Were you panicking about your business when IG was down? Doing these 7 things now will ensure you own more of your funnel & save yourself some stress.
The Great Facebook Outage of 2021 made us all re-examine certain aspects of our lives: how much time we spend on social media, where we get our information without it, and for creators, how much of our business and livelihoods depend on external platforms. Some of us may have realized that no one in our community would know where to find us if we couldn't pop up on their feeds anymore.
If you were freaking out without access to your content creation business on IG, here are 7 things you can start doing right now to protect your assets in the future.
If there were ever an argument for sharing your content across multiple mediums, the IG crash makes the case. You've heard about expanding your pipeline for monetary gain, but being able to take advantage of outages on one platform to promote yourself on others is a great opportunity. The winners of the week were the tweets, podcasts, and Youtube videos we turned to when our primary scrolling mechanism was no longer available.
How many of these channels does your have a presence on?
Facebook Instagram Twitter Pinterest YouTube TikTok LinkedIn Tumblr Reddit Snapchat Telegram Medium LTK
Wait, we forgot a major channel of importance in that list up there! Your OWN website/blog 😱
Having a multi-channel presence is super important, as we said, but you still don't own any of those channels. We're strongly in the camp that all digital creators today need their own website where they can post information and share their content with followers. You should be driving to your own blog as often as possible through other social channels!
Having an email list is an essential part of running any small business, and content creators are no exception. Whether you offer exclusive content or affiliate discounts to newsletter subscribers or come up with an inventive way to communicate with your followers via email, having a warm email list is the most direct way to get in touch with your community. Take this epic example we noticed during this week's FB downtime:
Of course the stars at Women In Influencer Marketing thought of this, but just imagine if you'd had the opportunity to drive the aimless masses to your content this week! And if you DO already have an email list...don't you wish you'd thought of this? We sure do.
I know, we literally JUST told you to get an email list going. But, with changes in privacy rules on the new iOS affecting deliverability rates and spam filters (how we hate thee, Google promotions tab) SMS is poised to become a major player. Don't get me wrong, it's still important to email people. But you might also want to nudge them via text about the awesome content waiting in their inbox. When creating a sign-up list, it's simple enough to ask for opt-ins to both!
Ultimately, if you change your thinking from external platforms (that you don't own or control, like IG) as the host of your business to being just some of the ways you MARKET your business, you'll have more resources that you own and control the next time something like this happens, and your community will have other ways to find your content.
How do you know when you’re ready to make the leap from side-hustle to replacing your day job?
Tips & Tricks
Are you ready to map out your income goals? Income planning as a content creator can certainly be stressful, but planning your strategy for execution is the key to ensuring you meet your goals. To help you get a jump start (and see just how much money you could bring in this year) we have outlined a game plan for driving $350K in annual revenue as a content creator.
Announcements
Creator trips have been flooding Instagram feeds for years, but the reality of these getaways is a little different than the glamorous final content that is shared. Willa’s social media team recently had the unique opportunity to join in on a trip to Careyes, Mexico, to see the magic firsthand.
Brands
A recap of our AMA with a YouTube brand partnerships expert
