Overcoming a Facebook Hack & Dominating a 66-Day Writing Challenge

by | Jun 25, 2023 | Content Writing, Solopreneurship

 I was preparing to write a lovely article to celebrate the end of the 66WRITE challenge.

With today’s article, I’ve:

  • written an article on Medium
  • read 10 pages of non-fiction
  • wrote 3 tweets
  • posted a pic of my work

EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 66 DAYS

Holy smokes Batman! I did it.

Then it happened.

I opened my email to send a message to my friend that I made it through the challenge and a whole pile of emails were streaming in about password resets, verification codes and disabled account notices.

My Facebook account was hacked and was gone. My fear was the two facebook pages attached to that account. They were still there, but I don’t have access to them as the account owner.

In full transparency. I don’t even use Facebook anymore. It’s there because of my Instagram and a social media scheduler that links the two and had to have a FB page.

But, it was my account, and it was violated. The kicker? I had a rock-solid password — 16 mixed characters, — and 2-factor authentication. Yet, it happened. WTF!

The aftermath was even worse. I found out the hard way that Facebook’s system for account recovery is…well…the most pathetic system I’ve seen. With this being a security issue, you can’t get a hold of anyone.

It was a self serve question system which didn’t work. The sheer annoyance that this is how they treat their subscribers is jaw dropping. It took 90 minutes to find an email address and I’ll be surprised if I hear from them.

If a small business treated their customers like this, they’ve be out of business fast. But Facebook with its millions of subscribers, doesn’t give a damn and you know what, neither do I.

Why?

Because I’ve always preached and practiced one thing — owning your assets. And my greatest asset? My email list.

This often-underestimated tool, my email list, came to the rescue. It’s my territory, my permanent digital real estate. No hackers, no hiccups, no dubious recovery systems can take that away.

So, here’s my pearl of wisdom from this wild ride:

Nurture your email list, people. In a world where control over your digital presence can be wrested away surprisingly easily, your email list is your anchor. It’s your direct link to your audience, your business’s beating heart. And believe me, its value is absolute gold.

tip: create your email content off the platform and copy content into the platform. That way you always have a copy on your computer and backup your email list on a regular basis.

What’s Next

Now that I’m done with the writing challenge, I’m dialing it back to writing once a week.

BUT I’ve started two more challenges. Jamie Northrup’s 28-Day Minimalist Newsletter Challenge and Hypefury’s 7 day Twitter challenge. Cause quitting (a daily challenge that lasted 66 days) cold turkey isn’t what I signed up for…nobody likes withdrawal.

That’s it my friends, I will see you on Fridays and if there is something specific you’d like me to cover in the realm of Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Website stuff, let me know.

Until next time, stay inspired!

Gisèle

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