What alternatives are there to Facebook to build a community for your business?

Hello and welcome to this episode of the Speak PR Podcast. My name is Jim James, and I'm here to share with you tools and tips to help you unlock the value in your organization through public relations and through free and effective communications. And today I'm going to talk about the social dilemma and the challenge for all of us that social media is presenting. Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google— these are now so powerful that they've come to command both our attention and our money, but also starting to change the way that we actually behave and has created a fundamental shift in the way that we all do our marketing. And it's really only been the last decade that this has taken place and is creating such a challenge for anybody that wants to manage their own public relations that we are now falling headlong into the arms of the social media giants. But we need alternative strategies and platforms. So it's going to be on this show that I talk about The Social Dilemma, but also about some alternatives that we can start to use. Now, thesocialdilemma.com— if you haven't seen this movie, I can recommend it. There's a young man called Tristan Harris who really is pioneering, leading the Silicon Valley challenge on the way that the social media companies are leading really society. It's a blend of investigation and narrative drama. And it really talks about how the audience have become the product. That it used to be that media was a platform that people could communicate through in order to get to their audiences, but that now the, the social media tools have become actually driving our behavior and not always for positive means. And I think that what it's starting to talk about is the social impact. And one of the interesting, or many interesting things that came out for me, apart from the, the obvious issues that we're now having with young people around social media, but from a company marketing perspective, is that people are really only receiving the information that they would like to receive. So what's happening is through the algorithms Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, they're all doing the same thing, which is basically sending us more of what we're looking for. And this is why we're getting more and more information that seems to be just like the information that we need, but is also separating us from the contrary opinion. It's starting to create divisions, which we're seeing then taking onto the streets because people are getting the news which is close to the news that they've already been reading. We're not getting the news that's different, whereas when we used to read mainstream media, for example, the publisher and the editor would decide a range of topics and a range of editorial viewpoints. And if we read different newspapers, we'd see those. But if we're relying on our news for one platform, for Google for example, Google is sending us the news that we're looking for. And The Social Dilemma really highlights this as one of the causes behind the social tensions that we're getting, because people are losing the ability to communicate offline. And because they're not reading and seeing the opinions of others, they believe that they're the— their opinion is the only opinion. And this is leading to conflict Now, from a public relations and marketing point of view, then this is creating a challenge because if we, if we don't already have people paying attention to what we're doing or to the area that we're introducing in terms of a new product or service, it's very hard to break into that feed. One of the illustrations I thought was also interesting was that the Google search that I might put in will give me the different results Even I'm in the same location as somebody sitting next to me, because my search history will determine the Google results that I'm getting. That did alarm me because my assumption was that we're all getting the Google answers in some kind of structured way, but actually it appears not. So what that means, of course, is that if we are relying on the Google search engine for SEO, for example, if the people searching for our product or service are not already somehow showing an interest in our goods or services or our, our niche or sector, they, they probably won't actually have the results. And the idea, of course, being that we're being served information that's relevant to our interests. The problem with that is that if it's not relevant to our interests, we're not seeing it. From a marketing point of view, that creates a massive challenge. The other aspect, of course, of social media, these platforms like Facebook, is that if you're like me, you want to use them less and less. And I have a number of organizations I'm a member of where I, I personally don't interact on the Facebook groups because I find that they're too disruptive. There are too many, uh, posts And also that the messaging, the post, the likes and the unlikes and so on that are related to my areas of interest are just a distraction. And The Social Dilemma, which this movie with this protagonist Tristan Harris talks about, is that these likes and photo tags and so on, they are designed to distract us and they're designed to keep us on the social media platform. They're not designed actually to help us get to where we want to get to. And that's a real problem because if we're building communities and we're building groups of purpose, or we're trying to build tribes around what we do or the company that we have, these social media