Businesses, community organizations, and individuals have come to rely on the major social media platforms to make connections, drive traffic and conversions, and simply communicate. As of the start of 2021, over 230 million people in the United States used social media regularly (Backlinko). That translates to roughly 73% of the people living in the country. There is no doubt that social media has grown tremendously over the past few years, and businesses rely on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms to engage with their audiences. But what can businesses do to ensure they are still reaching people when the largest platforms go down for extended periods or face other challenges?

No Such Thing as “Too Big to Fail”

Earlier this month, Facebook and the corporation’s related platforms (Instagram and WhatsApp) were out of commission for hours. This caused a major disruption for businesses that rely on social media for their marketing campaigns. The outage immediately raised new concerns – If the largest and most popular social media platforms could go down without warning, what about others? Between network reconfigurations and rising cyberattacks, businesses that rely on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other platforms can feel helpless.

Plan B: Diversification

If relying on one social media platform – or a few that are owned by the same parent corporation – then diversification seems like a good way to keep information flowing in the odd event of another outage. There are many different social media platforms that can easily be incorporated into feeds, newsletters, blog posts, and more. Instead of creating a video just for Facebook, mirror it on YouTube, Vimeo, and other video hosting sites. Offer SMS updates to your audience, instead of just Facebook et all, because if social networks go down, a direct text message can seem like an important outreach. Additionally, diversifying your marketing campaign shows that your business has thought of contingencies, and that you can adapt quickly to unexpected changes.

Never Rule out Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing has not gone away, even with the increased reliance on social media. Printed flyers, business cards, posters, and more can reach a wide audience without assuming that everyone is “jacked in.” Television and radio ads are still a passive and effective way to drive traffic. Taking a more modern stance, creating ad spots for podcasts, videos, or websites can drive traffic and conversions outside of social media. Using Connected TV (CTV) or Over-the-Top (OTT) ad spots can get your business seen on streaming video platforms, which will put you in front of a much wider audience than focusing solely on people who use social media.

Get a Better Strategy

Whether you want to prepare a contingency plan in case social media platform experience outages, or you simply want to diversify to cast a wider net and funnel people to your business, contact the team at Outpace Digital Marketing. We will work with you to understand your concerns and goals, so we can create a comprehensive strategy to optimize your marketing campaigns.