I know most people got heart attacks today as top social media platforms went down for a few minutes if not hours. I personally had to change my password consecutively with the fear that my personal account has been hacked.
After doing that for so many times without any positive response or result, I had to check my business accounts and other Facebook accounts and pages that I manage on my device, but unfortunately all of them were affected. All my mind and conclusion was centered that I have been hacked.
There are many people that depend on social media for their business growth, sales and revenue. And if this type of event should last for a week, month or a year, how will such businesses survive?
In this article I am going to walk you through on how to stay safe as a business owner, content creator, and social media user. If social media means so much to you as a person, this is what you need to do to stay safe when this downtime happens.
But before we dive into it, let’s discuss this funny but unusual social media glitch that took place today.
According to user reports, Instagram and Facebook apps present error messages and slow loading of content as of today 5th day of March 2024. Searches on the topic had a sudden increase on Google and YouTube that top Meta applications , such as Instagram and Facebook, showing instability this Tuesday.
According to Downdetector platform, a portal that monitors online service outages, they stated that the problems started around 12pm todah 5th of March 2024. In the case of Instagram, there was a peak of 14 million registrations at 12:21 pm.
The flaw mainly affects mobile device platforms, mainly the applications but there are also complaints and reports about the web versions of these social networks. Some users also reported the problems with their WhatsApp , Facebook Messenger and Threads app, these are all Meta applications as you already know.
While this was going on, mark Zuckerberg was actively updating all users that the problem will soon be resolved, and also reminding X ceo Elon musk that his apps will soon be back for all his users to move back to meta platform. It was a fun experience to see two big giants fighting online.
But elon must still giving out back to back with his constant post.
Endy Stone, Head of Communications at Meta, commented on the case on Twitter . At 12:52 p.m., she wrote, “We are aware that people are having trouble accessing our services. We are working on this.” About an hour later, he updated the situation:
Endy Stone stated that “Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services. We will resolve the issue as quickly as possible for everyone affected and apologize for any inconvenience.”
Which countries were affected by this Sudden Glitch?
According to the international press today, the failure also affects other countries in America, Africa, Europe and Asia. Experts suspected some widespread server error, as there were also other services with problems this afternoon, such as the Google Play Store and YouTube, though they weren’t noticeable as that of Facebook and instagram.
Moving on to Google Trends , a tool that monitors searches made on the google,
Youtube search engine, several searches on the subject had a spike in interest such as “Instagram and Facebook down”, “Facebook Instagram down”, “Facebook down today”, “Facebook is down”, “Instagram is down today” and “Facebook is down” and more others with huge search volumes.
How can I stay safe and build a business and community outside social media?
If you’re a business owner who uses social media to get in touch with your customer base and audience or you’re a content creator who depends on social media for your revenue and income, it’s important to make a plan B as you already know that your social media page or platform is not yours.
When facebook and instagram was down, almost all users were logged out from their accounts, and even while they tried to access their accounts with the right phone number, email address and phone number, the error still did not allow them to do so. That is to tell you that the platform isn’t yours and you need to do something now it’s still early.
The one question you should ask yourself is this; If social media ceased to exist, will I still have a business? Will I still have my audience base and customers? Will I still be making sales, content, and generating revenue? These are tough questions that every social media user needs to answer.
You need to stay alert and get ready for tougher times as a business owner or a social media user. As we already know that these are strong reputable platforms that cannot easily go down, but how about if they decide to go down for one week or even month, or make a policy that their services won’t be reachable in your specific country like you saw that Binance p2p has finally been removed for Nigerians. What will be your fate if such happens to you as a social media user?
Well that’s not our prayer but the purpose of this article is to prepare your mind to do the needful now and secure your business or your audience base to avoid stories that touches the heart. Let’s look into number one.
How to stay safe and build a business and community outside social media Downtime
Create a website
Like I always tell my students and team, your website is your business and you and you alone is the owner of your website. It’s important to own at least one website as a business owner or a content creator where you will gather all your audience and customers base.
Getting yourself a website is the best thing you can do for business and this will help you to stay safe. Even while social media is down, your website will be up and running and your customers and audience can still have direct access to your contents, products or services.
You should get a website right now if you don’t have one already and start introducing and redirecting your audience and customers to your website. And the only way to keep them subscribed is to check out point two below..
Build a strong email list.
This is the second thing you should do if you have a website already. Even if you don’t have a website, there are some sites that offer you the opportunity to build an email list without a website like system.io etc.
You just need to set things up and start collecting the email of your audience or customers, then constantly send them newsletters to keep them updated so they will get used to opening your mail.
By doing so, you won’t bother much about social media, all you need is to build more email lists, get more contacts with some free offers and giveaways. This will make them want to drop their email faster, than when you just want them to give out their email for free. You know how we humans behave.
Build mobile contact lists
Apart from building emails or websites, it’s important to build a mobile contact list of your audience or customers to get in touch with them all. This is easy, all they need to submit is their phone number and you add them to your contact list and update them regularly with bulk sms tools. They will get to receive the text messages directly on their mobile sim.
There are more strategies and methods to build an audience outside social media and I have already made a comprehensive guide on my YouTube channel @ MINS JOHN FRANCIS. go search mins john francis on youtube and don’t forget to subscribe and join us on Telegram also to stay updated.
