Excellent article referred to me by a friend, titled The Most Dangerous Threat to Your Online Marketing Efforts, from copyblogger.com. “Sharecropping” online refers to the practice of building your business on someone else’s land, to so speak – which means doing a lot of work, and placing a lot of emphasis, on something you don’t control.
“If you’re relying on Facebook or Google to bring in all of your new customers, you’re sharecropping. You’re hoping the landlord will continue to like you and support your business, but the fact is, the landlord has no idea who you are and doesn’t actually care.”
The article goes on to say that there’s certainly nothing wrong with using eBay or Google+ or LinkedIn or whatever. They can be wonderful additions to your marketing mix.
It becomes risky, however, when you make your business model completely dependent on another company.
I’m seeing a lot of this with Facebook right now – please don’t neglect other aspects of your web presence!