Besides Email Marketing, social media marketing is a fast-growing customer acquisition method, and there is no doubt this trend will keep up in the foreseeable future. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn are some of the pervasive social networking websites that have taken digital marketing by storm. 

It’s reasonable enough for all business owners, regardless of the size of their enterprise, to capitalize on this powerful yet cost-effective marketing strategy to reach, engage and connect with prospects and customers. Even better, with most platforms having built-in data analytic tools, entrepreneurs can seamlessly track their ad campaigns’ progress, success, and engagements.

It’s almost impractical to elucidate all the influence of social media sites in the business realm. And it’s not our priority at the moment. In fact, most businesses have leaned on social media marketing immensely that almost all of their marketing budget goes to some of the prevalent sites. 

While it’s a strategy many businesses have yielded tremendously from, some owners overlook that such a big part of their entity should rely on platforms that aren’t for our own making. So what we are trying to say is, when some of these social media sites go dark, will your business thrive? 

Although outages are rare, they are not uncommon. For instance, most recently, on October 4, 2021, the world experienced several hours without Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. Not to mention other cases of downtime. Such anomalous instances have revealed how much of our digital, social, and physical lives depend on the websites. 

The impact also trickled down to SMEs and startups who massively depend on these sites for marketing and other operations. This was a wake-up call for entrepreneurs to diversify their brand presence and traffic sources.

What To Do With Your Startup Marketing When Social Media Sites Go Down 

Stay in Touch With Your Customers Through Email

As already outlined, email marketing is still king. The world is ever-evolving, but email is here to stay, and daily email users are expected to increase. Besides being cost-effective and efficient, email remains dependable and robust. 

Therefore, while social media sites provide speedy connections with clients, don’t disregard other forms of communications such as emails or SMS. For example, ask your followers to subscribe to email updates. Email also has an upper edge against most social media platforms since there is no limit to word counts. Additionally, sending emails guarantees that you reach your core audience, tailoring messages to address particular clients (hyper-personalization). 

Dig Deeper

Having an idea of the primary cause of the social media disruption will give you insights into approaching the mishap effectively. First, don’t panic. Instead, check where the fault is and ensure the issue originates from the provider’s platform. For instance, from the recent blackout, Facebook took to Twitter informing and apologizing to their users of the outage. 

Build an Advocate Community

There is no doubt social media engagements are potent. Still, it would be best to build an incentive program for your top backers. That is, motivating your loyal clients and followers to share your content, review your products/services, and give recommendations. 

For example, HubSpot is a conventional tool startup that should capitalize to allure visitors and grow remarkable customer experience even with the outage of well-known social media sites. 

Use Other Social Media Platforms For Ads and Posts

Most firms have their preferred social media site where they have an amped-up following and receive most engagements. In most cases, it’s typically Facebook or Instagram. Still, and as already mentioned, it would be best to spread across other platforms such as Twitter and TikTok. In that case, if there is an issue with Facebook, you can seamlessly communicate, run ads and engage with your clientele on the other platforms.

It can be quite overwhelming, time-consuming, and almost impractical to keep track of several social media sites. Therefore having a competent and talented social media management team will go a long way in ensuring your startup stays connected with its target audience on social networks. Alternatively, Hootsuite and Zoho Social are reliable and productive social media management software to handle all aspects of your startup’s digital presence. 

Schedule Your Posts

Facebook has an in-built scheduling feature. Also, it’s possible to schedule posts on Twitter and Instagram. Capitalize on such goodwill tools to reach your target audience, grow your following and boost your engagements. Even better, you can schedule posts for when the platforms are back online in case they go down. 

While some might insinuate that it’s time-consuming to schedule posts in advance, it’s very critical. First, it saves you the time you might have spent logging in to upload a post, and it allows you to reach your followers when they are online, at peak times, even if you are offline. Not to mention, it builds consistency around your brand. 

Modify Time-Sensitive Social Media Ads

In some cases, social media sites might go down while you are in the middle of a promotion or ad campaign. For example, you might have been running a limited special offer for a commodity, and clients could not capitalize on it due to the outage. As a result, it would be best to extend the deadline to cover up for the mishap. In addition, showing goodwill in such cases will build loyalty and arouse interest by giving customers a better opportunity. 

Be Prepared When The Platforms Comes Back Online

When the social media sites come back online, you will have to cover for the lost time. For example, you might be overwhelmed by pending orders or inquiries. Therefore, it’s vital to update your target audience of the blackout and assure them everything will be up and running as usual. 

Final Thought

We must acknowledge that businesses and startups have experienced rapid growth thanks to social media sites in this fast-paced modernization era. As much as it’s vital to rely on prevalent platforms, entrepreneurs should not forget to lean on other marketing tactics and other channels such as emails or SMS. Encourage your startup audience to opt for updates about your brand on different channels. This way, you won’t incur massive losses during the following social media sites outage.