In this session, I discuss the risks of only being on one platform.
There are eight critical Risks covered:
- 1. Change - platforms can change how the algorithm works overnight.
- 2. Technical failure - this one is focused on digital platforms, but print errors can occur, too. With digital platforms, an outage can have a direct impact on your sales, and there's nothing you can do about it.
- 3. Organic reach - the organic reach of a post today reaches far fewer people than it used to - and it will probably worsen.
- 4. Expensive ads - almost all major platforms will have a function that, in exchange for money, will boost the exposure of your content to a broader group of people. The problem is you have no choice around the rates or the return you get on your spend.
- 5. Shadow bans - should you accidentally breach one of the platform's posting guidelines, your account performance can be dramatically affected.
- 6. No support - on major platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, or Google, you are one of at least 700 Million or a Billion users. If you have an issue, good luck getting support unless you're Taylor Swift.
- 7. You don't own the platform - fundamentally, you don't own the platform you post on. Once you publish your ideas, you forfeit certain rights and controls.
- 8. Popularity - like fashion, platforms can be popular today and gone tomorrow.
The top takeaways.
- 1. Being on only one platform carries a lot of risk.
- 2. Managing the distribution of your message is the logistics of marketing.
- 3. Look at your distribution strategy - where you're putting messages and where you are investing effort to do so. I recommend having a list of your top 5.
Assess where you're posting and see if you need to add (or subtract) some channels.