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Following the recent announcement by Ning’s new CEO of his intention to phase out their free service, we thought it high time to write a few words of caution on the potential risks associated with over-reliance on free online services.
Here at Savvy Marketers, we teach how you can establish and increase your business web presence using the free (and low cost) tools available. We still believe this to be a great way to get started, especially if you’re on a shoestring budget. However, once your business starts to grow, you experience some success and make money, it’s a good idea to move away from the free tools and invest in paid versions. Here are a couple of additional reasons to consider:
Support – most free services and tools are offered free while they’re still in BETA and the developers are testing them out, so they’re are more likely to crash without warning which can cause you all kinds of problems. When you run into difficulties, there’s very rarely a help desk to contact.
Ownership of Data – If you’ve spent ages building up lists of valuable contacts in the social networks including Twitter, FaceBook, Flickr, YouTube and LinkedIn, it doesn’t bear thinking about the effects on your business of losing them all suddenly if a network went down or ceased to exist overnight!
Similarly, if you use a free blogging platform like Blogger, Posterous or WordPress.com – all your words of wisdom are vulnerable to disappearing without warning. The same applies to any podcasts on free sites, slides on Slideshare – the list is long.
It’s your responsibility to take the precaution of downloading your lists of contacts and keeping copies of your material on your server or other back-up device, and we would recommend you do this even when you use paid online services. (Sam recommends Sugarsync back-up service)
We don’t want you to stop using the free internet tools and services to start or build your business (we intend to!), just be aware of the possible pitfalls and take action to safeguard your valuable data.
Once you’re in a position to make the move to paid services, remember that you’re investing in the growth of your business, you’re helping the economy to recover – and thus enabling more people to buy from you!
If this post raises any concerns or questions about a free service you’re using, please let us know in the comments below, and we’ll do our best to help.
About Louise
Louise Barnes-Johnston has been working in social media marketing since 2007 after realising that it was a powerful marketing tool which would enable her clients to raise the profile of their businesses on the internet, even when working to a limited budget. Her specialism is in researching social media practices; trying out the most effective online tools and then sharing the best of them with her clients.
