It looks like today’s Facebook and Instagram outage will set a new record for duration. The good news is that there is plenty you can do to get ready for the next power outage.

Tips for the New Year

In the year 2019 we inquired as to what advertising should do in this situation from seasoned social media strategists. This guidance (provided from the vantage point of the positions and responsibilities they had at the time) remains relevant even now.

The Beginning

To check if a network outage is widespread, you may use services like isitdown.us and downforeveryoneorjustme.com. Wagner said her staff checks to see if the channel is a popular one with clients whenever the site is down.

Wagner argues that this means initiating discussions on other platforms to reassure your consumers that your brand is active and accessible. She recommends that companies, where applicable, try asking the community how they spend their “free time” using a meme or a poll.

Herrmann emphasised the importance of communication when maintaining a client’s social media accounts, saying, “The key is to keep them informed.”

Profit from the circumstance

Wagner points out that a social network outage, while unpleasant and frustrating, may give marketers a tremendous opportunity to better understand their audience.

Search for relevant conversations involving your brand using keywords and hashtags. Wagner recommended taking the temperature now. Find out what information you can gather about your target market. What did you learn about how they were acting?

When a big network goes down, she says to reevaluate your social tool-set based on what you learn about your brand’s social strategy.

Should You Sign Up for Yet Another Social Network? You might want to consider expanding your email subscriber base. Land on social media is leased. Imagine if that complication led to a total shutdown; what then? Is there anywhere else online where your group can gather? inquiry Wagner.

Ad campaign management amid the power outage

Herrmann suggests that companies have someone keeping an eye on their advertising budgets in case this happens.

During an interruption, Herrmann warns against automatically moving advertising budgets to alternative platforms.

When a large network like Google or Facebook is down, my rule of thumb is to make sure at least 20% of your spending is optimising on other sites. However, Herrmann argued that changing by as much as a day depending on the downtime of a single network was excessive.

Mottel notes that advertisers may need to redirect their budgets to other mediums if they have time-sensitive messages or funds that must be spent swiftly.

It’s unlikely that a constantly-connected advertising would benefit from making sweeping changes to their strategy. However, Mottel argued, “a change of investment might need to happen drastically and rapidly to stay necessarily relevant for short-term, high-volume efforts like entertainment premieres.”

Herrmann emphasised the need of communication, saying, “The more you can communicate, the less the damage is truly,” in the event of severe losses. It’s awful and improbable, but you should nonetheless prepare for the possibility that a social media platform may be offline for days.

Mottel feels that it is important to keep in touch with all relevant parties.

Clients will know they can trust your business no matter what happens if they see that the problem has been evaluated thoroughly and a strategy has been proactively spelled out, as Mottel put it.

Recuperation state

Mottel recommended that once the social network was back up, the first item of business was to double-check that all advertising campaigns were properly restored and seemed to have been put up appropriately.

Getting ready for the next round

Even though Herrmann doesn’t believe anybody can completely prepare for an event like the Facebook outage, the advertising director is nevertheless putting up a strategy in case it happens again.

For up to five days following the interruption, we will be halting our campaigns and reducing our spending. Not a complete blackout, but a reduction of resources for a few days so that we can see the big picture better,” Herrmann said.

According to Wagner, your company’s crisis management procedures should include preparations for such interruptions. While a social media outage might not have any effect on your company itself, it could have catastrophic consequences for your social media staff. A strategy ensures that your message will reach your target demographic regardless of the medium.

She recommended keeping plans brief and to the point, with timing parameters for when the company should take action. Plus, platform-specific examples of message that your social media team may adapt and deploy.Wagner suggests that your company’s non-social media staff have access to FAQs answered by your social media staff.