“Using social media leaves you at the mercy of big tech (Only concerned with selling Ad space). And what about this Increasingly bad reputation it seems to have?”
Obviously social media platforms can be extremely helpful in communicating and promoting what your organisation does. But are the ‘Pros’ now outweighed by the ‘Cons’?
Sorry, but your accounts been closed!
There are numerous examples of people and organisations having spent years investing and building their social media profiles. Creating hours of carefully crafted content, attracting thousands of loyal followers and subscribers. Then one day it’s all gone. Their account is closed.
Perhaps they didn’t fully understand the rules or the rules changed, and inadvertently they added content that wasn’t permitted. Maybe they got in to a dispute with somebody, or someone complained about them.
Social media platforms offer little in way of redress. You can’t speak to anyone, most decisions are automated. It’s time consuming and costly for them to get involved in disputes, they really just don’t care either way.
The recent shenanigans at Tik Tok is another example of how things could go wrong. If it wasn’t for the forced sale to U.S. owners, all U.S. based Tik Tok accounts would have been shut down. People protested on the streets, fearing their livelihoods would be destroyed.
OK, these are worse case scenarios, but there many other reasons why you might not want to become overly reliant on social media.
Social Media has a Bad Reputation
Social Media use is increasingly being seen as bad for society as a whole. Designed to be addictive with algorithms coded to promote certain types of problematic content. Content that is misleading, divisive, controversial or extreme. Click bait, IA slop, doom scrolling, rage bait…
Most social media platforms are U.S. owned. Many feel some of the individual owners involved, are shaping what gets seen (and what doesn’t), as being controlled and contrived to mirror that of their own political preferences.
Elon Musk and his take-over of Twitter/X is one such high profile case. Thousands have closed their X accounts and gone elsewhere. They don’t what to be associated with what they now consider to be a ‘toxic’ platform.
Social Media : Outright Banned
Australia has banned access to all social media platforms for under 16s. Many other countries are seriously considering doing the same.
Imagine you were a Australian clothes retailer with a focus on teenage fashion? A busy Tik Tok account with hundreds of creative, funny short videos aimed at your target audience. A similar stream on Instagram. All rendered pointless overnight.
The main point here is that you have very little control over what happens on or to these platforms:
- The can change the rules at any time
- They might change ownership and the platform heads in a direction you’re not happy with
- They can close your account, for ‘contentious’ reasons, with little redress
- They could go out of business
- The could get banned in certain countries
- People might stop using them (political concerns, too many ads, just becomes ‘unfashionable’)
Take Back Control – Social Media Should Not Be Your Primary Focus
Your organisation’s website is the only place online where you have complete control. Control over presentation, reputation and message. You decide every aspect; from what typeface to use, to who can join your “members section”.
Your website should be your primary focus, with social media used to encourage people to visit it.
If people are really interested in your latest update on social media, they’ll be happy to view those updates on your website.
Now this might seem obvious for something like an e-commerce website, but it’s true for any website.
Instead of investing time and resources adding updates on multiple social media platforms, update once on your own website and just add a line and a link on your socials.
Use your own website similarly to how you use social media. Make your announcements there:
- Events
- News
- Blog Posts
- Offers
- Stories
- Fundraising Drives
- Campaigns.
Keep your own website fresh and active!
It’s not difficult to add ‘social media feed’ like functionality to your website. With modern Content Management Systems (CMS), like WordPress or similar, it’s a simple, standard set-up to add all kinds of your own content/media feeds.
This high volume of fresh content appearing within your own website will also give a huge boost to your Search Engine Ranking.
Your Website: Your Central Hub
So you’ve added a new post on Facebook, ‘Twitter’, Tik Tok, Instagram… It appears as one of many others that the ‘follower’ has chosen to ‘follow’ in their feed. Then there are the adverts, the recommendations… and what ever else the platform can devise to keep people glued to their screens.
If you’ve built-up a decent following, the number of views you get might look good, but were people really engaging?
If you set your own website as your central hub, with the goal of drawing more people directly to it, then the viewing numbers might be fewer, but those who do engage, are far more valuable to you.
Your website is the only ‘platform’ you truly own. You can do whatever you like with it, whenever you choose. It should be given the time and resources it deserves, so it can fulfil it’s full potential.