Got an email today that put something in perspective for me, and confirmed a thought I’ve had for a while….you can’t rely on a SINGLE source for your business to succeed AND maintain success.
The email I got was from a lady I’ve been following for a bit…her Youtube channel was randomly deleted by Google and she is fighting to get it back. There was nothing she did that caused it, it was a legitimate glitch that caused it to be deleted. And, the reality is it may be gone forever with no recourse, or anything she can actually do about it.
This happened with a website of mine years ago – I didn’t own it completely and it randomly got deleted after a hack from a hacker in a foreign county. Still hurts thinking about that loss honestly, but back to the Youtube gal.
The problem? She has built a significant portion of her business via Youtube. She receives most of her leads and hence makes most of her business income thanks to Youtube.
Where are your promotions at online?
This is similar to something I’ve seen other business owners doing – building nearly all of their business on Facebook, or Twitter or Linkedin.
Building your brand across multiple platforms is great, but you must make sure that no matter how you’re promoting yourself that you’re not relying on JUST ONE platform. If at any given moment it vanishes, it could cripple your business.
Now, this lady is pretty resourceful, and I’m sure she’s collected many email addresses and will ultimately be fine. However, the difference is she has been doing this 6 years and may be able to recover faster than other people who are still new in business.
I’m not 100% sure what will happen for her, but obviously I’m wishing her the very best.
Don’t focus all your promo efforts on one platform!
The bottom line is, don’t rest all your business plans on one platform. Especially one you don’t own. You must realize that when you do that if the platform ever vanishes or your account is randomly deleted, it can cripple you.
In all honesty, this is why I’m a huge fan of cross posting. I’ll take the same piece of content and use it in multiple ways so that no single platform is ever getting all of the focus. Some people have called me crazy for doing this and have said I could build my business faster if I would just focus on ONE.
But to them I say this – if Facebook vanishes tomorrow, I’ve still got Twitter. If Twitter vanishes, I’ve still got Linkedin, and if they all vanish, I’ve still got my website and my personal database of contacts. I won’t quit, and hopefully it means I won’t fail.
I felt compelled to share this, and I hope it gets you thinking about how you’re promoting yourself. I also hope that you avoid focusing all of your energy on a single platform you don’t own. Happy Monday my fellow entrepreneurs!
