OK, so it is QUITE OBVIOUS to me that something major is going on. Why do I say this? Because the majority of movers and shakers in this world use FACEBOOK AND SKYPE to instantly communicate with each other across the world. So if anything happens anywhere ever, you instantly find out about it via Facebook newsfeed thread, which… just in case you don’t see it, a friend will Skype it to you.
In the last few months, I’ve had more friends than I can count have their skype accounts hacked, suddenly my mother starts sending me messages on skype telling me about her new blog… so I call her on the phone and go “what the heck is this message from you on skype?”. She was hacked. Now just recently in the last month or so, Facebook has been acting up in a number of ways. Again THIS IS NOT JUST ME. I’ve had tons of my Facebook friends telling me that Facebook has disabled this feature or that feature, and they are cyber paralyzed.
So yes, there are other alternatives out there. There are other platforms, and of course I’m looking into them. However it is not about just getting all huffed up at Skype and Facebook and storming off to another platform. This is a significant problem. Why? Please allow me to share what I know:
I’m sure that about 99% of the people that use Facebook and Skype only know how to do like two things on these platforms.
1) Click a button that says like, share, or post.
2) Type a response in the skype box and click enter.
Most people have NO UNDERSTANDING of how these platforms work, but they know how to engage in them in a limited way. This has been enough to make these platforms gigantic soul sucking machines that are quite effective. However, I feel as though most people don’t understand the importance of changes made to massive platforms like these.
Soul Sucking Facebook and Skype
It’s all about building, momentum, inertia and backlinks. It takes years of hard work over time to build up a following online just so you have a chance at being heard. While these platforms can get you a sudden burst of attention if something happens to “go viral”, it takes a lot of hard work just to get to that point. There is no quick fix. People who know how to use their social media platforms build momentum over time. Years of blogging, posting, uploading and saved skype conversations create a foundation that you can’t put a price on. It is from this foundation that you can bring forward new information and move forward. However, if any of these platforms get yanked from you or limited in anyway, it’s like having the rug pulled out from under you. You have to start all over again, and you lose all your work.
Example: I changed my Facebook “Personal Page” to a “Business Page” one year ago. BIG MISTAKE! I lost all my momentum and even though I’ve written about it like a squillion times everywhere I can, to this day I still get messages from people who think I died or something cause they never heard from my Facebook page because FACEBOOK STOPPED SHARING ALL MY POSTS TO THEIR FEEDS. It took me 12 months to build up a new Facebook “Personal Page” in order to get even close to the momentum I had before I turned my old one into a Business Page, which is still up by the way only NO ONE EVER SEE’S IT BECAUSE FACEBOOK DOESN’T PUT MY POSTS IN PEOPLES FEEDS UNLESS I DROP A TON OF MONEY ON ADVERTISING.
So how much money does one need to spend? Well, let me tell you what I know. I have two different acquaintances’ that have Facebook pages that seem to look very successful. Every time they post a picture with unicorns spitting rainbows, or some other COMPLETELY SAFE AND NON DISRUPTIVE POST (like kitty cat videos or pictures of food) they get 900+ likes and 1,000 shares. And more comments than I care to count. For three years I watch this go on, and cannot for the life of me figure out how they got such a “Facebook Reach”. I dug and did a ton of research on this, and I’ve become pretty well versed in social marketing terminology these days. Add this to my years spent working in marketing and advertising and I think I’ve got a pretty good holistic view on this topic. Well, I know one of my acquaintances spent about 10K for two months of Facebook advertising, and the other one put in a similar amount if not more into paying a 10 person full time professional marketing staff, last I checked these companies charge a minimum of $2K per month, most charge a lot more.
Now a word about the crucial importance of Backlinks. It can be the foundation of a person’s livelihood. Take for example what recently happened to popular “truther” Vinnie Eastwood. He just had his YouTube account deleted by bogus copyright claims (put out by a troll with a personal vendetta against Vinnie) and a YouTube loophole. Luckily he got it back, but not after a huge fight and tons of nail biting stress. Yes, YouTube is on this list too, because it’s one of the only ways people will hear what we have to say. And for this reason, it’s all about backlinks. Vinnie was able to supplement his income on YouTube advertising, and for some truth movement people, this is the only income they have to survive on. Building backlinks to thousands of videos on YouTube and cross-pollination with other people’s blogs forums and comment sections is immensely significant to your success.
Now let’s talk about Skype. How many people are in a “skype room”? I’m in like 50 of them, and there is absolutely NO WAY I can possibly keep up with all the emoticons and dancing bhangra guys, hearts, rainbows, and smiley faces that fly past my screen all day long. So skype has become like a forum gigolo. What do I mean by this? Well the term gigolo usually implies a man who adopts a lifestyle consisting of a number of such relationships serially, rather than having other means of support. Skype rooms act like this. At least online forums have a permanent record that people can read, and in some ways there is some sort of order, reason and most importantly, effort and accountability. Skype is NOT the stable upstanding kind of guy you want to take home to meet your parents.
People lean on skype way more than they should. It was never meant to be what people are using it for. Case in point, if you depend on your skype to keep records of every random thought or announcement someone made then you’ll be SOL when your skype count gets hacked. Which as I’ve mentioned, has been happening A LOT to A LOT OF PEOPLE I KNOW over the last few weeks especially. My own skype has been doing its own weird thing lately, where I can’t hold a call for more than 5 seconds. Even though I have uninstalled and re-installed the entire program about 3 times now. In most cases when you do this, you lose all your conversation history. Did you know this? If you have the same skype account you can go back and read that last conversation you had with your boyfriend from like 2 years ago… if you dig enough. And loads of people are using skype conversations as “evidence” of one sort or another. I see this everywhere: “Look at this screen shot of what they said on skype: (winky face emoticon)”
One time, my skype was automatically picking up my calls. So I’d be in my house taking a shower or something, and all of a sudden there’s this Australian guys voice streaming through my house going “Hope? Hope you there?” creeped me out! (And one more thing… total side note here: I don’t pick up calls from people who just randomly call on skype without texting first and asking, or scheduling in advance. I don’t think that’s good etiquette.)
So with all that said, what is going on lately with Facebook and Skype? Well they are both cabal owned and controlled and used to spy on us, that’s blatantly obvious. But unfortunately it’s a necessary evil in many cases in order for our voices to even have a chance at being heard. So a lot of us have to keep using these platforms in one way or another.
I personally feel that somethings up, and they know that Facebook and Skype are the first way we’ll hear about a global event. I mean have you looked into the financial news lately? Check out Jim Willie’s latest to see what I mean. (It’s all going down!)
So what can one do? Well, all I do is tell you what I’m going to do: DIVERSIFY. I’m still on Facebook, I’m still on Skype. I’m on several other platforms too and I’m looking into more. It’s a ton of work to duplicate everything over and over again in order to ensure the info gets out there and stays out there. Lots of this work is manual and is done by one or two human beings. (which would be me and my faithful administrative angel Angela). But in the end I think it’s going to be worth it.
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You can’t stop me!
-HopeGirl
