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While businesses are preparing for Q4, beginning of all things fall in October and holiday ad strategies, the first (Facebook), third (WhatsApp), fourth (Facebook messenger), and sixth (Instagram) largest social media platforms went down around 11:40am Eastern time on October 4th, 2021. The outage came quickly and lasted more than six hours. As services came back across the apps, Facebook still cautioned that it would take more time to stabilize. It was a disruptive day if your business uses any of these platforms to communicate, advertise, and expand outreach.
The outage provided platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok an upper hand in people being able to communicate still digitally. The communication on YouTube, the 2nd largest search engine, was a bit different as the site was delivering news and updates on the outages as well as Twitter. Streaming TV was still active (unless you used Facebook to log in), and of course, Google was busy feeding the latest news as it came in.
The amount of time and advertising lost is unclear, but what question is clear (or should be) to businesses is: do you have a digital crisis strategy in the event of, well, a crisis? Business must still go on; communication and engagement with consumers remain critical and if you aren’t leveraging other platforms to communicate and advertise on, your competition surely is.
For the auto industry, every lead is much more essential as the lack of inventory and trade-ins remains; being more targeted and in front of more audiences is vital. We know that the digital marketing rule of three is to have an always-on strategy that harnesses multiple channels, meets your consumers where they are, and with a method they prefer. Does your dealership have that?
With the recent changes to Facebook Marketplace for dealers’ inventory and the gain Google provided to have dealerships’ inventory automatically syndicated to their Google My Business page – your inventory was already there – when Facebook went down. As in-market car buyers still searched for vehicles, your dealership’s inventory would be on your Google My Business page with videos also available on YouTube for consumers to watch.
Twitter saw a 37% increase in active users on Monday and some dealers took to Twitter, jokingly tweeting that now, with all the “extra” time consumers have from not scrolling through Facebook and Instagram, it’s time to go for that test drive. Being top of mind means being on many social platforms, including having your live inventory on as many as possible. Having a digital partner ensures you’re covered when it’s business as usual and during worldwide outages.
Digital Air Strike launched its all-new Inventory Maximizer Ignite that seamlessly allows dealers to merchandise their inventory to in-market shoppers through four powerful platforms: Google, YouTube, Facebook, and BestRide. Get your dealership and inventory listed so you aren’t losing leads. If you want to learn more, get a 10-minute demo today.
