Own your platform: why your business shouldn’t live on someone else’s

This one genuinely worries me, so I’m going to be blunt about it.

If your whole business lives on a platform you don’t own, you’re one bad week away from losing it. They change the algorithm. The site goes down. Or someone decides you’re not complying with their rules and kicks you out. And just like that, you’ve lost your entire business.

Don’t put all your eggs in Mark Zuckerberg’s basket. He will not look after them for you.

I don’t say that as a theory. A while back my profile picture, a photo of me with pink paint thrown all over me, got flagged by Facebook for violating their community standards. I still don’t know what they thought was going on in that picture. I swapped it for a more normal one and moved on, but it was a very clear reminder of who’s in charge on there. It isn’t me.

Rented and owned

I’m not telling you to delete your socials and move to a cave. Social platforms are brilliant for being found. They’re just rented, and you want to know which of your stuff is rented and which is yours.

So use the rented places to be found, then give people a good reason to come somewhere you own. If you’re running a live event, for example, never just post the Zoom link. There’s zero leverage in that. Get people to sign up for it, and now they’re on your list as well.

A Facebook group is a cardboard box

Here’s what usually happens. Someone puts together a Facebook group. They put some posts in the Facebook group. They invite some friends to the Facebook group. They put some more posts in the Facebook group. And there is nothing happening in that Facebook group that feels anything like a community.

That’s because a Facebook group is a cardboard box.

You don’t go shopping on Amazon to get another cardboard box delivered to your house. You want the thing that’s inside it.

When I’ve said this on stage, I’ve asked the room to put their hands up if they’d like to join another Facebook group right now. Nobody does. Nobody ever does. We’re all in enough already, and we get enough notifications, thanks.

Promote the event, never the group

A lot of people wonder why their group isn’t growing, and it’s usually because they’re promoting the group itself. Promote what happens inside it, like a live session people actually want to be at. The group can support that. It just shouldn’t be the headline.

Community platforms have the same problem

I want to be fair here, because I’ve used some brilliant platforms. I think Skool is a great platform, and it’s great for what it was built for. It just didn’t fit what I needed.

And on most community platforms, you don’t really own your list either. So this year I moved my members area onto my own site, which is now the home of The Solopreneur Show.

That doesn’t mean building everything yourself. Please don’t go and build your own calendar software because you read this. Some things are fine rented. Just make sure the list of people who want to hear from you is one of the things you own.

A community only works if you turn up

Even on your own platform, nothing happens by itself. A community pays out when you turn up and put your hand up, regularly, at a time people can count on. That’s why I pair mine with a fixed weekly live slot, so people have a reason to keep coming back.