Why Owning Your Core Platform Matters

Welcome to the Scalable Expert, the podcast where we unlock the secrets to building a business that grows with you, not around you. I'm your host, Tara Bryan, business strategist, mentor, and creator of the Infinite Scale Method. If you're a coach, consultant, or service provider who's maxed out with one on one work, overwhelmed by the grind, and ready to scale your expertise into a business that works for you, then you're in the right place. Each week, I'll share actionable tips, inspiring success stories, and proven strategies. to help you reclaim your time, grow your income and create a business that delivers results without sacrificing quality. Let's dive in and make your business infinitely scalable. Hey, welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I am thrilled that you are here in this episode. I want to talk about something that is going on out there on specifically Facebook land right now. But in general, it is such a great reminder of when you are building an online business, making sure that you own the platform that you are building your business on. Have talked about this for years, my friends. But now, all of a sudden, it's out there again. In the marketplace. So you are probably noticing that a lot of people are starting to pull away from Facebook. I've had five or six or seven people in my network every single day saying, peace out, I'm out. I'm not going to be a part of this anymore. I have had business owners who I work with, business owners who I follow, who are saying I'm moving my entire community off of Facebook. There's too many things going on right now on Facebook, it's not serving my audience. And it makes me giggle because I have been talking about this for years. One, yes, there's all sorts of crazy happening, just everywhere, but in social media. But here's the bigger picture, which I want everyone to just think about is when you build your business on someone else's platform, you are dependent on their platform. You are dependent on whatever it is that they decide to do. They decide to close their business. It doesn't matter. You're done. They decide to shift a policy or change something, it doesn't matter. You don't own it. You're done. And over and over again, this is one of the things that I talk to my, my clients about as they're building on different platforms, is be aware that you are renting land from a landlord. Just if you were renting a house, from somebody, and they decided to sell that house tomorrow, you're out, right? Or you're at the whims of the new owner that comes in. I think that one of the biggest examples of this that's happened in the last couple of weeks is the TikTok debacle, right? When your whole business is dependent on someone else's platform, and it goes away, so do all your sales. So do all your customers. So do all the things. So I always recommend that you build your business on your own foundation and then go from there. And so specifically, if you look at building or running a Facebook group, we'll just take that as an example. I was at a networking meeting yesterday and there's, I don't know, 80 some thousand people on this woman's Facebook group that she uses as the primary platform for how all these women communicate, right? Which is basically the backend that she has. The networking event is like an all day thing, and it's on RingCentral, so it's on just a random, a Zoom platform, and there's replays and whatever else, but there's no membership site, there's no back end to her business other than Facebook. So 80,000, 85,000 people on the Facebook group does she own all of their details, maybe, right? She maybe has them all in an email list, but she's sending them all to Facebook. It's interesting we were having a breakout discussion, and there were a bunch of us who were like we use LinkedIn, we don't use Facebook for general conversations. And we were like, oh can we use that or not? And they were like no, because you have to be part of this group. That's how you all communicate. And that's on Facebook. Again, super huge risk. If Facebook changes something, then she's out of those 85,000 people who are interacting and wanting to interact with each other. All day long, my recommendation to her would be get that off of Facebook and put it into some sort of platform that you own. And that's a huge asset that she is at risk in her business every single day. I have another client that I work with who has moved her entire community off of Facebook into a different platform. And she was talking about the cost that it takes to actually maintain a free group on Facebook. And so that's another thing, is you don't really realize how much work it is to not only foster that level of group, but also to be able to maintain the integrity of the group. Kicking the spammers out making sure that what's in there is appropriate and you know you don't have one person who's derailing in the conversation and all the different things. And so again, you're at the mercy of who is on there and who is coming in. And so if you haven't thought about this and you have a community, one of the things I always recommend is own the platform, of course, but make it a cohesive experience for your customers. Because the other issue that you have, along with not owning any of that real estate, is that you're fracturing the attention that your people have in terms of how they're connecting, how they're participating. And when you don't have a central hub where everything is right there, where people can easily log in, get all of the things that they need, know how to communicate and talk to people and do all the things, then you're fracturing their experience. People already have enough of a challenge paying attention. And so you want to make it simple and understandable for all of your customers. This also includes like putting people on 14 different platforms or 14 different versions of the same thing. That's the other thing is and I have a podcast episode on this where like you don't change your platforms, like you change your socks. It's a huge, it should be a huge ordeal to change because every time you make a change, it confuses people, right? Build the right foundation first, start to build and put people into a curated experience that's focused on them and what's easiest for them. A lot of times I have people say Facebook groups are great because that's where people are already hanging out. And I would argue that are they what are they doing? And I said it the other day, I'm like, I don't want my customers to be on my free group while they're in the bathroom, right? Like we're building businesses here. We are doing legit work to build our businesses and build our brands. I need people who are coming in to actually do real work and have real conversations. Not just while they're, scrolling, doing something else, coming in and answering questions, right? Or, posting something. That's great, there's definitely a place for that, but if you're building a real business, if you're building a place where you want people to engage and interact and learn from each other in this curated experience where you're taking them down a path to get to a transformation, I would argue that Facebook is never the right place. For any group. People argue with me all day long. So because of these two reasons and because of what's going on right now in the crazy landscape of social media, I highly recommend that you take a look at what is happening with your groups and your community in the various places that you have them and make sure that you're thinking from a business perspective, which is how do I control and own the group that I have and the experience that they're going through. When you are on platforms like TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and wherever else you can think about, you do not own that real estate. It is a huge risk to your business and it is a huge risk to you being a scalable expert business owner who is building something that helps people get a transformation. So if you're interested in learning more about the platforms that we recommend for you to be on, to grow your business, to grow your community, and really be able to own the asset that you have, which is your vast network of customers, then give me a shout and we'll have a conversation, because I guarantee that if you put the right community in place with the right intention around your curated experience, your customers will show up. They will show up and the quality of your conversations will be a lot better than they will be when you're, you know, having them scroll through Facebook mindlessly and answering or asking or engaging in various conversations. There you go that is my soapbox for the day. But if you are noticing that this is happening, there are business reasons why this is happening and so, all I say is, make sure that you are looking at it from a business perspective. Not a, oh it's just nicer for my customers to be on Facebook, or it's easier, or I don't have another platform, or whatever else. If you are getting started, great. Do it that way. That's fine. I would argue that you should start with the right foundation, but if that's the easiest thing for you to do, great. Do that. But just recognize that you do not own that asset, and eventually you are at risk to building something on someone else's land. If you have questions on that, definitely give me a shout. We can talk through that. If you just want to argue with me about whether or not it should be a Facebook group or something else, just contact me too. I love to talk through this because I can show you the numbers. I can show you the math. I can show you all of the things around the risks that you're taking when you have sizable groups on Facebook groups or your everything that you're doing is around Facebook lives and Facebook, all the things, right? So use it to become visible as a tool that helps you get out into the world, but don't use it to run your business. Two totally different things, and something that, that I'm super passionate about helping people understand, that if you're using Facebook groups as a lead generation tool, right, you are just trying to plunk them into something so that you can nurture them and turn them into customers. Awesome. Do that all day long. But if you are using it to serve your customers, that, my friends, is a huge risk to your future as a business owner. Alright, so if you like this episode, give it a like, give it a subscribe, and until next time, have a great week.