For a few hours on Monday, billions of people across the globe experienced something extraordinary: They got a taste of a world without social media.
Well, not all of social media. Twitter was still there, and so was Snapchat, TikTok, Reddit, and lots of other platforms.
But Facebook was gone, and so was Instagram, What’s App, Messenger, and Oculus. It was a glimpse, for about five hours, of what it would be like to live without constant, instantaneous networked communication through the machines most of us carry around in our pockets and purses.
Funny thing was, Facebook had to use Twitter to communicate with its own customers/users about their outage!
Will Facebook go the way of the Dodo bird?
My prediction is, yes…. Eventually.
Think it can’t happen? Well, how about these guys…
- Block Buster: Gone
- JC Penny: Dead
- Kodak: Buried
- Sears: Gobbled up
- Pan-Am, TWA & Eastern Airlines: Who?
- MySpace: FB killed them off
- Yahoo: On life-support. FB almost bought them in 2016
- Compaq, Commodore, IBM and a slew of computer makers: Poof!
- Montgomery Ward:
- Woolworth’s started in 1850 and lasted until 1996. It is now called Foot Locker
As recently as the 80’s and 90’s, people thought these companies as part of the fabric of America. They would / could not fail.
All ten of them proved us wrong.
Which brings me to my point, nothing is forever.
Millions of employees and vendors left destitute when these companies crapped out.
What if you relied solely on one of these companies as your one and only customer?
When they went belly-up, so did you.
As Dan Kennedy likes to say “One is the worst number in business”
One customer, one employee, one vendor. You are in a vulnerable and precarious state if you rely on just one of anything.
Think about all the companies that rely on FB to run their ads and generate traffic & leads. For 5 hours on Monday, their businesses came to a grinding halt.
No ads led to…
No orders, which led to…
No cash.
In the blink of an eye, their businesses were kaput. Dead in the water. Millions or billions lost. Gone. Never to be recovered.
But then someone at FB found the ‘on-switch’ and turned it all back on again.
YOU SHOULD NEVER BE IN THIS POSITION!
EVER
You need multiple vendors, lead sources, media, employees.
Do you want your business to be held hostage by someone other than you?
