Social Media Influencers: This IS №1 Backup For Your Social Media. Period.
If you are a social media influencer, you can lose years of your work, all your followers, and all your income: in one moment.
If you are a hard-working social media influencer (or you would like to become a one), the following article is for you. I want to show you how bad things can happen, and then advise on no.1 remedy you can take, so you and your social media income will survive any catastrophic event if it happens.
So how can you lose everything or almost everything?
- You can violate the TOS of your social media platform.
- Your social media platform can be banned in an important part of the world.
- Your social media platform can be shut down completely.
So buckle up, please.
You can violate TOS of your social media platform.
I know a person who is very active on Youtube. He is posting about various cryptocurrencies, crypto trends, and blockchain technology. It seems like not much effort to make 10 minutes video about the latest crypto news, but I know he actually put hours and hours of effort to make one.
And it pays: doing it now for a few years, his videos are interesting, and he grew a nice follower base for his channel. After years of hard work, he starts to see good financial income from ads, which Youtube plays during his videos. He also started to make some income selling his own merchandise. You know, T-shirts with crypto coin symbols, mugs, basically everything which seems to sell to his fanbase.
So far so good. Hard work pays, you think.
Unless: social media site algorithm is against you.
And so in some of his latest videos, we suddenly see panicked person, who is informing us that many fellow YouTubers with similar content are getting “infractions” for violating social media platform TOS (terms and conditions): and some channels with similar content has already been deleted. Will his channel be deleted as well? He is in a total panic now. Years of hard work, tens of thousands of followers, all can be gone in a moment. The income he derives from his channel each month and is now fully dependent on can be gone in a moment. His account can be deleted or de-monetized if he is found in breach of the platform’s TOS. The uncertainty is very unpleasant.
Now, this article is not about TOS of specific social media platforms, be it Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or TikTok. Usually, they are well designed, and they serve a very good purpose. We all do agree that when you use any of those platforms, you need to adhere to their TOS. And if you do not like their TOS, just do not spend years of your time to build hugely followed social media account there. So this is all clear.
But it can happen, as in case of cryptocurrencies, that some content is kind of borderline: social media influencer sincerely thinks they are discussing new trends in crypto, while social media algorithm can “think” they are promoting some crypto for their personal gain, or do some other nefarious activity. Sometimes there is only a thin line between those two things. And when there is only a thin line, the decision of platform can be either to delete or to demonetize their channel or account. So our influencer is nervous, as he knows he does not have any real backup and can lose everything in a second.
Your social media platform can be banned in an important part of the world.
Well, I just wrote about social media platforms and their TOS. But I also happen to know another person, who is active on TikTok. He is doing some (from my perspective) very cringy dance moves, and makes short, 10-second videos. The person is having more than 1 million followers. And again, although a 10-second video with cringy dance can seem like no effort at all to some people, it actually takes hours to produce one: makeup, lightning, and you need to organize friends who will make this strange dance with you. So when you see a person with more than 1 million followers on TikTok, stay assured that serious long term effort of this social influencer went into this.
And all seemed safe for the influencer, as cringy dances seem definite not against TOS of TikTok.
Until recently: the danger of losing business which he built there appeared, as in this case, there are now voices calling to ban this whole social platform in the USA. This means this influencer can loose most of his followers and his income in a moment if this becomes reality.
And so the TikTok influencer is very unhappy now. He adhered to TOS of the platform, yet now there is a chance he might lose a very significant part of his followers and his income anyway.
Your social media platform can be shut down completely.
There were other social influencers who spent significant time and energy to build their online presence on Google+ social network. All went well for them until Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019, by Google. The simple business decision by a large company, which has every right to make such a decision. But: energy and effort those influencers spent building their network was lost.
So what all those social influencers have in common? They built their social presence, livelihood, and business on a platform that belongs to a third party.
And they, sadly, did not have any backup.
Remedy.
