If you were on social media earlier this week, you may have noticed a few…..shall we say…technical difficulties.
In fact, Monday was pretty much one huge tech mess for billions of people.
Users around the globe were unable to access Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for hours.
The result?
Absolute pandemonium.
Doctors couldn’t communicate with patients.
Businesses couldn’t run ads.
Nonprofits couldn’t reach donors.
And influencers couldn’t…influence, I guess.
Was there a bright side? Sure — the social media outage inspired quite a few great memes.
Including a resurrection of disaster girl. Welcome back, you savage beast.
@prashantgwari
It also showed people around the world exactly how reliant we are on Facebook…and why it’s worth diversifying our online presences.
This was one of the largest social outages in recent history. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were down for nearly 6 hours, affecting 3.5 billion people.
But this disruption was not a one-time blip. This week was just another outage in a string of similar incidents, and it certainly won’t be the last.
So what can we learn from the latest Facebookaggeddon?
Here are three key takeaways.
1. Diversify.
You already know the saying “Don’t put your eggs in one basket.” The same idea applies online.
Depending on Facebook or Instagram for ads and revenue means being at the mercy of that platform.
Some business owners learned this lesson the hard way, missing out on sales for an entire day because of the extended downtime.
Learn from their troubles — and don’t let yourself become reliant on one single platform.
2. Be flexible.
As Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp crashed, other platforms stepped up and responded.
Twitter was especially quick on the draw. The official account rapidly welcomed “literally everyone“ in a nod that many people would otherwise have been on Facebook.
What does this mean for you? Be prepared to respond to evolving situations, especially if you can tie current events into your media strategy.
If you play your cards right, this can be a great opportunity to show your personality and offer an informed opinion.
3. $%^# happens.
I like to remind my clients that websites sometimes have problems that you just cannot fully prevent.
Things happen outside of your control — wires cross, servers crash, passwords leak.
In many parts of the world, Facebook is literally synonymous with the internet. Yet the past few days have shown how even Facebook can have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
No matter how big you are, technical snafus can still occur. The best response is to be fast, be honest, and remember that it can happen to anyone.