platforms actually can be operating not in our interest but in their own interests because their interests are led by the commercial interests of the advertisers. Because let's face it, that's how they're making their money. They're making money by selling access to the viewer, which is why this Social Dilemma movie makes the point that we the viewers are now the product. We're not the consumer, we're the product, and it's the advertiser that wants to get to us. This is nothing new, of course. Print media has been advertising to us as well, but what's different is the level of targeting, and also that our devices are with us all the time, but also that they're interactive. When we're posting, we're getting something back immediately. We're getting more content back at us. So this is a good thing in some respects, alarming in another. But what it means is if we're trying to build platforms and communities, then social media like Facebook like LinkedIn, uh, could well be actually your worst enemy. Now, I personally have been looking at using a couple of other platforms. I was working on a new business, uh, for senior, uh, entrepreneurs. I called it Silver Fox Entrepreneurs. So I looked at a couple. I just want to share a couple with you because I think they present opportunities, especially for people, for example, introducing communities around courses and training. One of them out of the UK is called Disciple Media, and they talk about bringing your people and your memberships and your content together in your own fully branded and private community. And with Disciple, you can build courses and sell courses, you can charge subscriptions, you can even have live streaming and, and many other aspects. And all of those— and this is the key point— where you own the real estate. You can have your own domain name And you own the subscriptions, you own the people that enter your community. And of course, if you're on Facebook or LinkedIn, uh, you are basically a tenant. You're renting their space, and they have at any stage the opportunity to change the algorithm, to change your ownership, to change anything about what you're doing. So a bit like building a business in rented accommodation, you're business, you're building your content and your community in Facebook or LinkedIn is still doing that as well. So branding and customization, unlimited groups and topics, events, putting your content in your media library, friends and messaging, building subscription models— these are possible with Disciple Media. Another platform that I actually started to use is called Mighty Networks. Now Mighty Networks, uh, was founded by a real dynamite, uh, female entrepreneur called Gina Bianchini, and she created Mighty Networks only in 2017, actually quite recently. And this is also a great platform, and you can have your own membership network for free. There is a community platform for just $23 a month where you can have your own web domain and unlimited moderators. But you can upgrade to the business model, which is $81 a month and allows online courses and chats and Zapier integrations as well. And that's the, the platform that I was using and subscribing to. It's very powerful because what it does is it creates your own community in your own domain, and actually you can build your own branded area as well. So The Mighty Networks is one offering that I can really, really recommend because I've actually tried that. Um, then there are a number of others, but also including Disciple Media, which is also an equally excellent platform. And both have mobile apps as well within Apple, and that makes it, um, good. But they will also then be charging a bit more for that. Going back to Disciple Media, that's a £45 a month service, and they have a mobile app at $2.99 a month. And I know a third of that goes to Apple, so that's where the cost comes from. But the opportunity now to create a community and followers using your own platform, I think, is something worth experiencing and looking at. Because if we look at The Social Dilemma movie, which I do recommend, it's pretty alarming and pretty chilling. So there are some sociological reasons for not having your platform on your organizing and your group on social media like Facebook and LinkedIn, but also commercially. It's really a great idea to be building your own community and your own resources in your own space which you can brand and control. Ultimately, this will be part of your business value. Is this community. So worth the investment, and frankly, it's not a great investment for the scale of the platform that they've created. So just sharing today the idea of your social networks, and if you're building one, or if it is indeed your business, thinking about alternatives to Facebook and to LinkedIn and to Twitter and to Instagram, because those have some Some business interests that are aligned with their own shareholders, not yours. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Speak PR. I'll keep it short today. One listener, John Craven, said that he's listening to a podcast that's just four minutes long and finds that really good. So I won't labor this topic and make it the normal eighteen to twenty minutes. If you have a preference of short, long, if you think eighteen to twenty minutes is just fine, do let me know at jim@eastwestpr.com. In the meantime, I'm going to wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that you keep on communicating with the community and that you're doing it in the ways that are aligned with your vision and your interest and also your community's mental and social well-being.