Social media usage rights make a great case for email marketing

Long ago, in the days of yore, I played World of Warcraft.

(This is relevant, I promise)

I played long enough to build up a level 60 Rogue and a level 52 Warlock, back when level 60 was the highest you could get. But, I'd decided I was ready to leave it all behind to train harder in wushu, so I planned to lease my account to another player. I’d put all that time into leveling up, so why not make a few bucks off of it?

I said my goodbyes to my old guild, signed off and handed over my login… and within a couple of days, the WoW overlords banned my account. Womp wommmp, zero dollars for me.

I bring this up because, just like with 20-something Me and my WoW account, the terms of use on your preferred social media platform may outright forbid you to sell or transfer the use of your social media accounts. Yes, that's despite the fact that the audience and the content you've built does, ostensibly, belong to you.

Or does it...?

Who really controls your social media feed?

When it comes to what happens in online spaces, the tech companies in charge often impose some pretty strict terms of use. In my World of Warcraft days, Blizzard wanted to discourage people from selling in-game gold and gear for real-world dollars, so they cracked down on account leases and sales.

Similarly, the audiences we build on social media have value. Social media accounts can be businesses in and of themselves, especially in this era of creators and paid content. Businesses are bought and sold, so why shouldn’t you be able to sell your account? 

And yet, social media platforms typically discourage the sale of accounts–Instagram even goes so far as to explicitly forbid selling or transferring your account.

Creator Spotlight recently dropped an excellent writeup about terms of use on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and it outlines some alarming things about who has rights to our content, such as:

• Many platforms grant themselves the right to do whatever they want with the content you post
• TikTok allows other users to “view, access, use, download, modify, adapt, reproduce, make derivative works of, publish and/or transmit” your content
• Instagram may be the only platform with specific boundaries on whether your content can still be used, after you delete it from the platform

This all brings into stark relief just how much control we DON’T have over what we share on social media.

You can’t take it with you… unless it’s email marketing

If you care about your intellectual property, email marketing typically treats you far better.

I’d shout from the rooftops daily about email marketing, if I could. It’s a powerful opportunity to stay top-of-mind, even for those who do well on social media. It’s also a vital tool for those who want to grow their businesses without social.

When we look at it from a control and ownership perspective, there are some really key benefits:

Your email list is free to take with you. If you don’t like your email marketing platform, you can export your subscriber and move it over to a new one. Whereas, you can’t export a list of your Instagram followers and take them over to BlueSky.

Other users don’t have access to your content. Unless they subscribe to your list, other users of an email marketing platform do not have a built-in channel to discover and “remix” your content (nor have the right to do so).

You have control over who sees what. Email list segmentation, anyone? You can track and tag your subscribers with specific interests, and share content that’s tailored to them. Social media typically just shows your postings to whatever depressingly low percentage of your followers the algorithm chooses to.

What can I do to stay in control of my content?

If you hadn’t guessed already: start (or revive) your email list. Drive your social media followers towards it. Market your offerings through it. Offer the really juicy content in your emails, and repurpose parts of it as teasers for social media. 

If you’re in it for the long haul with social media, consider what social media platforms you want to plant your flag on. For instance: based on Creative Spotlight’s write-up, YouTube has the most creator-friendly terms overall, while TikTok has the worst ones. If you’ve been thriving on TikTok, you may want to lay the groundwork for a move over to YouTube.

If you’re ready to peace out from social media, start planning an exit from social media that guides your audience towards other marketing channels, and be aware of what does (or doesn’t) happen to your content when you leave a platform. Deleting your content or your account doesn’t necessarily remove a given platform’s right to use your content, but you do have control over what you give to them in the future.

P.S. If you're looking for more on how and why folks are leaving social media, Lex Roman recently talked with me and 6 other entrepreneurs about going social-media-free. It’s worth a read!