On October 4, 2021, the world experienced a widespread outage and absence of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp from our fingertips. It disconnected us from our friends, family, public personalities, and businesses. It appears to have cost Facebook and its investors billions. At the same time, I imagine the outage cost businesses who rely on ads, hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue. Even without these popular platforms, the world continued, time did not stop, and sales deadlines did not change. While some were affected more than others, this leads me to pose a question. What next?
Facebook initially launched only about 17-years ago in February 2004. Its introduction revolutionized the online community. Sharing pictures and information became easy, but also changed the way consumers obtain information and buy products. In 2020, businesses spent $2,260,000,000 on Facebook ads. On average businesses spend between $2,400 and $9,600 annually on ads. What if the platform was to go down for an extended period of time or even be shut down permanently? What ripple effect would it have on your business?
Thoughts for TODAY
Each and every experience you have ever had and every choice you have ever made has led you to become the person you are today. These things have resulted in your personality, your secrets, your goals, your friends, and even your family. I strive to encourage others to recognize the value that can be gained through seemingly insignificant interactions that happen daily both with others and independently.
Based on this premise, I challenge you to think about what you can learn from yesterday’s outage? What ripple effects would a long-term Facebook outage pose for you and your business?
Quite honestly, this question is rhetorical of sorts. The answer will be different for everyone but here are my thoughts:
- Some people will move away from the platform. In that short period of time, they may have downloaded another popular app and test it out.
- People may have opened an app that they have not been using regularly. They could opt to click those apps first today.
- Businesses may question their lack of marketing diversity and will reevaluate their ad spending efforts.
- Employers may have seen an uptick in productivity among staff who are not distracted by social media notifications and interactions.
I simply challenge you to take the information that you have gained LIVING through your experiences yesterday, LEARN from them, and think about how you can LEVERAGE these lessons into your future.
The effects of an event like this will obviously affect some significantly more than others. This doesn’t mean all of us can not learn from it and use it to improve our futures.
You can also view this as an article on LinkedIn
