FACEBOOK + INSTAGRAM FULL DAY OUTAGE SHOULD TEACH ALL BUSINESS OWNERS SOMETHING IMPORTANT!
I have never been one to shy away from preaching this message on my blog:
DO NOT DEPEND ON SOCIAL MEDIA TO RUN YOUR BUSINESS OR GET CLIENTS!!!!!!
You don’t own any of the social media platforms … you don’t pay for them (I’m not including when you advertise or boost posts), you are BORROWING that space … and beyond everything else: when you use it, you are helping Facebook and Instagram make money … and they can flip the house upside down anytime they want to ;) On October 4th, both Facebook and Instagram went down for close to 7 hours during the day … and if you are to learn anything from that event, it’s this:
DON’T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM BASKET … YOU MUST DIVERSIFY!!!!!
I hear from clients ALL THE TIME who say: I don’t really need a website because all our business comes from Instagram … I bet those same people were sh*tting their pants for 7 hours when the platform was down and nobody knew if it was even going to come back …
ARE YOUR BUSINESS SUCCESSES DEPENDENT ON BORROWED SPACES?
In the 'olden days' (haha) when I started my business I had only a few things I could depend on to be successful:
Myself
My relationships and networking
My website / blog
That's it! Sure, I could advertise in the yellow pages... go ahead, laugh all you want ... or in a magazine (which at that time I couldn't afford) ... but there wasn't a 'fast track' to making it happen ... I didn't have to use a space I didn't own or control to become successful.
THAT SAME THING ISN'T TRUE TODAY
Today it's almost just automatic that business owners 'attach themselves' to a platform they have zero control over to boost their success ... and what boggles my mind is how quickly it becomes 'ignored' to everyone that we DON'T OWN THAT SPACE NOR CAN WE CONTROL WHAT THEY DECIDE TO DO WITH IT ... 'they' being the owners of spaces like: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Google, wedding blogs, Etsy, etc, etc, etc ...
Let's go over the things you CAN CONTROL one more time:
YOURSELF, YOUR RELATIONSHIPS OR HOW OFTEN YOU NETWORK, AND YOUR WEBSITE / BLOG
You can control ^^ all of that ... and beyond that, your time, energy, and efforts spent elsewhere need to be taken with a grain of salt ... in other words, if you start seeing ALL OF YOUR BUSINESS come from one place ... welp, I'd start putting in a little effort elsewhere.
DON'T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET!
Sure ... putting all your eggs in one basket makes it much easier to manage ... your time can be spent focused on that 'one thing' and you don't have to feel like a crazy person who is handling multiple avenues for success ... but what are people who put all their eggs in the INSTAGRAM basket learning now?? Oof ... if they are smart … they are rethinking their strategy for attracting potential clients and including more then just social media!
KEEP IN MIND THAT FACEBOOK HAS BEEN PLAYING DIRTY LATELY …
I’m not here to be political and for the most part, I keep my politics to myself when it comes to business … but Facebook could be in some serious trouble in the near future in regards to censoring users … whether you agree or disagree with their censoring policies matters not: what DOES matter is if they are found ‘guilty’ in the court of law … and it’s not just the Facebook platform … it’s Instagram that is censoring as well. While you may not hear about it, there are some big lawsuits happening … it will be interesting to see what happens to the platforms once it all comes to a close …
In the meantime, consider this:
All roads you put out there to attract attention lead to 2 things:
They lead to you
They lead to your website / blog
Ok, ok, Heather ... we see where you're going with this ... you're a website designer and you are trying to make us see why we need to hire you. HIRE ANYBODY!! Truly. But don't let the things you can control become 'last priority' because of the buzz you receive from 'land' you don't own.
XO~ Heather
