What To Do If Social Media Networks Go Down

Yesterday saw quite a few people go into panic mode while they were having trouble accessing Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp following a glitch with the giant company. The problem resulted in people not being able to upload or send images across the platforms.

The reason for the outage has not been confirmed although it could have been rooted in the systems that provide the content or computing power to all three, such as cloud processing.

While the systems were down, users were able to see the AI-generated captions behind the images, automated by Facebook to describe an image, for example “image may contain a person smiling” – this showed an insight into the data stored by Facebook that can be used for ad targeting, although this was not confirmed.

What can this teach us?

A good start is to be prepared in our social media marketing. You never know when a system is going to go down and to stay ahead of schedule can help eliminate some of the problems.

Using a social media management tool allows you to schedule ahead of time, not putting on the pressure when disasters happen. Although it’s still hard to be responsive when the systems are down, you can know that the majority of content is ready to go.

Don’t rely on systems

As much as we love social media, it’s still important to keep a personal touch in everything that you do.

By attending in-person network meetings and becoming known in social circles can go along way in building up your reputation and being a go-to contact when someone is seeking your services.

Plus is allows you to personal in your social media, when people know the real you in person.

Use the time as experience

When systems go down that we rely on, often we can go into panic and wonder ‘how’ we’re going to get around that situation. But in business there are always going to be ups and downs and it’s the way that you deal with problem and what you learn from it that matters. Not just focusing on the social media outage yesterday, but what other trusted sourced have let you down and how have you overcome that? When something happens, we can use these situations in our business plans and put steps in place to get around them the next time it happens.

Embrace the now

We’re a big believer that everything happens for a reason, whether it’s something you plan for, or not! So when the unexpected happens, that can be the time to embrace something new and try something different. And for this example, embrace the now in your marketing, you can take pictures of you doing business ‘offline’ and what you are doing instead, and then use these in your storytelling across your social once it’s all back up and running. You can let your audience know that although there may have been a glitch on social media – but they can still get hold of you other ways next time it happens.

Jump onto another social platform. One of the networks that you’re not so active in, you could use these to still keep your presence alive. Shout out and let people know that you’re still in business even if the networks aren’t!

Embrace whatever happens and use it to give your brand a relevance in the ‘now’ and let your audience know that you’re up to date with the latest news and happenings. 

Don’t be negative

Whatever you do, try not to put a negative spin on your social media – people love stories, people love to know what’s going but they love positivity and inspiration and motivation – change a negative situation into a positive. Make it a challenge and not a stumbling block.

 

What were your experiences through the outage and have you used the time to tell a story or try something different? Let us know in the comments below.

 

For those who want to get organised in their social media planning, why not download our free social media 2020 awareness days calendar which gives you ideas and space to get organised as you think about the weeks and months ahead. Don’t let another outage stop you! It’s free – download now!