IS YOUR BUSINESS PREPARED FOR A SOCIAL MEDIA BLACKOUT?

In early October 2021 the unthinkable happened, Facebook and Instagram went down. 2.8 billion users worldwide were left with no access to their beloved platforms.

Facebook owns not only Instagram but also Whatsapp so their servers going down was a huge inconvenience for many, and affected all means of communication for individuals and businesses.

So what was the reason for the outage? The VP of Engineering and Infrastructure Janardhan penned a statement saying:

“We are sorry for the inconvenience caused by today ’ s outage across our platforms, the underlying cause of this outage also impacted many of the internal tools and systems we use in our day-to-day operations, complicating our

attempts to quickly diagnose and resolve the problem. " Janardhan said that Facebook wanted to “ make clear ” that the core cause of the blackouts was due to a “faulty configuration change ” on “backbone routers. ” “This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt, ” he said.

Whether we agree with social media or not, it has become a lifeline and necessary tool for many people and businesses to interact and connect.

The fallout of Facebook’ s unprecedented almost six-hour outage has mostly focused on the financial impact to the $1tn social media empire.

The outage caused $50bn (£37bn) to be wiped off the company ’ s market value by jittery investors, and founder Mark Zuckerberg ’ s paper fortune shrunk by $7bn.

It is estimated that more than $13m of the advertising dollars that are its lifeblood disappeared each hour the platform was offline.

The lesson learned from this outage shows the public's dependency on the big

corporate platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.

Facebook has an unhealthy monopoly of the market share for social media and many critics have been warning businesses, and creatives to find alternatives for a few years.

Certainly, in recent years and most definitely since the pandemic, starting in 2020 issues of censorship have come to the fore as many people have been blocked or de-platformed for expressing their opinions.

Looking to the future it is wise for many creatives, entrepreneurs and businesses to seek alternatives and find new platforms to advertise and engage on.

We live in a world where hack attacks and power outages to key services we depend on are becoming commonplace. Here are some tips from Holistic Business PR Magazine to help protect you from future social media blackouts.

Tip no. 1 - Finding alternative platforms

There are a variety of alternative platforms that can be used for sharing information and messaging. We highly recommend you create alternative profiles and channels on independent social media platforms that are away from big tech censorship and algorithm manipulation.

Telegram is an independent, open-source platform and free to use. It allows freedom of expression and is growing as a reliable alternative to Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp.

It is also a suitable alternative to YouTube with over 500 million users signed up to the platform. You can share video clips, posts, links, create groups, and make calls. The app is also encrypted for privacy.

Locals is also a great alternative to video social media and is growing in popularity. It has built a community for independent creators allowing freedom of expression. Users can publish content, engage with supporters and make money from subscriptions.

Tip no. 2 - Use traditional marketing practices

The beauty of social media is that businesses have enjoyed the ease of connecting to an ever ending sea of customers online. Digital marketing has become the most popular form of advertising, but it is not the only form of advertising.

Getting back to basics and building a customer database that has a name, postal address, email address, and mobile number is a must in 2022. There is no shame in marketing the old fashioned way and with direct texting and emailing in the mix you will have a choice of how you want to communicate with customers regardless of outside circumstances. So don't be afraid to integrate leaflets, brochures and snail mail into your marketing mix.

Tip 3 - create your own community

Many website platforms give you the opportunity to create online communities built into a website. Building your own online community gives you the freedom to control how and when you communicate with your customers. You can have the option to keep your community private behind a paywall for subscribers, or offer a mixture of free access and subscription based membership.

Creating your own community and providing content such as video, blog posts and podcasts cuts out the big tech platforms and puts you in control of your marketing.

Grow your business with us: www.holisticbusinesspr.com