• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • Email
  • Facebook

EGP Media Network

Actionable Resources for Digital Entrepreneurs

Header Right

Mobile Menu

  • Home
  • Hire Us
  • Blog
  • About
  • Writing Viral Content
  • Subscribe
  • Shop

The week social media failed me as a blogger

//  by Kara Carrero//  3 Comments

  • Share
  • Tweet

They say don’t put all your eggs in one basket. They say, you know, the day you start relying on Facebook for traffic and it fails, you’ll be sorry. They say that if you invest only into Pinterest and then it fails, you’ll wish you would have diversified your traffic sources. But what no one talks about is what if more than one social media referrer crashes overnight? What if your traffic is at only 25%, 20%, or even 10% what it was before the social media fallout and failure? Well it happened to me. Social media failed me as a blogger for a week and I received zero pageviews from Facebook and Instagram and abysmal traffic from Pinterest.

What I learned when social media failed me as a blogger and what i am doing to make up for the lost traffic

Affiliate links included for your convenience – thanks for supporting me.

What happens when facebook marks a domain as abusive

Because I was entering the weekend and my husband had that Friday off, I was bound to not check my social media all weekend. I had it scheduled out and didn’t have a single worry about it. Then one of my clients sends me a message telling me that when I sent them a message on facebook, it didn’t show up and told them it was tagged as abusive. And then it happened again. And then i noticed that every single link that had my domain name in it not only was n longer allowed to be published on facebook, but they had also deleted every photo, video, and link that had any association with my URL. Even on my personal feed or in personal messages.

Any time I, or someone else, tried to post something with karacarrero.com in it, facebook would give this message that it was abusive or malicious.

I contacted my host to make sure there was no malware and even ran my site through trendmicro to make sure that it was still seen as a “safe” site. Everything was clear. And what was most upsetting was that facebook seemed kind enough to say “if you think this is an error, let us know” , but when I did, their comments basically let on to the fact that they don’t reply to those concerns and they rarely look into them too.

I sent email messages to facebook’s advertising department, because they actually reply to emails. And sure, I have run ads in the past and I would absolutely pay for ads to get my site back on facebook. The problem there was that my site was still listed under my old domain name (that worked), but all content was being redirected to the new domain, which didn’t. So I had to go back and forth with them trying to convince them I had rebranded and my site had indeed been marked as abusive.

Just as troubling was if I posted a link to a pinterest pin that then led to my site, facebook detected it. If I posted a link to someone else’s site that had a link to mine (without a photo), facebook detected it.

And what people don’t seem to talk about either is that pinterest and facebook feed off of each other. Someone finds a great article they loved on facebook, they’re likely to pin it for later. And vice versa. They had a great find on pinterest, so they share it with their friends on facebook.

I even posted something on my main blog page asking my following to do me the huge favor of reporting the link as inappropriately marked as abusive. In fact, I had hundreds, if not thousands of clicks on that link to help me report the problem. So while facebook and social media failed me as a blogger by not letting me post links, I had an amazingly supportive community that rallied behind me both loyal followers and other bloggers.

I had bloggers such as Paula from Beauty Through Imperfection allow me to backdate “teaser” posts to my own content on her site and others willing to let me do guest posts and disperse my content in unconventional ways.

What to do if facebook marks a link as abusive, unsafe, or malicious

In fact, during this whirlwind of facebook chaos, I sent out a newsletter to my audience. They all rallied behind me. That day I had a 50% open rate and even had a full inbox with 2% actually responding to the email. It was incredible! And while I had worked on focusing on my newsletter for a good year prior, that was the moment I realized I needed it to be my primary focus. Because social media could completely collapse, and not just one platform, but multiple!

Start marketing your #blog w/newsletters TODAY in case #socialmedia fails.
Click To Tweet

Because facebook owns instagram, my site was also blocked on IG. This meant I could not like others photos, comment on them, or post any of my own new photos. And in that time I actually lost about 40 followers… presumably because of the “malicious link” issue. Not to mention that IG is actually a decent traffic referrer for me.

I know that ultimately my domain is back on facebook (and therefore instagram) because I know some amazing bloggers who have contacts in facebook, but which one of those 5 people that reached out to me to get it resolved, I don’t know which one solved it but I am incredibly thankful to all of them!

