A few days ago I almost lost my Twitter account. This was due to an error on Twitter which locked me out of my account.  I then spent a very worrying 24 hours talking to the Twitter Support Bots trying to get it sorted out.  Don’t Google Twitter Support, the stories will not fill you with confidence at all!

The worst part was when the automated support message from Twitter said.  ‘We suggest you open up a new account and start again’. After spending almost 9 years on the Twitter platform and with 30K followers the idea of just starting again was a bit depressing, to say the least.

It did make me think about how much we rely on Social Media platforms to expand our business.  We have to remember we have no control of these platforms and they can change at a moments notice.  For example, having 100, 000 followers on Google Plus meant a lot in 2013 and now not a lot.

All of us use social media now more than we have ever done before and we can sometimes neglect our own websites. For many of us, our discussions now take place on Social Media. The fact is your website should still be the centre of your content universe.

You have to remember that you don’t own the real estate you have on any social media platform, the only place you can say that you do is with your website. Here you have control, it’s your domain name and your content.

If a social media platform decides to change it’s algorithm or change its terms of service you could easily lose part of your revenue or audience. Make sure that you don’t put too much of your business on one Social Media platform.  Safeguard yourself in case anything happens by building up an audience on several platforms and keep up-to-date with trends and where your audience is.

With your website at the center of what you do you can post out to the different Social Media platforms with links to your website.

If you do get locked out of any social media account make sure you have backups of your passwords, email, and phone numbers.  If you update your phone number make sure you update your social media accounts if you use additional verification.

Phil Aston

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