Vine announced today that they are closing down. While they say the Vine website will not be shutting down and all of the current content will remain online (no new content will be able to be uploaded), most Viners are scrambling to get they’re content onto a different medium and hopefully entice some of their followers to find them on other social media sites. What control do these content creators and influencers have in preventing things like this from happening in the future?
The honest answer is “not much”. But there are some ways to mitigate the damage if something like Vine shutting down ever happens again.
- Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. It’s very tempting to put all of your efforts into building one avenue only. While it is a good idea to put all of your efforts into building one for a short time, you need to have a plan to build other social media accounts in conjunction with what you consider to be your main source. This way if one of the channels shuts down, you’ll have other channels to use. As you’re building your fan base, you’ll want to cross post some of your material on all of your social channels. In addition to posting the same content you’ll also want to post original content that is only on one channel. After you post it, inform your followers on other channels about your new content.
- Stay ahead of the curve. Social media is like the Hydra from Greek mythology, when one social media site dies, two more start up to take its place. Do you remember MySpace, Friendster, or the much older Xanga? These are just a few of the failed social media sites that use to be a big part of people’s lives. Social media sites will come and go. There’s no way of knowing for sure which ones will hit it big and which will go the way of “Open Diary”. The best thing to do is to hop on these new sites from the start. Devote as much time as you feel you should into to building a following there. If you’re ahead of the curve when a new social media platform takes off, you’ll be that much further ahead of everyone else. Be prepared to strike when the iron is hot. Worse case is you put time into it and increase your visibility across the internet as a whole.
- Using social media to point to your website. In addition to posting content and gaining followers, you’ll want to have a website. This is the most important part. Having your website gives you complete control over the content, how it’s displayed, and how it is monetized. If your content is pointing to your site, you’ll always have traffic. You will also have a central point for fans and companies to communicate with you.
There are many things that are outside of our control when it comes to promoting yourself online. The more variables you can bring under your control, the less you’ll be relying on others for your online success.