Veit Brede
The TL;DR version: If you're building your business as a synthesizer on a
tech platform, make sure you find a way to build yourself an asset that
tech platforms can't cancel, delete, ban, or simply shut down. For more
info, sorry, you gotta read it :)
Here are some examples.
"Startup founder says he lost his company and $100 million by
relying on Facebook: 'Sends chills down my spine' to watch others
build businesses on Instagram and TikTok" (Joe Speiser and
littlethings.com)
"Instagram Deleted My Account with 135K Followers. Zero Warning."
(fashion and portrait photographer based out of NYC)
There are countless examples where people lost their business overnight
with zero warning. And it doesn't matter if that business was on FB, IG, YT,
Twitter, or even simply run by email.
In most cases that would result in frozen up finances because you don't
get any sales, no ad revenue, no nothing.
How are you going to pay your bills that week or month? What do you do if
your whole family, your wife, your kids, depended on that income?
I get it.
Today's time is similar to the gold rush back in the past.
It's simple (if not necessrily easy) to build a social media business and
make money relatively fast.
What I write here, is a word of warning, friendly advice, a wake-up call and
hopefully a kick in the proverbial a$$.
There's one thing you need to be aware of if you want to build a
successful online business.
That is:
As long as you build your business on a (tech) platform that you don't
own, you're always in danger to lose your business as soon as that
platform decides to shut you down.
You might or might not know, that platforms like Facebook, Instagram,
Tiktok, and yes, even Youtube are famous for banning people.
And if people like Donald Trump, who was nothing less than the god damn
president of the USA, can be shut down by Twitter, wouldn't you agree
that they won't have any second thoughts to shut you down as well?
How can you protect yourself from this danger?
You simply need to build yourself an asset that CANNOT be taken away by
tech companies.
The simplest and easiest way to do this is to build yourself an email list.
Huh?
"But Veit, you just said that people lost their business using emails, too."
Yeah... because they did a stupid mistake I'll tell you later how not to do it.
The thing is, when you publish your content on a platform you don't own,
that platform can shut you down like we shoo away a fly that bothers us. In
most cases, this means your business is gone. Sometimes over night. And
as a total surprise.
Then how can you use your syntheszising business to build an email list?
Simple.
When you publish content, be it an article on your website or on Medium
(or wherever else), a video on Youtube, a post on Facebook, a snippet on
Twitter, a pic on Instagram...
...you always give those who consume it the possibility to follow you. And I
don't mean to follow you on social media... that would destroy the whole
point of me writing this here...
That can be as simple as "Hey, if you liked this content, I just wanted to let
you know that I also have newsletter where I share info on [insert benefit].
If you're interested in it, you can find it here [link]"
The benefit can be anything that helps your niche. From how to lose
weight, getting rid of anxiety, making money online, to the top 10 anime
series or whatever.
And if you're smart, you give them something in return for their email
address. That's called a lead magnet.
Lead magnets are things that people would like to have and they give your
their email address in return for it.
That can be PDF's, ebooks, check lists, templates, summaries, videos,
etc. Whatever makes sense and has a percieved value.
Now that you're collecting these emails, you gotta use them or people will
forget they opted in.
Here's another important info why you want to email them regularly.
THEY WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
And if you happen to plug an offer in your emails, some (not all of course)
might even buy that offer from you.
I'm not going into the details on how to sell via email. That would explode
this already long article.
Suffice to say, you can live from email alone. If you have a knack for it, you
can even live 'pretty good'.
Now, how do you protect your email asset?
You make regular backups. Simple? Easy? Yes!
When you have that list of thousands of emails, tens of thousands, even
hundreds of thousands in your USB stick, which is dangling on your
keychain or lying in a safe in your home...
Can you see that your business is somewhat more secure?
Oh, and just to let you know that email is neither dead or a waste of time...
the average Return of Investment (ROI) for each dollar you spend in email
marketing is about $36.
That means, for every dollar you spend, you get $36 in return. Pretty
good, eh?
Of course, that depends on the market, the offers, the quality of the
emails, how often emails are being sent, etc. Again, I'm not going into
details here.
My whole goal of this is simply to make you aware to not solely rely on the
tech companies platform you use.
If you do that, you're playing with fire and as we all know.. it's easy to get
burned.
And if I was able to get your juices churning in that gray mass between
your ears, then this article did its job.
Hope it was somewhat helpful to you.
Cheers!
