On October 4th, 2021 about 10am CST:
Well looky here:
Facebook went down.
For some it was a blessed relief.
For some it was a major problem and they lost tons of money.
Some didn’t even know it happened; it was only for the better part of one day,
It just so happened that the great Facebook crash of 2021 happened the week before a major promotion I had planned.
I sell guitar lessons as PDF downloads from my website, MasterGuitarSchool.com.
I had published a preview blog on a new lesson series at 5am that morning. I linked to it on all my social media sites about 6:30 or 7:00am. I noticed Facebook was down about 10am.
A promotion like what I had planned takes a minute to set up - like about a couple of months, give or take. And that’s not counting the creation of the product.
If I wanted I could probably do it in a couple of weeks of frenetic activity with a lot of sleep deprivation but I prefer to take my time and give each step some thought.
There’s foreshadowing in all my social media accounts; the preview blog published the morning of the crash was the last step in that sequence.
Then, a day later, emails to customers. Those are the people who have previously bought lessons; they’ve already committed to the process. I want to make sure they know the next step is coming.
Then a week of pre-launch content. That’s 3 emails, with videos where I pimp the new lesson series and give away tons of content. So I have to have the videos already shot and edited, uploaded to Master Guitar School’s YouTube channel and linked in the emails.
Finally, an email the day the launch opens linking to the sales/download page on the website (which takes time to design)…which links to the site I use for the download and has all the back-end infrastructure that handles the download and credit card transaction or the PayPal deposits.
The lesson series has already been created, uploaded and published.
Everything has been automated. The emails all go out in the proper order on the days and times that I have programmed.
And all that is before the launch even begins.
That’s a lot of ducks that have to be lined up.
So how much of a wrench did the worldwide crash of Facebook throw into my machine?
Let’s see…uhm….NONE!
I may have left the impression that this complex set of automations was a promotion on Facebook. If you read closer you’ll see that I said, “blog” and, “email.”
I don’t make money or sell on Facebook, or any social media. I use social media to funnel people to my website.
When someone subscribes to MasterGuitarSchool.com, at that point I have a direct relationship with them; Facebook is out of the mix.
The email list is mine, not Facebook’s, and my email list is what I market and sell to.
Those folks are my tribe. They’ve committed to a process of learning and improving on the guitar; I’ve committed to help and lead them through that process.
Facebook was down for six or 7 hours and I’m sure there were some folks who lost money and business because of their dependence on it.
But not me.
All I lost was 6 or 7 hours of promotion time on a single blog/ad that ran for a week. Facebook said later that there would be no charge for ads during the time they were offline; so I didn’t lose any money.
Facebook can go away for good, I don’t care. I’ll just use whatever replaces it the same way; to direct people to my website.
In a previous blog, You’re Not Doing Social Media Right! I said,
If/when Facebook falls, MasterGuitarSchool.com will still thrive because we are not dependant on Facebook, or any other social media, and never have been.
Let me ask you a question; in your guitar learning endeavors, do you depend on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter or any other social media platform to find content and to progress on the instrument? What would happen if your platform of choice went away and that guy you’ve followed lost all his social media followers?
If you follow Master Guitar School on any social media platform you will be solicited regularly to go to MasterGuitarSchool.com and sign up as a Site Member.
My Site Members get the deals, free lessons, discounts on downloads and personal access to me via email &/or Skype/FaceTime consultations on anything guitar or lesson-related. See, Why Become A Site Member?
I don’t pay much attention to my number of followers on Facebook, Instagram etc. I call that “vanity metrics.”
The important number is “Site Members.” My relationship with those people is independent of social media.
So, no matter what you’re doing, position yourself to use but not rely on social media, and consider the great international Facebook crash of October 4, 2021 as a harbinger of things to come and remember…
I told you!
Sign up as a Master Guitar School site member - it's free! - and get access to dozens of free site-based lessons, a monthly newsletter that contains a brand-new free lesson, and DEEP discounts on lesson series downloads - plus more!
For more information on site membership see Why Become A Site Member?
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