On Wednesday, March 13th, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp went down for the majority of the day. Users were given a maintenance error trying to log in. The Facebook “family of apps” has gone down before, and they will go down again. This may be alarming for some, especially businesses that rely on Facebook for communicating and advertising. However, it’s not as bad as you think, at least if you’ve diversified your social media presence.
In this day and age, not having a Facebook page or a social media presence is the equivalent to not having a website. (If you don’t have either of these, please call us after you finish the article and we’ll be more than happy to help you out.) Social media is a useful tool to communicate with your audience and is proving to be consumers’ preferred method of contacting and interacting with businesses.
However, if you’ve put all of your efforts into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, on Wednesday you were left with no way of communicating with your customers online. Essentially, all your eggs were in one basket. Honestly, that’s an easy oversight when it comes to social media as most people either forgot or don’t know that Facebook is the parent company to Instagram and WhatsApp. The blackout made it clear that all three platforms run on the same servers. So, what should you do to prevent a future shutout? Similar to investing, you’ll want to diversify your social media strategy.
Reasons To Diversify
Taking advantage of multiple channels to facilitate your message is key in today’s digital market. There is an old adage that says don’t expect your audience to come to you, go to where your audience is. What that adage doesn’t teach is that your entire audience doesn’t always share the same place, let alone at the same time.
Staying diversified also keeps you from being dependent on one platform. If that platform has an algorithm change, or worse, the strategy you’ve developed over the years may no longer work and you’ll be left dead in the water. This happened to many businesses when Facebook and LinkedIn changed their algorithms in 2017. Companies and influencers went heavy on these platforms due to their success, but minor changes to their algorithms cut some organic reach by 90%.
When you increase your digital presence, you increase your access to analytical data. Most social media platforms have some sort of analytical feature for free, there may be premium options available for more detailed analytics. This information can be ground breaking for some companies and help develop stronger strategies for the other platforms.
Where You Can Go
Depending on what’s appropriate for your company or team, other options to consider could be YouTube, Tumblr, Tik Tok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter. It’s important to note that not every platform is suitable for your branding needs and that your efforts do not need to be equal across all your chosen platforms. For example, retail and entertainment companies like Calvin Klein and Disney may see more success using Tumblr. But, Starbucks and Chobani are writing the book for how companies can use Pinterest. However, you can find all four companies on both platforms.
Every channel has something unique for people to use. If they didn’t, they’d all be exactly the same and eventually the one with the most money would probably be the only one left standing. These differences should be utilized to their full effect, which will ultimately expand your reach and drive more traffic to your websites and products.