Last week, while Facebook faced a worldwide outage, many businesses were left in a panic about how the incident would impact them in the short term. Not to mention many social media users took to other platforms like Twitter to find out what was going on.

So what can we learn from this incident? Here are my top three tips:

1. Diversify your marketing mix
   Do not just rely on one channel to grow your business. If you put all of your eggs in the lonely Facebook basket, then you will be opening up your business to risk when the platforms changes (like the huge newsfeed and ad changes from 2018) or there is an interruption to the service (like last week).
   
   Start by mapping out who your target audience is, where they are likely to hang out (ie, what social media and other online channels are they on?) and create a presence on each one. Also don’t discount other tactics like PR (try signing up for Sourcebottle) and blogging.
2. Don’t build your business on rented space
   The only online spaces you own are your website and your email list. Facebook, and other social media platform are spaces you can ‘rent’, but you will always be subject to their Terms of Service, changes to the platforms, increasing costs and other things.
   
   Use social media to find your audience, grow your awareness, and build a community of loyal advocates. Social media is a fantastic way to supplement you owned online space, but it should never take the place of them.
3. Always have a Plan B
   Even the most well thought out plans can fail from time to time. Your marketing plan needs to be flexible so it can adapt to times when external circumstances out of your control impact on your day to day activities.

When one tactic fails, what will you do to replace it quickly, and cost effectively?

Over to you:

How did you deal with Facebook going down? Did it impact your business, or was it business as usual?