The remedy is the following: get high quality, memorable, and if possible also category-defining domain name, and own your OWN place on the internet.
There are 2 main reasons to do so: Memorability and Resilience.
- Your own domain name will give you Memorability:
(which means your audience will remember how to reach you more easily).
Let me explain that in more detail:
when you have different social media accounts, your links look like this:
- www.youtube.com/YourBrandName
- www.tiktok.com/YourBrandName
- www.instagram.com/YourBrandName
- www.facebook.com/YourBrandName
- www.twitter.com/YourBrandName
You have to communicate those links in your every promotion. And when you think of it, are those links easily memorable for your audience, and/or your potential customers?
Having a memorable website address will significantly help you here.
For example, imagine that your channel is about bringing love to people, and your brand (and also your channels) name across all social media platforms is BringLove4allAlways.
If you decide to use a new modern domain name, like Bring.Love, instead of your current social media addresses
- www.youtube.com/BringLove4allAlways
- www.tiktok.com/BringLove4allAlways
- www.instagram.com/BringLove4allAlways
- www.facebook.com/BringLove4allAlways
- www.twitter.com/BringLove4allAlways
you can just use short and sweet website address:
www.Bring.Love or even Bring.Love
in all your media advertisements, marketing campaigns, tv campaigns, or radio campaigns (particularly when an advertisement is spoken in radio, the short and memorable link is a must).
And that’s it! People will type Bring.Love or www.Bring.Love and they will immediately reach your online store and your personal website.
Not ready yet to develop your own website? No problem at all: simply get your short and memorable domain anyway, and use it as a redirect to your social media accounts. In which case, people will hear your ad on radio or see it somewhere at social media, and then when they type:
they will be redirected to www.facebook.com/BringLove4allAlways
or to whatever other social media account you would choose.
Then, once you are ready to build your website, you can just remove the redirect, and people will start visiting your own website.
Or, if any of the social media platforms you are active on will be blocked in a particular country, no problem for you: your followers or subscribers can still continue to follow you and your content at your website. Or, if you prefer to, you can redirect them from your website to other social media platforms where you have an account, and which are allowed in their country. Unlimited possibilities, but only possible when you have your own domain name and website.
2. Your own domain name and website will give you Resilience:
Unlike various problems with social media accounts, when you have your own domain name, no one can take it down, unless there is illegal or criminal activity ongoing. So you are the owner of your own place on the internet, you do not depend on any third party and you always have a backup.
Here is one very good example of what clever people are already doing:
PewDiePie is using domain name www.pewdiepie.store.
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, known as PewDiePie is a famous Swedish YouTuber. He started his YouTube channel in 2010 and in the decade became one of YouTube’s biggest stars with 105M subscribers.
To expand his business and franchise further, PewDiePie built an online store on a .STORE domain name where he currently sells his own collectible figurines. The .STORE domain name helps him create a unique identity for his online store and the short and simple domain name makes it easy for his fans to remember and visit the store to buy his figurines.
I personally think that using .store domain name is a very good choice here. It makes it instantly clear what is his website about and this choice is in my opinion also significantly increasing click-through-rate of his customers when this website appears in search engines.
That strategy seems to work nicely for him, and it will work very well for you as well. You do not need to achieve 105M subscribers as PewDiePie, but you should be clever when it comes to your social media, and the most important part of it all, your subscribers and your followers. Do not be 100% dependent on third parties: have your own piece of the internet, your own domain name, and your own website. It will be your safe backup and your online marketing booster.
And who knows: one day you might have those 105M subscribers as well!
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Above is a private opinion of Marek Eckhaus, founder and CEO of Brands.International: a platform built for business owners, domain investors, social media influencers, and online marketing experts to provide you some of the best domain names and consultancy in the world. To get in touch, contact us at invest@brands.international.
We are happy to advise you – Brands.International is a leading global expert in new gTLD domain names. If you wish to learn more, please contact our domain consultants for a non-binding consultation.
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