Instagram Down? 8 Ways to Save Customers and Stay Afloat

Last week, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook were globally down for six hours.

And if for regular users that was a funny and nice opportunity to limit their time spending on social media or at least get to know Twitter or TikTok, business owners had a hard time. Especially those who run businesses on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp only.

In this piece, we’ll talk about how to save yourself from losing clients and leads if you manage your business on the Facebook ecosystem.

Ideally, these social media should belong to different providers and be managed on various servers.

WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram are literally one company (Facebook owns both Instagram and WhatsApp), so no wonder that when one service is down, the other is going to be down quite soon as well.

If you preliminarily get clients from one social media, now it’s time you should think about leveraging other social media platforms and run your brand accounts there too. Thus, when Instagram is down, you will be in touch with your current customers and will be able to attract new ones.

During the pandemic, more and more businesses turned online but the majority of them used only Instagram to contact clients and sell. Now it’s time to be precautious and set up accounts on Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, Telegram, even Clubhouse and other social media.

Useful read: Instagram alternatives if you're tired of Instagram.

All platforms have their own influencers, so updating your potential target audience through influencers might give you additional reach.

Don't Forget About Websites

With the fast-growing power of social media, many small businesses neglect the need of having a website to attract clients to, get leads and sell.

The recent situation with Instagram has shown that if you don’t have a working business website, the potential income loss might be dramatic.

So to be on the safe side, we strongly recommend you saving some time and money to build a website that would be the alternative platform that let your clients contact you, buy from you and be updated.

Besides, if you have a website of your brand or company, you can take advantage of the situation with social media being down and create PPC ads campaigns that will let you attract more clients.

Use Email Marketing

This is yet another way of marketing activity many business owners unfairly believe to be dead. However, it’s on the contrary.

We live in the technology era, so any online and digital tool might be down at any moment. Yet, the more tools you leverage, the more chances you get to stay afloat.

Email marketing is one of the tools you shouldn’t disregard.

When such extraordinary and unexpected situations occur, such as your Instagram shop is down or business page is blocked, you can make an unscheduled email newsletter updating your clients about it and be in touch with them.

Some email marketing services don’t require desktop publishing skills and have easy-to-use templates.

SMS marketing is pretty much email marketing but in a modern fashion. If you collect your clients’ data (as you should), such as email addresses and phone numbers, you can make a text messages newsletter updating your customers that your main channel of communication is temporarily unavailable.

And if you have your own mobile app, you've got the winning ticket! Push notifications and the application itself can be an efficient way of communication with your audience and clients.

Consider Automated Phone Calls

You already realize that collecting some of your customers’ data is useful not only for you but for them as well. So if you have the phone numbers of your clients, you can call them with your in-house call centre or use a software or bot that will do so for you.

Team Up With Marketplaces, Retailers And Wholesalers

If you’re an online shop owner, you have surely already thought about additional places where you can reach your target audience and sell your goods: wholesale, retailers and marketplaces.

In a situation like this with Instagram and Facebook, partnership with a good marketplace, retailer or wholesaler would not only prevent you from losing clients but, on the contrary, let you attract more.

So if you’re in the e-commerce business and don’t have any placements outside your socials and website, start thinking about these opportunities as well.

Use Google Maps And Web Mapping Platforms

If you own a local shop, cafe, salon or any other type of business that is strictly bound to some local area, you should definitely consider leveraging online mapping platforms like Googe Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps and others.

Just add your business to Google Maps and your customers will never lose you.

Leverage Daily Deal And Cashback Sites

Coupon sites like Groupon, LivingSocial, Yipit, Fab, Savoured, and others are a convenient way to increase brand exposure, find new customers in your niche, increase newsletter subscribers and make some money, of course.

Cashback sites (Quidco, TopCashback, or Swagbucks) not only allow people to save money on online shopping but also bring some new customers to retailers and e-c0mmerce businesses.

And though many experts find this way of marketing controversial and even outdated, we think it's worth a try.

Leverage More Social Media Channels