Twitter’s DOS Attack (And Why Social Media Sucks)
This week, Twitter was hammered by a DOS (denial of service) attack. I have no idea what that means, other than it’s some kind of server attack that’ll make your site go down.
So as part of this attack, Twitter was down for some time. If you could get on Twitter, tweets that seemed to go through didn’t actually appear in your follower’s timelines for hours.
No biggie, right? A minor inconvenience, not being able to use the service.
But what if your whole communications platform, your entire social media strategy, was based on Twitter? You’d have been SOL, to say the least, while Twitter was under attack.
You must never, ever rely on one service to get your message out.
Use Twitter? Great – it’s a fun platform for engaging readers, and if you’re interesting it’ll bring your site click-through visitors. But you shouldn’t be using JUST Twitter (or any other service) to communicate with your customers, readers or clients.
Get a Facebook fan page (look at the Fan Page widget I’ve installed here – slick, eh? Click through to join me on Facebook). By all means, start collecting email subscribers so you can communicate with them directly (my subscription box pops up on your first visit here, and is in the upper right too – subscribe to get an email when there are new blog posts). Encourage RSS subscriptions (click here to subscribe to this blog).
When something borks, you can reach your fans, friends and subscribers through another channel.
Social media sucks when it’s all you’ve got. 400,000 Twitter followers doesn’t mean jack if you can’t reach them when Twitter is down.
(I’m picking on Twitter here, but this applies for any social networking platform. Facebook fan pages with 5k fans suck when Facebook is down. And so on).
The goal with social media isn’t just to amass large numbers of subscribers. (If they’re untargeted subscribers, perhaps people who are just following you so that you follow them back, they’re pretty much worthless anyway).
No, what you need to do with social media is attract people interested in you, in your niche and then funnel them into other channels, other places, where you can reach them.
Again, you want blog readers, email subscribers from your social media friends. Get them out of the social network and into your funnel!
(This will happen naturally when you offer superior content and are a news maker (or even “reporter”) in your market).
Keep in mind too that people prefer different methods of communication. Person A might love email and abhor Facebook, have a Twitter account but never use it and be a casual RSS reader. Person B could never check their email, RSS feeds or Twitter but be a rabid Facebook user.
You job is to be in contact with both Person A and Person B. Your job is to connect with your potential customers, clients, reader, subscribers in whatever medium or platform they choose. You need to be where they are. You need to be right there in front of them whenever they open up their favorite app or web address to see what’s happening.
Finally, there’s the issue with where you’re hosting your content – that “Buy Now” button or affiliate link.
For the sake of God’s green earth, GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN!
Relying on Squidoo, Hubpages, Facebook, WetPaint, whoever to host your “money page” is internet markeitng SUICIDE.
Sites change their terms of service (Squidoo just did recently). Your page can get banned. The service might go down. The service might run out of money and die. Some asshat competitor might report you (even when you didn’t do anything wrong) and get your account deleted. The service might decide to change their design or layout and it might kill your conversions.
When (not if, WHEN) any of these happen, those pages you worked so hard on, that you are earning from, are GONE. And you’re not earning anything.
(Yes, one should still use external sites to build links to your main domain. Just don’t make your “money page” anywhere but on your own domain).
So, to recap, social media sucks if:
- If it’s your only method of communication with folks in your niche
- You’re not funneling social media friends to other channels
- It’s where you host your “money page”
Social media is awesome if:
- It’s one of many methods for you to reach your subscribers, customers and fans
- You’re using it to bring in new subscribers, customers and fans into your marketing funnel
- You’re using it to boost the link popularity of domains you own
(We talk more about this stuff inside Crowd Mountain – you can get in for $1 right now).
Reassess your social media strategy to ensure you’re using it as an adjunct to your marketing plan, and not a crutch.
Thanks Michelle – you're right, I'm not doing enough to get social media subscribers into other places, like an email list.
Interesting read, but we all should know by now not to put all of our eggs in one basket.
I only continued reading the article in the hope you would have a comment box, because I hate subscription pop up boxes. Any site that has them, whether I am a potential new customer, or returning to a site I like that has installed one, I leave immediately.
I want to read the text, not have some box pop up and cover the entire screen and not let me continue reading without clicking on it. I can't be the only one out there that feels this way.
Ban the pop up box!
The comment popup was tested split tested – and won.
A very interesting post Michelle.
Social networking is, well, just networking and networking is not an aim in itself, but a means to an end. There has to be an end goal to you connecting with hundreds of people or you're wasting your time.
Social media followers are, to my mind, worth more than website clicks because you know who the people are and can have dialogue with them over and over. But dialogue doesn't pay bills.
I fully agree that it's essential to pick up those contacts elsewhere so you can develop a relationship that takes you to your ultimate goal. I think Social CRM will help with this. We debut ours next month and I'd love to have you take it for a spin Michelle.
DM me on Twitter to arrange something (I just followed you).
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Ah Burnman… I know some folks don't care for the popup, but it's been tested and *well* outperformed no popup (discussed above).
It's happened before…
I wouldn't call it just “extra dressing,” as lead gen from social networks, social media can be huge. And the relationships one can develop w/ people make a huge difference in how your potential customers percieve you. Being “social” somewhere lets them know *you* more than they ever can from a salespage.
