take.
This is such spot on advice Pam!
And it’s so easy to forget!It’s better to have control over your own assets, especially
your own opt in email list as opposed to constantly having to jump through the ever changing
hoops of social media and or Google!
And like you so wisely pointed out we have absolutely no control over what they
may decide to do and for how long!
Leverage them as best and as often as you can, but don’t be dependent on them!
Great advice and thanks for sharing it!