You wouldn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building a house on land that wasn’t even yours, and you definitely wouldn’t move your family in and expect to have a long safe residency there.
The land isn’t yours. And neither is your Facebook account.
Last month my Google Business Profile was suspended for weeks and every review vanished.
This week Facebook suspended my account with no way to appeal. I’ve done nothing wrong. I use 2FA. I reply to their emails. I’m verified. Still gone.
And yet I’m still in business. Why? My website is alive. I keep my domain names renewed automatically. I keep an offline copy of my whole website and I could re-host it elsewhere if my host went bust or kicked me off. My email inbox is hosted by a reputable Australian company I trust.
You don’t own anything you didn’t pay for, and even then, you don’t own your rented real estate - you simply have a contract to be there for an amount of time.
What you don’t own
- Facebook page
- Instagram page
- Medium or any hosted blog (e.g. wordpress.com)
- Gmail or Hotmail email addresses
- Google My Business and Google Maps Listing
Any of those can disappear without warning. Sometimes for “cybersecurity reasons” like my Facebook account this week. Sometimes because a global platform flips a switch. Remember when Facebook blocked news for Australians in 2021, then reversed after a deal? That wasn’t about you or me. It was about leverage against the Australian government, And with Australia’s under-16 social media ban taking effect later this year, platforms are again recalibrating their products and policies here. They’ll act in their interest, not yours.
What you do own
- Your domain name - while you maintain the annual registration
- Your website design, files and database - unless you're on Wix or Squarespace in which case you need to keep that regular payment up.
- Your email hosted on your own domain.
- Your client list and content library.
- Reviews you've saved off your Facebook an Google profiles.
That stack is portable. You can back it up, move it, restore it.
Calls to action for celebrants (do these this week!)
- Own your name. Register your domain(s) and lock them down with registry-level 2FA. Keep registrar, DNS and hosting separate for resilience.
- Get off free email. Move to you@yourdomain with a reputable AU provider - I like Fastmail. Forward old Gmail/Hotmail, don’t build a business on them.
- Keep a cold backup. Export your site to a static/offline copy and store it locally + in the cloud. Test a restore.
- Control your list. Build an email list you can export (CSV). Put the subscribe form on your site, not just Linktree or Mailchimp.
- Capture leads on your site. Forms should write to your CRM or email—never rely on DMs. Auto-reply with your info pack.
- Export your platform data. Regularly download Facebook/Instagram data and your Google Business Profile info. If it vanishes, you still have proof and copy.
- Publish at home first. Blog on your own site; syndicate to Facebook/Medium/LinkedIn later. Social is distribution, not your library.
- Disaster drill. Write a one-pager: where backups live, how to repoint DNS, who your host is. Time your “site move” rehearse.
Platforms can—and do—turn away from Australia. They’ve done it before over news. They’re reshaping again around the teen ban. If Facebook ghosts you tomorrow, your couples should still find you, book you, and pay you—because your website, domain, and inbox are yours.
Build on land you own. Let socials be signposts, not your shop.
Originally published on the Celebrant Institute: https://celebrant.institute/business/only-build-a-house-on-land-you-own/.