How Businesses Can Capitalize on Facebook Shutdowns

Six hours.

On Monday, October 4th, Facebook’s 3 billion users and its What’s App and Instagram clients lost their ability to use its platforms.  

The outage was caused by an internal update to routers for network traffic. According to The Verge, “Just a bug in a command that an audit tool missed, and... services that connect billions of people disappeared.”

Twitter, the only tall man left standing, couldn’t keep its poker face, breaking the ice with ‘hello literally everyone.’ 

Could this have been the window of time needed for a cataclysmic shift? Six hours to reach with no reward, so all you’re left with is your outstretched fingers and a strange itch you can’t scratch. Potentially a new level of self-awareness… away from our own programming. Are we really aware of how many times a day we try to tap in, tapping out?

The result is in the intention, yes. Purposeful usage can have great results. If you understand how your feed’s algorithm thrives, that’s helpful, too. The faster you engage with something, the more content it will show you that correlates. And as a general rule, humans tend to react, engage or respond to negative emotion much more quickly than positive emotion. Even if you search for alternative content, the way that Facebook works, there is much you just won’t see. But knowledge is power, so if you’re hip to this then have at it. 

If we’re looking through the lens of businesses who rely on Marketplace to make sales, the outage meant lost revenue and an inability to communicate with customers. A mass of unmoored attention was drifting elsewhere. Sure, it was temporary. Hardly catastrophic or enterprise-ending. But if we’re talking about intentionality for businesses, how could you capture that and make your business stand out?

The integrity of what you’ve built should not be at the mercy of the big players. Diversification of approach is key. 

An obvious solution is making sure you’re on Google. Geolocation searches can be a boon, particularly for little-known start-ups who are just trying to find traction. Another is having your own website, with clear wording and clean design, that means you’ll probably rate better in online search results. Why wouldn’t you want a consistent presence?

A simple landing page can be all you need to provide basic information, in which case you could hit up Wix or Squarespace for a low-cost, beautifully designed template.

If you’re looking for something more personalized, with chat abilities or an integrated store, a custom website can be best. Feel free to reach out with any queries as to how we can help you bring your business to omnichannel presence. So in the event of a shutdown, your tech is still working for you.