Did your business’ social media channels stop working yesterday too?

Yesterday (13 March 2019), Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp crashed for about 18 hours, meaning we suddenly couldn’t post or comment.

Now I don’t know about you, but I rely on social media, particularly Facebook, heavily for my business. Over 10 years I’ve worked really hard to build up over 4,000 likers and I use it to do a huge amount of my marketing. 

I know I’m not the only one, and I’ve been seeing LOTS of posts and comments today about Facebook and Instagram not working. It caused all sorts of headaches for people with businesses who rely on it to reach their audiences.

You don’t own social media – do you have a plan if you suddenly your lose your page and followers?

It’s important to remember that we don’t own our social media pages, so we are totally subject to things going wrong and the whims of Facebook. Over the last decade of running a business I’ve known various people who inadvertently contravened a policy and had their page taken down – it is a genuine possibility. Or what happens if they suddenly start charging us just to have our pages there at all? They’ve already changed so that we need to pay to boost so that our audiences see our posts at all so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

So, if these things happen, if your page goes down or disappears entirely, do you have a way of contacting all those interested followers and likers who you’ve spent years acquiring? 

This is EXACTLY why you need to have an up to date emailing list

So I thought it was worth a little reminder that things like this are exactly the reason that it’s worth having (and keeping up to date and at least occasionally using) an emailing list. This means that you always have the avenue of email marketing to use if you’ve been collecting the contact details of your clients and fan-base so that you’ve not lost them if things go wrong.

Make collecting emails part of your processes from the outset

Personally, I love Mailchimp and use it for everything. And I’m super-glad that I’ve been collecting everyone’s email addresses over the years (with their permission of course). Email sign up is an integrated part of my business processes. AND that I’ve backed it up because I don’t own Mailchimp either (more’s the pity). So when stuff like this happens, I know I haven’t lost my audience. 

Need any help?

If you need help, we run Mailchimp training workshops to help you make the most of it. It’s brilliant (mostly free) and makes life easier in so many ways. And it’s a sort of insurance policy because you’ve not lost your audience or the ability to communicate with them when social media goes wrong.

If you’d like to find out more, sign up to our emailing list so that you receive invitations next time we have a date. 

Claire Witz

MIB Network