Facebook Down
Reflections on a day without social media
What would life look like without social media? We all got a taste of that possibility today - with Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp down for 6 hours. After a couple of attempts to load my Instagram feed, I stopped trying to check it every time I had a minute in between meetings. And guess what? It turned out that my day was pretty great. I got project work done. I got creative work done. I even tidied up around the house. I felt happy. With the outage resolved, is it back to BAU (business as usual)? Should it be?
I learned three things today.
Find multiple avenues to drive traffic.
If you have a business that depends on Facebook and Instagram to drive traffic to your site, the outage probably hit your numbers hard today. 96% of B2C marketers use social media posts as a form of content marketing and Facebook generated nearly $70B from advertising in 2019. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Having a diversified set of customer acquisition channels will minimize the impact that incidents like today have on your business. Acquisition diversification should be a business health metric that companies track.
Prepare for life without your social media channel of choice.
No matter how critical they may seem today, platforms can be ephemeral. Friendster was once the place to be online. Kids these days probably don’t even know what it is. If you use social media to chronicle and preserve your life and memories, have a backup plan. Keep a copy of what’s important somewhere else.
Digital detox is a gift.
Those dopamine hits are addictive. When social media is available, I feel like I have to check it. I might miss out. But when I know that it’s not an option, I feel surprisingly ok. It reminded me of being on vacation in Yosemite, where I stressed out in advance that I wouldn’t have an internet connection but quickly adjusted and even enjoyed being out of touch. Today was a reminder of how healthy it is to take a break from my devices once in a while.
I don’t want to go back to BAU, but realistically, I probably will. According to Healthline, it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become automatic. The outage wasn’t long enough to permanently change user behavior. At the very least, consider today to be your wake up call. Whether you use social media to drive traffic for your business or as keeper of your priceless memories, don’t be dependent on one source for it all. Take breaks from your devices to take a walk, read a book, or even clean the house.
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