Are You Prepared If Facebook Goes Down Again?
You've probably heard me and others often say "you must have a blog for your business in case your rented space on social media ever went down."
It's like putting all your eggs in one basket. You can't rely just on any one social network. It's like putting all your money in one stock or bank. If something happens you could lose it all.
The Fail Whale
It was reoccurring thing for a while there on Twitter. But I didn't leave Twitter for long. Many others may have and headed over to Facebook or Google+ back then.
It has been a long time since I've seen the fail whale and I was very happy that it did not happen Saturday when many Facebook users took up on Twitter. I read that many signed up Twitter on that day. It will be interesting to see if those users stay on Twitter now.
The Day Facebook Went Down
The other day on Saturday Facebook and Instagram went down. I was out and about and didn't notice as I was on before Facebook went down. Later in the day I hopped onto Twitter and noticed the trend as Facebook goes down: #Facebookdown. I was curious and had to see what was going on with Facebook and Instagram.
It happened on a big news day too with Harvey crashing into Texas. (My heart go out to those people in the hurricane and flooding areas. ) I was keeping up with a few friends I've met through blogging who live in that area via Facebook. Many people get their news just from Facebook today. According to Slate it's about 44% of Americans today who get their news from Facebook.
Here are the tweets from that day when Facebook went down
I went to look it up & it seems no one's given a reason yet for why it was down. Supposedly it was down earlier this week also.
- Mitch Mitchell (@Mitch_M) August 26, 2017
Happy Saturday, Facebook and Instagram are down https://t.co/etFQtEGVaL #Facebook #Tech #Consumer_Tech pic.twitter.com/sXqwgzg9Xa
- Gabriel Hussy (@gabriel_hussy) August 26, 2017
this three times, today😡👎👎 #facebookisdown #facebookdown #Facebook #facebook pic.twitter.com/unc19T225M
- suvadip Das (@suvadipDas95) August 26, 2017
Facebook went down today, and Twitter users had some things to say about it https://t.co/073sIjeNCs #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/k9O5LQpjCl
- The Sacramento Bee (@sacbee_news) August 26, 2017
At least I'm not the only one! #facebookdown #instagramdown https://t.co/NbuyATkbJv
- Stacey|Not26Anymore (@Not26NEmore) August 26, 2017
I then took a poll to see what people were doing instead that day when Facebook went down.
I was at the #NYSfair yesterday so I didn't even know Facebook was down. #fun #family #goodtimes
- Andy Reinhardt (@AMR736) August 27, 2017
Why Didn't Facebook Let Users Know First?
I was curious why hadn't Facebook let its users know? Especially since many rely on Facebook adverting today for their marketing messages. Being in marketing for most of my life I wondered what if people were running open house ads or special sales for that day only?
All those marketing message would not be getting out with #Facebookdown. They could have sent out a post that you may experience an outage on such a date for such an amount of time. I think that would have gone over well and Twitter would not have been buzzing all about it as such.
Why Facebook Goes Down
From what I've read so far Facebook went down due to coding. They were upgrading the site. Not only did Facebook go down but since they own Instagram and Messenger they too were also down. According to one source Facebook just said they were doing maintenance.
It will be interesting to see if Facebook comes out with a statement on this and when.
How To Be Prepared When Facebook Goes Down Again
Sure, Facebook is great to keep up with family and friends. But if you are a blogger or a small business owner you must explore other options. Don't count on the one big giant social network for all your messages and marketing.
You did need your own "home" with a blog that is self-hosted. Of course things happen with those too but you can at least know in advance most of the time and get it fixed quickly. When you are using rented space you never know what may happen. They may increase the rent, kick you out or go out of business altogether. We never know when a company will go out of business like the social sharing site Co-Promote did a while back. Do you remember TSU trying to compete with Twitter? They too are now gone.
Get yourself on other social networks. You should really target 3 social networks to get really comfortable on. Any more than 3 social networks and you may feel overwhelmed.
More Bad News For Facebook On The Same Day
Tips To Be Prepared When Facebook Goes Down
- Know all your Facebook contacts on another social network.
- Important Facebook contacts - Keep their email address or phone numbers in another place. (It's just like having all your contacts in your phone and not written down anywhere. Technology can break too!)
- Don't just rely on Facebook for all your promotional efforts, spread them out over other social networks too. Many of the social networks offer advertising and promotional ways to reach your clients.
- Get yourself familiar and comfortable with the other social networks like: Twitter, LinkedIn. Pinterest, Google+, Snapchat, YouTube, Tumbler, Reddit to name a few.
If you are still not comfortable or on Twitter today don't forget to get my new eBook, Learn to Tweet and Thrive on Twitter on Amazon today!