Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp have been down for a few hours. This is not a small bug, but the duration of this event suggests something bigger. In addition to the anxiety of any users who can not post kittens on social networks or shout at the current enemy, at stake there are more delicate situations related for example to safety or marketing.
While security is a key issue and hoping that there has been no breach of sensitive data linked to accounts, I want to focus on marketing because this is my job and the economic damage to companies can be significant. Think, for example, of those who have invested their communication budget on a strategy carried out solely on Facebook or Instagram. Tomorrow these companies will have to deal with how much traffic or how many leads they have lost for such a prolonged down. But from this story we can learn an important lesson: diversify always and in any case.
Lesson number 1: Diversify communication and marketing channels
Web offers an infinity of solutions to communicate. For example, only among social media, in addition to Facebook and Instagram (both owned by Mark Zuckerberg), we can choose Twitter, LinkedIn or many others. We can upload a video to Facebook, YouTube or even Vimeo. Or we can use instant messaging tools such as Telegram. Advertising is not only social, but also come across Google search network or display ads on sites that are part of the Google network or across other distribution channels.
Diversifying allows us to take countermeasures in down situations like this, or to respond to changes in the algorithms of these platforms or unilateral decisions. Don’t we like Facebook’s new rules anymore? Well, we can easily move our communication to Twitter. Google has changed its algorithm once again and your site is penalized? Okay, so let’s take advantage of social media to regain traffic and visibility.
But be careful: when we diversify, we should always take care that the brand identity is consistent with the chosen channel. Choosing an unsuitable channel often creates grotesque and deleterious effects. Let’s imagine of a brand with a serious and institutional tone of voice and a target of older users that jump on TikTok: the risk of making a bad impression is real.
Lesson number 2: Focus on the website, the presence that you can control directly
Our page on Facebook and Instagram, our profile on Twitter are not really ours. In fact, we have registered an account on a platform owned by someone else that can change the rules quickly and without asking us for permission. For this reason, it is good to have these online presences as well, but not only them.
The only online presence we own is the website. To be right, even a website is based on servers that we rent from third-party companies. In any case, we have full control over the contents of the site and we write our rules (obviously in compliance with the law). A showcase site or an e-commerce is therefore the indispensable starting point for any digital marketing strategy. Let’s start from here and diversify.
