How to Prepare Yourself for the Next Social Media Blackout

People are panicking about the social media blackout that happened yesterday. On October 4, 2021, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Messenger went down and didn’t come back for over 5 hours. Were you able to reach your clients during this time? How are you going to prepare yourself for next time? Because it’s not a matter of if it goes down again, it’s when, and what if it doesn’t come back?

For years I’ve been telling my clients you can’t depend on a borrowed platform as your only source of getting clients. Social media should just be an additional way to reach your clients, not the only way.

Let’s talk about how you can prepare your business for the next social media blackout.

Have a strategic website with solid SEO.

If you’re depending on Instagram as a portfolio to share your work with your clients, it’s time to invest in a website. Not only will having a website keep your business going during a social media glitch, but it will also give your business more legitimacy. It’ll show your clients you’re willing to invest back into your own business. Your brand will look more professional and attract higher-paying clients.

Your website is also something that you have full control over. You can create a website any ways you want, create a strategic plan and show visitors what you want them to see. You’re not at the mercy of an algorithm, hoping that your clients will see your most important content first. A website gives your content a “home base”, a place where it can all live, so it doesn’t matter if there is a social media blackout, you can still give clients all the information they need about working with you.

Use lead magnets to grow your mailing list.

Email marketing is another great way to get in touch with clients and it doesn’t depend on an algorithm. You can use a program like MailerLite or Flodesk in conjunction with your website platform (Showit / WordPress) to create landing pages with lead magnet forms. You can create freebies, or offer discounts to entice your visitors to use your form to grab their email addresses.

Creating lead magnets to your website directs more traffic to your website, it allows you to start creating an email mailing list (even if you don’t plan to start sending out emails yet). So when you need to send out emails, you have a way to reach your audience.

Create the core of your content on your blog, then share it on other platforms.

I recommend that you have at least one core location for your content to live. Your blog is a great place to start, you can later add a podcast or youtube channel. But even if you do add a podcast or youtube channel, continue to create blog posts for each of those pieces of content, just in case those other platforms disappear one day. Then use social media (Instagram / Facebook) to share your content and direct traffic to your blog, podcast or youtube channel. To top it all off I recommend adding Pinterest. Pinterest isn’t as much social media as it is a visual search engine, and it’s a great way to share your content and direct people back to your website.

Here are a few apps that I use in the business that I recommend checking out to help you get started:

• Website platform – Showit
• Email platform – MailerLite
• Instagram Planner – Planoly
• Pinterest Planner – Tailwind
• Shopping Cart – Thrivecart
• CRM – 17Hats