Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed. | March 15, 2022 4:13 pm
Russia Bans Social Media

My news feed is full of stories about Russia banning social media. Just last week, the Russian government blocked Facebook and yesterday, Russian authorities blocked Instagram. This is not something new or unexpected. Russian authorities blocked LinkedIn in 2016, throttled access to Twitter in 2021, and blocked Facebook on March 4 of this year -- all of which has had a hugely negative impact on Russian small business owners.

So what does that mean for you?

As I have for the past 20 years -- after surviving social forum bans on a much smaller scale -- I recommend you build the foundation of your business on your own website. This way you will be able to control your content and who has access to it. 

How does this work?

How to Protect Your Website Investment

  • Build your website on self-hosted WordPress software. This is also helpful in case you need to move your website.
  • Create frequent local and/or off-site backups of your website.
  • Collect customer information in an off-site email marketing/customer management system and make frequent local backups of your data.

Your social media accounts should be used to generate traffic back to your website. Run a contest to attract followers? Make sure winners have to sign up for your mailing list, too. Offering a free special report? Make sure your followers have to register an account on your site to gain access? 

Yes, you will have fewer people sign up -- but the people who are willing to jump through a few hoops to get what you have created for them are also more likely to spend money with you when you're offering a product or service for sale.

Then, when your customers are buying your products or services, you will be able to reach out to them through your email marketing system to let them know about updates, new products, or other relevant news. 

I also strongly suggest you diversify your traffic generation methods. Don't just rely on Facebook or LinkedIn. You also need to optimize your site for search engines and find smaller sites in your industry to link to your site through writing guest posts or being a podcast guest.

Building Your Teacher Blog

Would you like to learn more about setting up your own website?

Avoid social media bans and technology failures by building your own website. This guide is written for teachers, but will have the information you need to matter what kind of online business you're building

About the Author

I chose to proactively retire from the classroom teaching and share my gifts in a different context. I'm a damn good teacher and I'm tired of working within a frustrating system that won't let me do what I know is right. So I'm taking my business full time -- and I'm still educating, still making a difference in the world. And I want to help you do the same.

Posted in: Collaboration
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