You Can Get Kicked Off Social Media: DePlatform Truths

Hello, it's Rob Moore here, and I am with my lovely friend Shah Wasmond. Now, this is a really important video. I do stress that you should watch this because, you know, you're probably hearing a lot about cancel culture, people being deplatformed, or just on a practical level, losing your account, losing access to Facebook, Instagram, etc. Many people have built their entire business on social media. But they don't own those platforms, they don't own that data. And, um, well, look, Shah, uh, what happened to you? What happened to you?

All right, guys, so I'm going to share what's happened to me as a cautionary tale for everyone. Um, and, and I think that a lot of people hear these things and they think that that just happens to other people and it won't ever happen to me. Now, I have been verified on Facebook with my blue tick for years now, So, I have, I don't know, like 30,000 people on my Facebook page, have a Facebook ad account, and I've got my, I've had my personal profile for a long, long time, like, I don't know, how long has Facebook been going? 12+ years, right? So, I've had, and my Instagram account for over 10 years. On November the 24th, my Facebook ad account got hacked by someone supposedly in Vietnam. Now, your Facebook ad account getting hacked happens quite frequently, but I want you to hear what happened next, Next, on November the 25th, my Facebook personal profile was shut down and my Instagram account was shut down because I had apparently contravened community guidelines. Now I have no idea what the person who hacked my account did. It took us about a week to get into the Facebook ad account and find out they transferred the ownership to somewhere in Vietnam. They tried to run Facebook ads on my Facebook ad account. Fortunately, that got stop, but they went into my Facebook business page and they changed the ownership of my business page. They removed all the admin, so my Facebook biz page was like floating like a ship out in the ocean with no captain. So we had no access to it whatsoever. And the hardest lesson in all of this is that whilst we eventually got through to somebody handling the Facebook ad account, they reinstated the Facebook ad account and they reinstated my business page because you need your biz page to pay for ads, right? So they're clearly driven by the money that you're going to spend with them. They then proceeded to tell me that unfortunately they couldn't help me with my personal profile or my Instagram account because it wasn't their department. So on December 3rd, I put forward a review. I asked for their decision to be reviewed, and it told me that I would get a response back typically within a day, but somehow due to COVID— this is their comments page.

COVID. Careful, don't say COVID.

That thing, because of that thing, they didn't have as many people working. I mean, what craziness is that in itself? But since December 3rd, no one got back in touch with me from Facebook. No one. So I sent in all the documentation to prove who I was, prove that we had emails from Facebook themselves accepting that we'd got hacked. And please bear in mind that what, what my account getting hacked means, it means that Facebook's account got hacked, right? So Facebook's platform got hacked. It happened to be my account. We've got proof that this all happened, and yet they still didn't even respond to my request to have my personal profile with, you know, 12+ years of memories and photos. And for those of you who don't know me, um, very tragically, my son's dad passed away when he was only 3 and a half, and so I have memories I could never get back that were irreplaceable that I will carry on fighting for until I get them back because they just disabled me altogether. They disabled everything. So I didn't get my Facebook personal profile back or my Instagram account, but we couldn't contact anyone. There was no single person to contact. There's no human being. They're not Facebook, they're faceless, and this is a real challenge. And so what I want you guys to be conscious of and aware of everyone who's running their own business. These platforms are awesome. Both Rob Moore and I have built our businesses on them. We've collaborated together on these platforms, and they're hugely valuable, but it's rented territory. It is— you don't own this. The only thing that you own is your email list, is your database. And so my really massive lesson from this is that the truth is, if I didn't have a really engaged email list, I wouldn't have a business and I could be out of business. I could just have been completely wiped out. If it wasn't for my email list, I wouldn't be able to contact any of my audience. So yes, put your time and effort into building up your social media platforms, but it's crucial that you also use that time and effort to provide really great content in the terms of lead magnets or downloads and have calls to action so you can You can take people on a journey through watching you on a Facebook Live like this to actually coming onto your email list because it's only at that point you own that data. So I would never have thought this could have happened to me. I had two-factor authentication on everything, so I want everybody to understand this. I wasn't being, you know, complacent. We had two-factor authentication. I'm a verified account, and overnight everything, like literally within 24 hours, everything was wiped out. If it could happen to me, it could happen to Rob, and it could happen to you guys. So building your email list is just like— it has to be the bedrock of everything you're doing, no matter what industry you're in.

So everyone, this is Shah Wasmond. So make sure you follow her on her page. And what's the, um, username? Is it @ShahWasmond?

Yep, it's just— just if you go to my page on Facebook, it's just Shah Wasmond.

