This is the podcast for digital creators by digital creators with me, your host, Dylan Schmidt. Let's dive into insights on content entrepreneurship, creator strategies, and the occasional random topic because why not? Whether you're on day 1 or 1,000 of being a digital creator, Let's learn and grow together. You're listening to Digital Creator. 2023 has been a doozy for me in social media. I've experienced some challenges that I had never experienced previously. I'd love to share them with you because I think we could probably both learn from what I've had to go through. So I've been growing across the board on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and not so much x, but threads lately, And those have been my primary social media channels. Well, about 3 or 4 months ago, my Facebook profile was hacked. I had two factor authentication Turned on, but still the hackers were somehow able to get in there and change the account over to their email address And, basically, boot me out of the account. And as of now, I'm still working to get access back to the page. I was the only person in the account. There was nobody added as, like, a third party or any help on the page. So I don't exactly know how they got into the page yet, But I changed passwords on everything. I removed access. I even did it while they had first tried to gain access to my account because I was at my computer, but It didn't do anything, and they were still able to get in and change everything, which leads me to believe that they might have had access through my email or some type of other sophisticated hack. Even though I have 2 factor authentication turned on everywhere, it didn't seem to be of any help. So those were the cards I was dealt with Facebook. I filled out multiple forms. I've been in contact with Facebook. And initially, they told me it would be about 48 hours for them to review it And then get back to me. It's now been almost 4 months, and I've heard nothing. It still says that my account's under review, and it should be about 48 hours. I've gone back and forth Giving proof, giving any links, and I think of up to about 50 messages back and forth total so far. Now thankfully, I had another Facebook profile That I'm still able to use for running, like, Facebook ads and things like that, but it's just unfortunate because I had connections on that Facebook page. I had posts in some groups that I would love to reference and some DMs with people that I was gonna interview locally for a podcast. So, hopefully, I get access back to that. Could happen any day now or I might not ever. And that's the risk you run when Dedicating your time and energy on these platforms. And then just last Thursday, I woke up, checked my email, And I saw that YouTube had sent me a email saying that they removed my channel, and it was due to hate Speech and spam and hurtful content. And if you have consumed any of my content, you know I strictly talk about Educating around content creation, online business, and life, there's nothing controversial about what I'm sharing. But regardless, whatever automated system, there was no warning. They just removed the channel completely. Now I was given a button that I could Go to to fill out an appeal saying that I think it was an error that they removed my channel. And from my research, there's, like, a 24, 27% Chance that they'll reinstate the channel. And I had hundreds and hundreds of thousands, if not over a 1000000 views on that channel. So I'd spent significant time and energy growing that channel, But it was just gone. No warning. Just immediately removed. There was one thing I did though, Wednesday night prior to, You know, the following morning, the YouTube channel being removed that could have triggered it. I don't know. I have to wait to hear back from YouTube, but I did connect my podcast to YouTube. Now there's a bunch of fine print when you're connecting your RSS feed to YouTube, and it's a Wednesday night. I was not in my normal routine, and I'm clicking around. And I'm just like, you know what? Let's just connect to my podcast. Why not? And it was like, would you like to upload past episodes? Does any of this go against our content policies? And I'm like, no. My content's fine. I don't have any ads or sponsors for this show. It's just me mentioning my own products or services, but I don't have any outside advertisement money coming in. It's just me. So I was like, you know what? Let's just upload past episodes. There might be duplicates, but I don't think there would be that many, And I can clean it up after it connects. I connect the RSS feed. No warnings. No nothing. I don't even get a confirmation email that it's connected. I just See it on the page I'm on that everything went through. And then the next morning, I got the email about my YouTube channel being removed. So if that was the problem, hopefully, I'll be able to find out and share that with you. And if that wasn't the problem, hopefully, I'll be able to find that out and share it with you. But regardless, having my Facebook profile being hacked and unable to access it, which was connected to my ads account, which is running ads for the creator club, Content clips, and I have a lot of data in there that would be helpful for my business. And then having my YouTube page removed on a whim, which Coincidentally, just last week, I was actually, like, I'm gonna dedicate some more time and energy in the next couple months to YouTube to have that removed. I'm like, at this point, it's just an uphill battle. But despite having those 2 setbacks with my social media channels, It has been relatively low stress besides having to go back and forth with Facebook, besides