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 is not a bad one, in case a website monitoring service is the only tool in your arsenal contrary to the havoc that website downtime can create for your online business, you are not taking a comprehensive method of protecting your business from downtime’s effects, nor are you currently protecting your site’s reputation to the best of one’s abilities. While an internet site monitoring service happens to be a “must-have” tool when it comes to fighting website downtime’s consequences, it is not the only tool you must employ. Assuming you have yet to explore how social media marketing can 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 want to do while visiting your site, such as make a purchase or browse your site’s offerings, they are going to wish to know why the website isn’t available when they want usage of it. Obviously, if your site is experiencing any kind of downtime, you can’t use the pages of one’s site to go into detail about what went awry or give these potential customers estimates as to when they can expect the website to be functional again. That’s where social media is necessary.

While your site may be down, social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are likely up and running. For those who have invested effort and time into creating a social media marketing presence and a following on these sites, you need to use these platforms to communicate with your visitors when downtime issues do arise. Let’s look at two example scenarios to see the difference that using social media in conjunction with your site monitoring service could make.

Scenario One

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

Scenario Two

Site 2 has put social media marketing profiles set up and the company has worked on gaining a large social media following in addition to using a website monitoring service. The company has prepared for the worst plus they understand that when website downtime occurs, they have to use the social media marketing tools at their disposal to communicate with customers regarding said downtime. When hostgator.com status is notified of downtime by their website monitoring service, they go to work to determine what has caused the downtime so they can communicate the problem with the public, utilizing their social media accounts. Once the company has estimated just how long it will take to obtain the site back ready to go, they communicate this with their customers as well. They could even use the social media platforms to market an “apology” offer that allows affected customers to get a collection dollar amount off or perhaps a percentage off a future purchase to compensate for the inconvenience. Not only does this foster goodwill among customers, it can help ensure that customers will wait until the downtime issue has passed in order to make use of the apology offer instead of likely to a competitor to satisfy their needs.

Which hostgator.com status Will You Follow?

You’ve got a website monitoring service set up. You’re made aware as soon as 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? Should you have invested effort and time into setting up social media accounts and developing a customer following, you should use those social media marketing tools in your favor, providing transparency to your visitors and fostering goodwill and respect amongst them.

Should you have yet to put social media to work for your website, now is the time to create a social media presence in order to 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, it is possible to go to work to use those social media tools accordingly.