You'll find it. W-A-S-M-U-N-D-M-B-E. So, um, look, I really want you to follow Shah because she's, um, great at helping people start and scale their online businesses. Um, so a few things that I think it's really important for us to discuss here— Shah's covered it all, but a few points to, um, bring out. Number 1 is make sure you share this with as many people as possible. I think we all think our accounts will be all right, it happens to someone else. You need your accounts really secure. Now, Shah just didn't lose tens of thousands of potential clients and community members— well, more than potential— memories and photographs and things of, you know, Shah's husband before he passed away. So you could lose memories, clients, customers, community members, etc. Now, I think often we think about being deplatformed formed or canceled, um, or a lot of this sort of lack of freedom of speech, etc., or being shadow banned. But we often don't think as much about being hacked, and Shah got hacked. So it's not just about saying the wrong thing and putting your foot wrong and having a shadow ban, it's also about avoiding being hacked and being very secure. So we just wanted to give you this really big warning because it's happened to Shah. Make sure you're following her. Shall we— you go afterwards and put the link in there?

I will do. I'll go in afterwards and we'll put the link in. And you can— I have a very unusual name, so I'm easy to find across all social media platforms. So that is a good thing. But I think the lesson really is as well is that, you know, you really want to be putting time and effort into your own email list as well. I don't just mean getting people to—

and/or decentralized platforms.

Yes. So have multiple platforms. Don't just put all your eggs into one basket, as they say. Saying goes.

But yeah, because be honest, you got nearly all your business from Facebook and Instagram, didn't you? Facebook was— so the upside of that is you're using free social media channels. We're sat here in the car living you on Facebook. But then when you need them, it's like being reliant on Facebook ads, and then your ad account gets shut down, you're screwed.

So you definitely want to decentralize your platform. So look, if you're, if you're spending most of your time on one platform, think about one of the other platforms. How can you repurpose your content? So you're building audiences across multiple platforms, and then no matter what platform you're on, really make sure you've got a strategy to move them from those platforms onto your email list. And, and that's just the first step in the strategy, moving them onto your email list. Now your job is to keep them there, keep them wanting to be on your email list, and that's where creating content as good for your email list as you do for your social media platforms becomes really important. So for me, I've been, you know, I was sharing this with Rob the other week, that we've got a 50% open rate on our email list. Now that's because we have, yeah, we've worked really hard at creating as good content for our email list as we do for our social platforms. And so that's really stood me in good stead. So you've gotta think about using all the social media platforms that you can. I'm not saying you need to do all of them, but definitely do more than one or two. Look at how you can repurpose the content that you create for one across the other platforms, and make sure you've got a strategy in place to nurture people from those platforms onto your own email list, which is your property, is your asset, and you own. And once they arrive there, make sure that you understand these are just spending time with you. They'll only stay with you for as long as you keep providing them with good content. So then invest in that continued content through your emails, and that will help you out and help you weather any storm. Because, you know, you can think it won't happen to you, but it could do, and it could happen not because you've said the wrong thing, but because somebody just hacks your account and takes over everything, and you're in a situation like me. But at least if you have your email list as a backup and other social media platforms— so my lesson, I'm going to start a YouTube platform because if this happens again, I want to be able to know that at least, okay, I've got 20% of my audience here, 25% of my audience here. Not, oh, I've got 80% on Facebook. Oh, and I have no access anymore, because that was a lesson for me.

Great lesson. So we're actually going shopping in Bicester, so we're going to leave you to it. Number 1, please hit the share button. Please warn people about this. Have they got two-factor authentication? Is the security really good? How many people have got your logins? Do you change your logins recently? Have you backed up all your photos? Have you backed up all your memories? That's massive. Number 2 is don't be reliant on one platform to build your whole business or communicate with people. You want to be on different platforms— YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Clubhouse. And number 3, you want your own decentralized platform. Maybe it's Patreon, maybe it's the email list, but something that isn't a social media platform that someone else controls. So this is Shah Wasmond. Go follow her. She's a a queen when it comes to helping you create content and build your own lifestyle, uh, business.

What do you mean lifestyle business? It's a real business.

No, lifestyle business as in making money, living the dream.

Oh, okay. I thought he was telling me that I'm making cupcakes from my kitchen.

No, no, no, no, no. Anyway, hit the share button. Yeah. And all the, all the pandemic stuff, I think it's been a great lesson in you're not in control of anything you say. and your freedom of speech is not necessarily free. And sometimes you don't get banned, you get shadowbanned, which means you don't reach anyone but you have no idea why. And this could happen overnight. Should we get out of here? Should go to Louboutin McQueen.

Tough life.

Yep.

Thanks, guys.

All right, cheers. This is Shah Wasman. Make sure you follow her on Facebook, and she'll put a link in the comments. And if you've got any questions about this, Shah, maybe you answer a couple of questions.

Definitely, if you've got any questions, like you want to know like what to do some top tips to protect yourself, or how did it happen? Like, put the— no, we haven't been shopping yet, okay? We're on our way, don't worry. Pop them in the comments, we'll come back and answer them when we get there.

All right, thanks a lot. We care about you. We wanted to warn you about this. We'll see you soon. Hit the share button, warn everyone you know about this. It could happen to you anytime. It's a bit like an STD, it could happen to you anytime, but you don't think it's going to happen to you. Okay then, see you later.