A Social Media Collapse is Coming
TL;DR – If your business relies too much on certain social media strategies, watch out: the social media bubble is close to bursting.
I came across an article today that really highlighted why social media is about to collapse for most brands.
Called, “How Click Farms Have Inflated Social Media Currency,” the piece explains how overseas teams are adding thousands of likes to Facebook Pages, followers to Twitter accounts, and other social media metrics for cheap.
This fundamentally breaks social media, and users will catch on soon.
Not only is this practice creating digital sweatshops where employees click all day for pennies, it’s destroying the value of social proof earned by small businesses (such as yours).
We’ve already seen the effects: no one is impressed with 500 Likes anymore. Facebook is moving closer to paid-only reach.
What does this mean for small businesses?
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while and following my advice, nothing: you’re good to go.
But if you’re new, here’s what you should be doing:
- Building your community on your own platform, not someone else’s.
- Investing in paid social media promotion (and stop seeing social media as “free”)
- Make a plan for what will happen if Facebook changes its rules
- Get an email list going
- Create a strategy that uses social media as a small part of an overall customer acquisition process (this will be better because you’ll be able to better measure efforts, anyway)
If you need help with any of that, don’t worry – just reach out and I’ll be glad to offer a consult.
You’ve been warned. Don’t get caught unawares when the social media collapse happens, forcing you to start scrambling to build a new customer acquisition process.