not being able to schedule posts like normal For Instagram, because of this issue between that Facebook profile and that Instagram account were connected, but I can't Separate them because I can't access the Facebook account. It's confusing, but I'm just waiting to hear from Facebook. Anyways, besides that happening, it's been a relatively low stress and not Felt much on my business because I rely so heavily on diversifying my channels, and I prioritize this podcast and my email newsletter. If you've been following me on any of those social media channels for a while, you know that I'm really consistent. I don't always post the same exact amount of content every week, But I have been consistent, and it's generally the same content across all platforms. Now on the email newsletter, I always publish every Tuesday Friday, And this podcast always gets published on Tuesdays. And what a lot of this has taught me is just, again, how important it is to not rely on these platforms That might have something that triggers just automatic removal of your channel without you being able to stop them by any means. And it's Pretty eye opening if you think about it because I don't monetize through the platforms. Like, on TikTok, I don't I'm not a part of the creator fund. I Could be, but I I just don't even bother with that stuff. And on YouTube, it's not monetized on there. I'm not collecting money through that, And there's other creator programs through Facebook or Instagram. I don't bother with any of that stuff because I just solely focus on the programs that I have control over, and it always leads me back to the platforms that I have control over. At the end of the day, My email newsletter is not gonna be affected because I have the names and emails of the people that wanna hear from me, and I can publish my content through that channel. Through this podcast, you're more than welcome to listen, and Spotify might change something. But as a whole, it's just an RSS the that's distributed out. And if Apple Podcasts is under construction and you can't listen to it for a few hours, well, you could hop on another service like Spotify or Overcast or any of those other directories. So I know that, like, what I'm experiencing with these social media channels is not uncommon, and it's not the first time we've all heard this of someone losing access to something or getting hacked or getting their channel taken down with no real reason why, but I feel an obligation to share with you what I'm experiencing with my own social media channels because the reality is the same could happen to you, and it's all the more reason to just double down on your own Channels that you have full control over, like email and your podcast. And another thought that has popped up as I'm, like, losing a couple social channels at the moment is How confident I feel about being able to regrow what I've created. I've not heard the creators talk about this part of things, but the skills that I've developed Growing my YouTube channel, I believe I could grow my YouTube channel back faster than it took me to grow it in the 2 years since, If that makes any sense. Like, I started from scratch in June of 2021, and here we are in December 2023, and my skills have dramatically improved. And I know they have because I have a side channel that I just post videos for fun, and that channel is growing at a much, much faster rate then my main Dylan Schmidt channel. In that side channel, I've posted far less videos. But as far as total number of views, It's comparative to the main channel that I have. So I really do feel confident in that if I wasn't able to get access back to the YouTube channel, which would be Kind of deflating because very clearly, like, I should have been at least given a reason or I should be given an opportunity to remove something, And there's no hate common in there. There's nothing controversial. It's just education about content creation. So while that would be deflating, I do feel confident that if I had to start from scratch, The skills will carry over and that my philosophy around growing content on a platform is true, and I would put it into practice, which is Good content will grow your channel faster than anything else. Like, I just think that followers and subscribers matter less than they ever have before. And so while it is, like, kind of a bummer, the skills I've developed are far more important than the number of subscribers I have. And my ability to speak upon things Has dramatically improved in the last couple years. And so to me, that is just reassuring that I've had the proper systems in place such as email and podcasts. And if I gotta start from scratch, I'll take you along for the journey and share what's working like I usually do because let's face it, There's no destination in mind with content creation. You can't arrive at a certain point. It's always a growing, learning, developing process, And I wanna walk that talk as much as you are with your own content. So if you have any type of story about losing your account, Now would be a great time to share it with me. Feel free to send me an email. And let me do what has happened to you, and maybe we can learn from each other. Check the episode description for a link to my website, which has all my contact info, and I hope this was of any help to you. I know it's still a little vague, especially where things are standing with Facebook and YouTube. For example, will I get my accounts back? Who knows? But I'll tell you what. Regardless of whatever happens, email and podcasting will still be my number one outlet for reaching you, and I hope you take those channels more important for yourself as well. I'll next one.