Are you questioning the impact of social media on the world and the wisdom of putting all of your content and information on social media?
You should be. Because with every post, what you are doing is adding value to their domain, not yours. Your taking money out of your pocket and lining theirs.
A domain name is every bit a piece of valuable property, as is the land your house is on, and some pieces of property are worth a lot more than others.
In the case of land, location, views, and resources determine its worth.
On the web, basically, one thing determines a domain’s value: Traffic. And all of us gleefully giving up our content, information, and details of our life is what social media companies use to get more users and more traffic.
But one social media, every swipe, click, like, forward, scroll, share and comment is tracked, along with the amount of time spent on each post, reel, group, or anything you do while on their platform. Then all of it is fed to an algorithm.
And that algorithm is where it gets disturbing: It is designed to manipulate everything you see, hear or interact with to keep you on that platform. It actively seeks to manipulate your emotions and influence you in a way that would make Joseph Goebbels, the head of the Nazi “Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda” blush with envy.
According to one of the Facebook whistleblowers, Facebook “hid from the public and government officials internal research that illuminated the harms of Facebook products”. In other words, they know they are harming the world, and they do not care.
If you have not seen it yet, please watch The Social Dilemma. I would also add that you should watch Fake Famous, and you’ll get a sense of how most social media is, well, fake.
What we’ve seen here at Digital Opera is that although some Social Media ad campaigns and some influencer outreach have done extremely well for our clients, the amount of time and effort spent on growing a social media audience often outweighs the benefits by a long shot. Next generation SEO, online ads, and great blog posts are still getting far greater results.
Are we saying you should not use Social Media to promote your business? Absolutely not. It has a place in the matrix of tools that will work, but picking a platform and having a real strategy is key to getting the most out of your efforts.
We’re saying that the best thing is to have a domain for yourself, and your business. I don’t need to tell most of you how important a website is for your business, but every now and then I hear cringe when I hear a business owner say “We just use Facebook”.
In the long run, you are much better off keeping your life under your own domain where you can then choose whom let view it. You are certainly better off having your own domain for your business. That way, every post, every picture, and every video gives value to your domain, your business, and your life.