I don't think any business should consider “social media” as optional anymore, assuming you attempting to brand yourself and/or your website with your potential audience. The benefits are too huge.
Too many people in the IM space, in particular, are attempting to build an entire biz and/or communications model on Twitter, Squidoo, Facebook, Craigslist, etc. individually. That's where the mistake is.
Thanks Jeff – you and I both know that social media education is sometimes too much airy-fairy talk and not enough money-in-your-pocket REAL biz building education. You get it too – Quick Video Marketing is a stellar example!
Exactly John – very succinct!
Michelle Writes..
“This week, Twitter was hammered by a DOS (denial of service) attack. I have no idea what that means, other than it’s some kind of server attack that’ll make your site go down.”
End Michelle Sez…
Put this in the news – you probably won't ever use department – but – a DOS attack – basically is when someone sends massive amounts of hits to a site or server with the intention of rendering “said” site useless – or temporarily out of commission.
The server/site gets so much traffic – that the network infrastructure cannot handle so many requests at one time – thus crashing the server. Sort of like getting a lot of “Digg” hits all at once..
This is a very simplistic – if not an entirely accurate portrayal of a DOS. There are many variations of DOS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_…
and to explain each one in detail would obviously be useless – and mind numbingly boring..
Anyway, I am surprised by the fact that Twitter did succumb to such an attack. Just about every web hosting service or high profile website should know that at some point a DOS is inevitable. Especially Twitter. Must have been very sophisticated.
But, to your point about SM. I hope, as you mentioned that people are not creating “money sites” from Squidoo, Hubpages, or any form of Social Media as a mainstay of their existence. Same goes with using is as their ultimate or main means of communication with their customers..
Social Media, at least in my small world view of thinking – has never been good in terms of converting customers to buy my specialized niche Ebooks. If I had to depend on “Twitter' to do the selling for me – I would not make all that much – or nothing at all.
To me, if people are looking for products to buy, or a problem to solve, they are not turning to Twitter or Facebook to find the solution. It is still a search engine world – despite the great Web 2.0 revolution. Organic web traffic from SE's, like content, is still King..
Yes, Social Media has it's place. But as part of your overall marketing plan. HubPages, Squidoo, for instance, should be used to build niche keywords anchor text or links to your “money sites” and not as the stand alone bread winner. To your point – that is what owning your own website and domain are for.
As far as using Social Media as a communication tool, ok. However, I never understood – nor do I still – why people need venues like Facebook, Myspace, etc. Isn't that what we have Blogs, Cell Phones, IM's, Skype, Websites, for?
I'm just sayin…(LOL!)…
Robert C The Wholesale Products Guy
“For the Sake of God's Green Earth, GET YOUR OWN DOMAIN!”
Amen, Amen, AMEN!
This should be required reading for anyone doing business online. I am constantly amazed at the number of people who say that they bought this or that course that says they don't need a web site. So they don't even own a domain.
They just send traffic from Adwords directly to some affiliate offer and hope and pray it works.
You're doing Internet Marketing but you don't have a web site? You don't even have a place to practice and see what MIGHT work?
That's just not a smart way to go (or grow).
GREAT Post Michelle!
Warmest,
Jonathan
thanks for that michelle, I agree…. you must spread yourself far and wide in Social Media so you are not caught out.
I think you are right – if we spend ALL our time on social media – it is not easy to turn a profit by being social, because that is not what it is for….and then if Twitter or any of these goes down or gets deleted…too bad. Better to use this as ONE part of your marketing strategy. I have my own domain and I can put new content on whenever my business strategy changes. Thanks!
I think you've hit the nail on the head – the problem is not social media per say, but trying to use social media as your only business model.
Great reminder! I've been at a few “Guru” conference who swear by using Web 2.0 sites to drive your business and dominating the serps with these pages. But, having your own site gives you all the control. Control is good.
Back in the States again.
And I really enjoyed your article here gave me a couple perspective I need to think more about.
I agree that I am not either a big fan of pop-ups but it did not distract me to much. But I agree with Chuck that your pop-up came up rather fast. I will have to look into what Burnman mentioned here about 'WP Greet Box' not familiar with that.
But I see your point here as building several various Social Media Pillars around your blog. I guess here it can vary on what you like and what fits your niche best.
Since I took a break while I was on vacation it gives me a great opportunity to redefine some of my approach now. Just has to get out of this jet lag..
Twitter was just taken down again by a DDOS attack. This is happening fairly frequently now, today is wasn't down for long but other times it has been down for hours. I also totally agree we shouldn't be too reliant on any one service and I just recently talked about that too. Hopefully these attacks will stop, who knows what could happen is they keep occurring or get worse.
Twitter was just taken down again by a DDOS attack. This is happening fairly frequently now, today is wasn't down for long but other times it has been down for hours. I also totally agree we shouldn't be too reliant on any one service and I just recently talked about that too. Hopefully these attacks will stop, who knows what could happen is they keep occurring or get worse.
Never put all your eggs in one basket rings true for the Net, as in the real world. The old shotgun approach to using all forms of media is the only one that will enable you to be heard all the time. Thanks Michelle for the great reminder.
Thanks so much for that timely reminder.