When my pinterest pins started flatlining

Granted, this has been happening for a much longer period, but the very worst time was exactly at the same time as the facebook nightmare. While no one quite understands what’s happening, many bloggers has seen several top pins completely go to zero traffic. I have some that go back as far as January 2015, some more in the spring, and then the worst hit for most bloggers has been around July 20, 2015.

Dramatic traffic drop after pinterest pins start flatlining in google analytics

Even before facebook failed me, Pinterest was sending me only about 20% of the traffic I had been getting from them. Then when facebook failed me as well, my traffic dropped to only about 10-20% depending on the day.

Even though I knew my newsletter was important, I would have paid any price to get both facebook and pinterest up and running in that instant. I would have happily written a check to be able to reach an audience with what i was writing, but that wasn’t an option.

I am still seeing flatlined pins, like many other bloggers. I don’t know that any of us has heard much from pinterest other than their working on the issue. But again, this points me back to the importance of building my newsletter. It’s something I completely own, maintain, and have full control of… which in the end is worth its weight in gold.

While an experience I don’t want to go through again, I was so glad I learned the lesson that it’s not even about putting your eggs in one basket, it’s about putting your efforts where it counts and where you can engage your most loyal readership. So now, I am focusing even more on my newsletter because it is the life insurance for my blog!

If you think a #blognewsletter is expensive, view it as insurance to keep your most loyal followers
Click To Tweet

I plan on coming back stronger than ever both by focusing more on my newsletter and by working on guest posting for others in my niche. It’s both a thank you to them for supporting and helping me, but also a way I hope to rebound from all of the lost traffic.

You may also enjoy:

How I gained 500 subscribers in a day
Web Management Services for newsletters

Category: Social MediaTag: Blog Newsletter, facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Social Media

Previous Post: « How to organize categories, tags, and keywords for SEO
Next Post: What every blogger wants you to know – the secret life »

Reader Interactions

Serpstat

Comments

  1. The Tie Dyed and Tattooed Mom

    at

    Ouch! 2 for 1 week. Glad you made it through. And good to know. I recently moved over blogs a couple months ago and have been forwarding traffic from my old site but I changed blog names completely and started all new pages. I also pinned a Moved! post to the top of the old pages. Hopefully Facebook will get a better hold on this and Pinterest will pick back up. Good luck Kara

    Reply
    • Kara Carrero

      at

      I know! It was rough. I did a rebrand like that once, way back when, and I think that was scarier than this current one. Good luck! I hope it does well for you 🙂 I hope that both of them will achieve a level of customer support that shows they value their business builders that put content on their platforms that in turn help them even exist.

      Reply
  2. Shauna

    at

    I am so glad that you posted about this! I have been hoping that someone would write up something just like this! It was heart-wrenching to watch our hosting clients in a panic. We spent hours and hours trying to figure out what was going on and how to fix it. Hours that should have been spent coming up with a Plan B – because Plan A wes out of our control! Proud of your innovation and results!

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
wordpress hosting
2015_04_27_19_46_53
Click to download the Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners
Kara Carrero social media and web consultant
wordpress hosting
2015_04_27_19_46_53
Click to download the Genesis Guide for Absolute Beginners
Kara Carrero social media and web consultant

Pages

  • #324 (no title)
  • About
  • Big Words for Little Nerds
  • Blog
  • Board Games for Learning
  • Boston Kid Friendly
  • Cart
  • Check Out our Social Media Presence!
  • Checkout
  • Contact Me
  • DIY
  • Education
  • Extremely Good Parenting
  • Family Friendly Destination
  • Genesis Theme Design Customizations
  • Get Outside Family
  • How I perform web consulting services
  • Local & Travel Info
  • Make More Money Conference Notes
  • Merch by Amazon Resources
  • Misc. Reviews & guides
  • My Account
  • Need an engaging consultant or speaker who gives actionable tips & goals?
  • Need inspiring and thorough ways to grow an online business?
  • Optimize Your Blog for SEO
  • Parenting
  • Project Complete: where focus, growth, and community meet
  • Rehabitat Home
  • Reviews and List of the Best
  • Services
  • Shop
  • Social Media Consulting
  • Subscribe
  • Subscriber Freebies & Downloads
  • The secrets to making and selling your own Print on Demand products
  • Viral Handbook: secret survival guide for bloggers & site owners

Copyright © 2025 EGP Media Network · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Mai Theme