It's amusing to me, watching the discussions that occur on different Social Media platforms. So many businesses have included these platforms (Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Instagram) into their marketing flow and in many cases, it's the only place that customers can find the business or interact with them.
This, in my opinion, is a huge mistake. For a few reasons but all of which can be boiled down to relying on a platform owned and operated by someone else as the primary point of contact for your business.
But Charly, I hear people already drawing breath and starting to say, everything we do online is owned and operated by someone else. Yes, that's mostly true - if you consider that your hosting service, email etc and you'll find most of what I'm saying here applies to those as well. However, relying simply on social media platforms as a means for your clients to find you is an absolute recipe for disaster.
Here's some questions for you:
The first two are things that have happened on Facebook.
A number of years ago now - where has the time gone? - Facebook changed the algorithm so that pages didn't rank as highly, or even show, or a persons feed. That's changed a little now, but it's still not like it used to be - and your likers aren't seeing your page when you make updates. For many businesses, it was a devestating change.
Facebook, like all businesses, has had problems with the platform and there have been a few times where we can't get to the site, login, or send messages.
The last two questions are What Ifs, mostly - although, Facebook has changed its policies and some products or services have been removed.
What would you do?
Do you have other channels that your customers can contact you on?
Can they call you?
Can they email you?
And then, how do you communicate with them if the worst happen?
I was asked the other day, what I would do and I pretty much plan for worst already (I'm old school!). Here's what I have:
- Email - people can email me
- Support Desk - A portal where clients can log calls
- Phone - my least favourite option, but people can call me
- Discord Server for my clients
That's how people can communicate with me and I how I can communicate with them. Finally, I still have an email newsletter where I send out updates and information as well. Like I said, I'm old school.
I'd love to hear what you, as business owners, have in place in case the 'worst' happens. Leave a comment below!
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