If someone were to ask you what tools you utilize to fight website downtime, your immediate answer would likely be, “A website monitoring service”. While that answer in and of itself isn’t a bad one, if a website monitoring service may be the only tool in your arsenal contrary to the havoc that website downtime can create for your web business, you are not taking a comprehensive method of protecting your organization from downtime’s effects, nor are you protecting your site’s reputation to the best of one’s abilities. While a website monitoring service happens to be a “must-have” tool in terms of fighting website downtime’s consequences, it is not the only tool you have to employ. If you have yet to explore how social media may be used to your advantage in the fight against the damage due to dreaded website downtime, here are a few things to consider.

Communication Is Key

If your customers can’t do something they wish to accomplish while visiting your site, such as create a purchase or browse your site’s offerings, they are going to want to know why the site isn’t available if they want access to it. Obviously, if your site is experiencing any kind of downtime, you can’t use the pages of one’s site to get into detail about what went awry or give your visitors estimates as to when they can expect the site to be functional again. That’s where social media comes into play.

While ewtn.com status may be down, social media marketing networks such as Facebook and Twitter tend up and running. Assuming you have invested effort and time into creating a social media marketing presence and a following on these sites, you should use these platforms to talk to your customers when downtime issues do arise. Let’s look at two example scenarios to see the difference that using social media marketing in conjunction with your website monitoring service could make.

Scenario One

Site 1 went down. They have no social media exposure, no accounts, and no followings. They have no way of communicating making use of their potential customers regarding the downtime they’re experiencing or updating customers concerning when the site can be expected to be back up and running. When customers visit the site they get one message saying the website is down because of technical issues, but no further information is given. Customers become frustrated with the continued downtime and as they do, they begin searching other websites to meet up their needs and buy things. Site 1 begins to reduce customers to the competition, whose websites are ready to go and who have better method of communication.

Scenario Two

Site 2 has put social media marketing profiles in place and the company has worked on gaining a large social media following as well as using a website monitoring service. The business has prepared for the worst and they know that when website downtime occurs, they need to use the social media marketing tools at their disposal to talk to customers regarding said downtime. When the business is notified of downtime by their website monitoring service, each goes to work to find out what has caused the downtime to allow them to communicate the issue with the public, using their social media accounts. Once the company has estimated just how long it will take to obtain the site back up and running, they communicate this with their customers as well. They may even use the social media platforms to market an “apology” offer that allows affected customers to get a collection dollar amount off or a percentage off a future purchase to pay for the inconvenience. Not only does this foster goodwill among customers, it can help make sure that customers will wait before downtime issue has passed in order to make use of the apology offer instead of likely to a competitor to fulfill their needs.

Which Company’s Lead Will You Follow?

You’ve got a website monitoring service set up. You are made aware the moment downtime occurs. The question is, what will you do when you are notified by your site monitoring service that there surely is a downtime issue occurring? In case you have invested effort and time into setting up social media accounts and creating a customer following, you need to use those social media marketing tools to your advantage, providing transparency to your customers and fostering goodwill and respect amongst them.

If you have yet to put social media marketing to work for your online business, now is the time to create a social media presence to help you have your customer following created and built before an issue with downtime occurs. Then, whenever your website monitoring service alerts you that downtime is becoming an issue, you can go to work to utilize those social media marketing tools accordingly.