Imagine for a moment that social media totally stopped existing. Facebook and Instagram are no more. Mark Zuckerberg just decided he wanted to vacation in the Bahamas forever and decides to pull Instagram and Facebook off the face of the internet… indefinitely (dun dun DUNN!). Would your business survive?
Okay, so this probably would never happen, but you truly never know! Instagram has been experiencing an abundance of glitches that leaves it unusable for 24 hours at least. This just proves the point that you don’t own your social media. Social media (for the most part) is a completely free resource that you use to market your business. People often forget this. You do not own your social media profiles, and the companies have the right to pull them off the market at any given time.
Not to mention profile hacks that leave users unable to access their accounts! This possibility is even more real than ever. (If you don’t have two-factor authentication on for your social media accounts, turn it on!)
If these things ever happened to you, would your business survive? Let’s find out!
1. Do you have a website?
YES- Congrats! You might survive!
NO- Not likely, sorry!
If you don’t have social media and you don’t have a website, HOW is your business going to survive? If you are a brick and mortar, you may survive. If you are an online business, sorry! Your business is doomed. Well, maybe not doomed, but it’s going to be pretty hard to sell your stuff!
2. Do you have an email list?
YES- Booyah! You can still reach your audience daily!
NO- It’s not looking good for your biz…
When I say “email list” I don’t mean a collection of emails hanging out in your Gmail account. I mean an email marketing list filled with hot leads that you collected from freebies, newsletters, events, etc. An email list is a list of people who physically opted-in to receiving information from you. If you don’t have an email list, you won’t be able to easily reach people that you know what to hear about your business.
3. Do you network on a monthly basis?
YES- You’re staying connected outside of social media! Great job!
NO- So, how will you meet new people?
Are you part of a networking group in your area? I’m talking real face-to-face contact with humans in your industry or other business owner groups. Sorry, those Facebook groups that you are part of aren’t going to cut it when Facebook no longer exists! Believe it or not, face-to-face networking was one of the only ways to grow a business “back in the day”, aside from print advertising.
The bottom line
Okay, so maybe this whole post was a little dramatic, but it’s something you need to think about! You don’t know what the future holds and literally ANYTHING can happen. If you are determined to build a business that will withstand the test of time, you need to do these three things. If anything, get yourself your own little corner of the internet that you own and call home. I’m talking about a website.
Do not rely on social media alone to grow your business. Have an abundance of other channels that you can reach your audience through that don’t have a track record of going off the grid on the reg.
Do you have something else that you recommend past these three things? Comment below!
