We’ve all experienced it… probably more times recently than we care for. As Social Media Marketers or someone who uses social media to promote their business and products it can be scary, overwhelming and even depressing when social media goes down.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and other social platforms have found themselves under scrutiny lately when their platforms suddenly stop giving us the benefits we come to expect. But when this happens, it gives marketers, business owners and even social influencers a moment to rethink their strategy. Here are some tips from our experience over the years helping companies protect their social assets.
When Social Stops:
- Don’t Panic. Outages and updates and service disruptions are typically temporary. Use the time to work on other business needs. If you can’t get on social, most of the time, neither can anyone else.
- Put your email list to good use. Send a message reminding customers of ways they can contact you other than via social platforms.
- Write a blog for your website. It will become great content once your access to social media is restored. Plus it will crank up your SEO game by adding a bunch of new keywords to your website.
- Spend time connecting on social channels you have been neglecting if they are still working.
- Be crazy and make an in-person connection. Call a client on the phone to thank them for their order or stop by a Business you partner with to chat and thank them for referrals.
Don’t Put All of Your Marketing Eggs in One Basket
Diversifying your marketing strategy is the name of the game whether your favorite social platform is working properly or not. If you put all of your effort, faith and monetary spend on one platform only, and it goes down, goes away or suddenly becomes less trendy, it makes it tough to pick up somewhere else. While the best practice is to put your money on what’s working for you, you still need to be prepared to connect with your audience in another way if plan A suddenly isn’t there or can’t work for you. Be ready with plan B. Make some connections on other platforms. Be sure you’ve saved all of your marketing collateral like videos, images, Reels, etc to your own servers, phones, cloud storage or however you keep your business information safe, so that you can use them elsewhere.
Always Get Their Email
Remember that having access to your customers is what gives you the edge. You want to go to them and not wait for them to come to you. It may seem so simple to just promote on a platform like Instagram and to have people message you with their order and you send it out in a few days. But if you had gotten their email address through a simple form on your website first, you’d still have access to them even when that “easy to use” platform goes down. If you can’t log on to message through the social platform and that’s your only plan, you might be in panic mode. But if you get their email address, you still have connection. You own your email list. You can upload it to any email software or CRM you want. If one goes down, nothing really changes except for a new platform to add your list and recreate a template or two. Your email list is fluid and flexible and can be sorted, tagged and reused over and over. Having a working, up-to-date email list is one of the easiest ways to market to your customers and give you direct insights and lots of control. Social Media can be used as the funnel to bring those clients to you, so that they share their email address with you. But keep that info off the platform too, so that you don’t lose them and so they don’t lose you.
Getting Hacked Can Hurt
If you have a business account on social media, you’ve probably received the crazy messages that your page will be shut down or needs to be verified, or that you’ve committed a copyright violation or that a prince in a foreign country needs your help. And every once in a while, those messages can be convincing enough to get you click, and in the blink of an eye, you no longer have control of your social channels. But if you just had their email address… You get the point. Social media may still be running fine, but if your particular page is not, you need to have a back up plan. An email list allows you the opportunity to reach out to your customers, direct them to a website that you own and not a social channel, and still continue business almost as usual while you attempt to regain control of your business pages.
Build YOUR Business on YOUR Website
Social media is fun, can be an easy way to grow and build your business and gives you a feeling of excitement when posts and videos become popular. But each social platform exists so THAT platform makes money. Facebook (Meta) will still be raking in the ad dollars whether you have a good month of sales or not. If you build your landing pages, your menus, your marketing materials, your messaging and your product store all on Facebook, you’re putting in a lot of effort, time and money to make THEM money. Isn’t your goal to make YOUR business money? We love social media marketing (obviously). It’s an incredibly effective tool for all sized business. But you want to be sure that the efforts you put into creating the tools you need to sell your business, products and services go mostly to YOUR business. You need to have your own website. You should have your own eCommerce platform on your site. You should be able to connect to your customers through email no matter what social platform is working. And if your clients decide to take a break from social media, you still want to be able to accept their orders, messages, questions and more.
The Bottom Line
The important thing to keep in mind is that your business is so important to you and your audience and customers. You want to be where they are, but you want to have access to them if you or they, are somewhere else. You want to have control over your products, what and how you sell them and when. You want to use social media to bring people to you, to offer amazing customer service and to connect with your audience. But you don’t want to be left out in the cold when platforms go down, trends change, or shady people take over.
If you need more ideas or help on getting your audience on social to turn into customers on your website or in your brick and mortar store, reach out. We’re here to help you do just that!
