What’s up ? This is THE stephane ANDRE !!! I watched an Olivier Roland’s video  and I learned some good stuff.

As you have notices, there are many Youtuber who are successful. With this phenomenon, more and more people want to create their Youtube channel. I created my Youtube channel in 2015 and I wanted to make vlogs but I still don’t want to learn video editing (a 4-minutes video would take around 4 hours to edit). So for the moment, I prefer to make videos on Instagram and Snapchat with my smartphone, it’s faster.

Be careful

With this phenomenon of Youtuber, I see that there are more and more people who think that it’s useless to have a website or a blog. For these people to manage their presence on the internet, social media (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) are sufficient. I have also seen companies using social media to promote their services/products and they still don’t’ have a website ?!?

It’s a big mistake to create a lot of content on a platform that doesn’t belong to you. What I mean is that it’s a good idea to create content on several different platforms, but you need to own your own website or blog.

Risks

There are several risks that can ruin your presence on these social media. You can be excluded from these platforms and the consequence is that you can lose all your contacts in 1 day. If you go to an infopreneur’s event (people selling information products) and you ask to 100 people : «  Who has already had his/her Facebook Page, Facebook advertising account or YouTube channel closed ? », you’ll have 5-10% of the people who will answer « yes ». This is not a huge percentage but it shows that it happens regularly.

Algorithm change can drastically change the number of people you can reach on the platform. Facebook is extremely sensitive about it. 1-2 months ago, Facebook has made a major change in algorithm so that content posted on Facebook Page reach fewer people than before. And Facebook has increased the cost of advertisement because there are more competitions to appear in the stream of Facebook users.

On YouTube, the algorithm change is less radical but there are changes. Youtubers complain regularly about changes and the fact that subscribers can’t watch new videos because the algorithm decided that the subscriber wasn’t interested enough. There are also changes in monetization rules that are usually bad news.

Being owner

When you own your website or your blog, you’re at home. You can’t be excluded from your own website. It’s true that this is sensitive to search engine algorithm changes like Google, Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo but these changes are much more stable over time than social media.

Learning the basics of SEO is more important and effective in the long run than learning to be very visible on social media. For example, the tips you learned in 2015 to be visible on Facebook no longer work today. Now, Facebook has changed so much that you have become a beginner again.

Content type

Personally, the content type I create is to teach things to my audience because I’m an infopreneur. Anyone like me who aims to teach things to their audience and not make money with advertisements is totally the last priority of YouTube. YouTube is basically an entertainment platform.

Most people when they come back from a long day prefer to watch a video that makes them laugh rather than a video that teach them something on YouTube. What makes YouTube live is the Youtubers who make entertainment. There are Youtubers who make entertainment who earn interesting sums with videos (with products placement) and advertisement. It’s with this business model that YouTube is paid.

Independent

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t expect anything from social media. Let me explain. Yes, I build my presence on internet with Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube to create content for my audience because they’re on these platforms. But I don’t expect anything special because there may be changes that make a platform can become less interesting for me.

I’m serene because I have my own blog. My blog is at the center of my ecosystem and I promote my blog on several social media. My blog is my home. With my blog, I have a higher conversion rate than on social media. The conversion rate is the percentage of people who subscribe to my newsletter. With my blog, I have a conversion rate of 5% while on social media, it’s difficult to reach 2%. In the long run, it make a huge difference.

When you create content on a platform that doesn’t belong you, you can’t change your interface. For example, if you have an event in London or New York, you can’t put a banner on the right column of the interface so that people can buy a place. On Facebook, YouTube, etc, you can’t do it. And we must add that these platform changes interface without warning you. They do large scale tests to see the impact it can have on users, but if the interface decreases your audience’s numbers, that’s not their problem. You’re just a number.

To build your presence on internet, it’s necessary to have a website or a blog to have the maximum control over what you do and use social media to promote your website/blog. Think about it, what is the most popular social media 5-10 years ago ? It’s still the same today ? ICQ, MSN Messenger, Vine, Friendster, MySpace, they were cool 10 years ago, but today, defunction, obsolete.

Subscribe to my newsletter and share this article if you think it can help someone you know. Thank you.

-Steph

P.S. If you’re in Miami and you like Caribbean food, go to my cousin’s bistro to eat Haitian food, click here .