I’m sure many people have heard of the popular idiom “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. The concept is easy to understand. For stocks as an example, you wouldn’t put all your money into one stock because it would take just one turn of event for all your money to be gone. That’s why you learn to diversify. Digital marketing is the same thing.

To be effective with digital marketing, you need to diversify and not put all your eggs in one basket. That way you reduce your risk and extend your reach at the same time. Think about it. If you were dependent on Facebook for 80 percent of your leads, what would happen if Facebook suddenly decided to tweak its platform? You would lose control over your brand and business. If your single platform goes through major changes, it can impact your digital marketing success. This is happening to Facebook right now. Not only is Facebook dealing with the backlash of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and many of its users protesting or leaving, but Facebook is also changing its News Feed. Mark Zuckerberg said “you’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard—it should encourage meaningful interactions between people”. This means that Facebook users will expect to see more content from their friends and family instead of businesses, brands, and media. Businesses that heavily relied on Facebook as a tool to market themselves will likely have to double down on buying ads since it will be more difficult to ensure a post gets seen outside of paying for it.

Outside from changes to the News Feed, Facebook is also anticipating people spending less time on its site. Zuckerberg said that people are devoting 50 million fewer hours a day to the social network, which comes out to two minutes per person on average out of the 1.4 billion daily users. According to AdAge, Facebook could be suffering from fatigue among users, who have been put off by the daily political conversations.

An argument could be made that a handful of companies ruined this powerful digital marketing tool for everyone else; however, you can’t argue that businesses that diversified are less hurt by Facebook’s changes. Many businesses did not anticipate these changes for Facebook; however, this could happen to any platform. Digital marketing platforms such as email marketing, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many more are all susceptible to changes. The best practice for marketers is to utilize multiple platforms to minimize risks to your marketing.

With so many other marketing platforms, it would be a missed opportunity to not branch out to other options. Email marketing for example is a great tool to use to market your business. When you post on social media there is no way of knowing if your target customer is even seeing your content; however, sending the target customer an email ensures they will see it the next time they check their email. Using multiple digital marketing channels simultaneously will generate more success than just funneling content through one. Using only one digital marketing platform to market your business is like playing Russian roulette. Diversify your digital marketing and have less risks.      


Sources: http://adage.com/article/digital/facebook-reveals-plans-change-news-feed/312184/
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10104413015393571
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/technology/facebook-news-feed-changes.html