The Downfall of Social Media – Relationship Building Gone

Change is inevitable, we get it, but it seems like the same “change” that helped businesses into social media just phased them out. Picture this:

• Enter social media for friendly relationships only – no place for business
• Business weaseled it’s way in – get followers and post to them
  • pay for ads to get new followers – then speak to them
  • then pay for ads to speak to your followers even
  • why bother paying to gain new followers, just pay to reach people, but organic still possible
  • organic? what’s that? must pay to play
  • ad space full, pay more or don’t get seen
• Facebook (and other social media) even filtered your friends and what you saw, so be sure to engage with what you want to see
• Then regardless of who you engage with FB filtered even more, especially your conservative ones and did it’s own “independent” “fact” checking
• Ads Everywhere – no matter how many settings, privacy and block/hide you do for business, every 3rd post on mobile, IS AN AD, sometimes I’m like – what does this have to do with me, I don’t even wear/eat/need/want these.  What about all those ads I already blocked and marked them as irrelevant, FB doesn’t care, it will show it to me again, or a like company – how’s that for a crap algorithm?

What’s my point? The Relationship is GONE!

I’m DONE! I used to post to Social Media to have a presence, to practice what I preach, to build relationships, but honestly, it’s really pointless. I don’t get seen, I will not pay for ads, because remember what social media was SUPPOSED to be for in the first place – RELATIONSHIPS!

Businesses were to enter this space to start talking to their target market, get to know them, see what they like, engage with them and etc.. but if they don’t even know you are there, why bother?

All of those ads I mentioned seeing on FB, they aren’t trying to build a relationship with me, they aren’t trying to foster a relationship, they are trying to PAD their wallet, build their list and make money. THAT is NOT a relationship. That’s a pushy social salesperson and you know how I feel about that!

Use your own Real Estate

Plus, I’m not using MY OWN REAL ESTATE!  What do I mean?

You can’t expect to control anything that you don’t own!

I always tell folks to be sure they have their own web estate – that means access to their own domain, their hosting and 100% control of their website. If not, you don’t own it.  Think of it another way, if you stopped paying Joe Website Guy for the domain, hosting or website, will you still have access to it tomorrow?  If not, you didn’t own it, HE DID. It’s HIS website. If you decide to leave to another website company and can’t log into your domain or hosting or website but have to get that access from your other website guy, who is likely dodging your calls/emails and such, do you have control? NOPE!

So, should Facebook shut down and everyone flocks to a better platform, which I am hoping, what will you lose?

Do you have contact with all of those clients? Do you have their email in an email list so you can still reach out to them? Do you have all of your friend’s phone numbers, that you want to keep in touch with? Think about it. You don’t own FB so it controls what you can post, who you see, who sees your stuff, when you go to jail and when you get out… so consider when and why you spend your time there and make use of it when you do.

So now what?

I’m not leaving social media, but I WILL be updating my “business” social profiles to be more personal and use it for personal. I will continue to work my business as me, but use the other avenues – my website and my email and my phone – ALL 3 of which I OWN!

So I might be updating my email signature so I’m not asking people to follow me on social. I might be making my social icons on my website a little less important and I already have included a message on my business FB saying:

“You know that Facebook basically filters out any unpaid posts by business so I have found it is virtually unnecessary to manage this page. It’s for show. So if you need anything – please contact me at my email or reach out to me personally on Facebook”

And I pinned that post so should ANYONE land there, that will be the first thing they see. I also have some automated services that are posting to them, and I might keep some of that still going since it costs me nothing and requires nothing of me, but when it does (cost me something), I’m done doing it.

What about you?

Well, it may work for you, and for the majority of those who will see this, it likely isn’t working for you. So, if you are ready to build your website, ramp it up, send ads on Google to it, or to work on your email list, let me know as I would be happy to help you with that.

Contact me any time.

~Kristen