On Oct. 4, 2021, Facebook services experienced a six-hour outage due to a faulty configuration of Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). BGP is responsible for routing Facebook’s traffic and making it accessible to all visitors.
This was the worst Facebook outage since 2019, when Facebook was down for 24 hours.
This outage affected millions of small businesses and creators that rely on Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger and Oculus for their daily operations.
Read on to learn more:
What Social Media Means for Your Business
1. It Increases Brand Awareness.
3. It Provides Opportunities for Revenue.
Final Thoughts – Website vs. Social Media: Which is Better for Your Business?
Impact of Facebook Outage
The Oct. 4 outage of Facebook services caused creators and small business owners to lose anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $5000.
Many small business owners felt vulnerable with their sales plummeting due to a lack of alternative connection to their audience.
In the meanwhile, consumers turned to other social media apps. Telegram gained 70 million users. Time spent on other social media apps — Snapchat, Telegram, Twitter, Signal and TikTok — went up by as much as 23%.
Five days later, on Oct. 9, Facebook and Instagram went down once again. Combined with the recent whistleblower controversy, these downtimes raise concern over the social media giant’s reliability and safety. And this reignites calls for people and businesses to return to the open web.
What Social Media Means for Your Business
Social media is the ultimate marketing tool as of 2021. It simplifies marketing and communication for modern businesses by bringing them to where the customers are hanging out.
The social media platforms help businesses:
- Interact with customers
- Advertise
- Build a brand
- Sell goods and services
- Spy on competitors
However, the Facebook outage showed that even the most prominent social networking websites can fail. Similarly, they can update algorithms on a whim and leave you out hanging to dry.
This means you need to rethink your business strategy. In addition to social media presence, you also need a website that provides you online presence with no strings attached.
Business Website — Benefits
Small businesses increased their online interactions by 51% after the pandemic. Most of them did so through their website as 71% of small businesses have a website.
Here’s how a business website can be helpful:
1. It Increases Brand Awareness.
Websites appear higher in search engine results than social media pages. Your users can easily find you if you have a website by searching your brand on Google or other search engines.
Bright Local shares that 93% of people rely on the internet to find local businesses. With a business website, you get to attract these people.
You can further build your audience by using search engine optimization (SEO). 53% of website traffic comes from organic search. You can benefit from that by focusing on your SEO.
2. It Offers You Control.
As you own and control your website yourself, you can customize it as you want. You can work on your business growth without worrying about updates to social media algorithms.
You also get to use a lot of features that are unavailable on social media platforms.
3. It Provides Opportunities for Revenue.
A website provides several income opportunities to you. You can:
- Start an online store to sell physical and digital products
- Sell ad space
- Become an affiliate marketer
- Create a membership website
4. It Does Not Cost Much.
Many small businesses lack a website because they think it either costs a lot or requires coding expertise. That couldn’t be further from the truth. You can start a WordPress website with Bluehost for as little as $2.95/month.
And that also comes with support: Bluehost walks you through the installation and setup process.
Final Thoughts – Website vs. Social Media: Which is Better for Your Business?
Facebook’s recent outages have shed light on issues that businesses need to address.
While social media lets you sell and interact with customers, it comes with a lack of control and reliance on social media companies. Protect your business by having both a website and social media presence that complement each other.
Sign up for a Bluehost plan and start your website today.
