It was a simple server configuration which led to the shutdown, prompting scenes of panic amongst the social media marketplace. Businesses, social media influencers and the general public joined together in venting their frustration at not being able to log into any of three social media networks with the Facebook family of apps.<\/p>\n
It Wasn\u2019t Just A Facebook Outage<\/strong><\/h2>\nAs well as Facebook itself (including its ever-popular Messenger app), Instagram services were also down due to Facebook having acquired the platform in 2012. Additionally, WhatsApp, which was also purchased by Facebook in 2014, was part of the collateral damage, with its services being rendered \u201cunavailable\u201d during the outage. It took almost a full day for the social media juggernaut to reinstate business as usual, however many would say the damage had already been done.<\/p>\n
![\"Mobile](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Instagram-marketing-1024x683.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt\u2019s Not The First Time Either <\/strong><\/h2>\nLast year in September 2018, Facebook suffered a significant hack which resulted in 50 million accounts being exposed. In a coordinated attack, the hacker (who still remains unknown) used a combination of three separate bugs to attack Facebook\u2019s framework, resulting in a breach of personal data which made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Quick to deny a re-occurrence of this activity, Facebook were swift in posting an official company update whilst the issues were being resolved. Ironically, this statement was released on the company\u2019s Twitter account:<\/p>\n
![\"Press](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Facebook-down_1.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nEntering \u2018Damage Control Mode\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\nAfter almost 24 hours of no service, Facebook finally reinstated its operations, switching promptly to damage control. A Facebook spokesperson released a statement explaining, “Yesterday, we made a server configuration change that triggered a cascading series of issues. As a result, many people had difficulty accessing our apps and services.”<\/em><\/p>\nFacebook again took to its Twitter account to post an official statement letting its users know things were back to normal. Minimal fanfare. Business as usual.<\/p>\n
![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Facebook-down_2.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nInstagram took a more jovial approach to being back online, posting a GIF of Oprah Winfrey celebrating the news. A more creative approach and worthy of recognition given the circumstance.<\/p>\n
![\"Instagram](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Oprah.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Impact Of The Facebook Outage <\/strong><\/h2>\nIt goes without saying that on the day of the outage, millions of businesses suffered extensively. Any business, influencer, entrepreneur (or individual for that matter) who had planned to spend money on any of the social media platforms would\u2019ve been faced with a day of lost revenue, missed business opportunities, miscommunication and a whole lot of frustration. After all, not many of us ever expect Facebook\u2019s central operations to go down. With the outage occurring on Wednesday, by the time Thursday rolled around, Wall Street reacted and Facebook\u2019s shares were down almost 3%.<\/p>\n
Whilst countless companies had invested dollar spend into the Facebook family of apps, Facebook itself released a statement saying it was still investigating the overall impact, \u201cincluding the possibility of refunds for advertisers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nGiven the company is estimated to pull in daily projected revenue of US$189 million, we\u2019re pretty sure they can afford it. Will advertisers see any future refunds though? Watch this space\u2026<\/p>\n
When you look at the user base of Facebook, the social media giant estimates that 2.7 billion people worldwide use its apps, with 1.52 billion users utilising its services on a daily basis. A staggering level of global influence. So when something breaks, it truly is an issue affecting companies and individuals worldwide. To put this into perspective, popular website Down Detector<\/a> graphed the outage below with some surprising results. It looks like Greenland, Russia, Canada and Alaska were the places to be that day!<\/p>\n![\"Down](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Global-Outage-1024x478.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSo Who Were The \u2018Winners\u2019 On The Day?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn amongst the inferno of the Facebook outage, some savvy marketers seized the opportunity to snap up timely responses to the dramas unfolding online. In today\u2019s modern business world, reactive social media is beginning to offer opportunists the chance to capitalise on events, providing relevant (and at times jovial) content which connects emotionally with frustrated users.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a look at some of our favourites.<\/h3>\nWinner: Twitter Becomes Flavour Of The Month<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt seemed highly ironic that Facebook took to its Twitter profile to release its official company statements during the outage. As a popular news source with an active user base sending 500 million tweets daily, its global base of 261 million users grew in popularity, making it indeed a win for Twitter. Needless to say, a series of hashtags #facebookdown #instagramdown #whatsappdown and memes quickly began trending to capitalise on the scenario.<\/p>\n
![\"Instagram](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Twitter.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIn the final quarter of 2018, Twitter released figures showcasing a user base of 126 million daily users, far inferior to Facebook\u2019s 1,520 million, and 60 million fewer than SnapChat. Whilst the platform doesn\u2019t have the same level of global reach as Facebook\u2019s suite of apps, as a news source, it still stacks up as a crowd favourite for conversation and news-related activity.<\/p>\n
In the Q4 and Fiscal Year 2018 Report<\/a> released in February of this year, Twitter revealed \u2018conversation\u2019<\/strong> as one of its four main investment priorities of 2019, stating; \u201cConversation is Twitter\u2019s superpower. Promoting more conversation on Twitter ensures we are the place where people all around the world go to see and talk about what\u2019s happening.\u201d <\/em>In light of recent events, it\u2019s clear to see that the platform is already aligning with its goals so far this year.<\/p>\nWinner: Telegram Steps Up To The Plate<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt didn\u2019t take long for Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram) to snap up the opportunity of releasing a targeted statement on his personal Telegram Channel<\/a> the day after Facebook\u2019s outage. Telegram is a free encrypted messaging service and is seen as a competitor to WhatsApp. It enjoys a healthy user base of 200 million active users (as of March 2018) and prides itself on a secure network which protects its users \u2013 who in fact fund the site through donations. A drastically different model compared to Facebook. It seems that it is this very difference which Pavel wanted to highlight in his update to his followers, focusing specifically on \u201ctrue privacy\u201d and a sudden influx of 3 million followers in the last 24 hours. Coincide or perhaps a subtle Facebook burn? You decide.<\/p>\n![\"Telegram](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Telegram.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Soulja Boy\u2019s Swift Product Plug <\/strong><\/h2>\nStepping out of the corporate world and into the musical marketplace, American rapper Soulja Boy<\/a> took to his personal account (again Twitter is victorious) to leverage the occasion to market his personal app. He claimed an outage like that of Facebook\u2019s woes would \u201cnever happen to us\u201d<\/em> with an emoji and a \u2018shake my head\u2019 acronym to again take a swipe at Facebook\u2019s situation. Whilst the likelihood of a hack, outage or technical issue is still a risk to any app on the market, this opportunistic post seized the moment with a timely post to highlight a problem, whilst providing a solution. Basic 101 marketing executed to perfection.<\/p>\n![\"Soulja](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Soulja-Boy.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: News Stations Prosper From The Facebook Outage<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt\u2019s official – when Facebook goes down, people turn to the news. Popular content analytics platform, Chartbeat<\/a> reported a 3-5% increase in traffic news sites during the March 13th<\/sup> Facebook outage. Whilst these numbers are notable, these numbers were even higher during Facebook\u2019s 2018 outage, where an analysis of 4,000 online news sources revealed an increase of 11% in direct traffic, supported by a 22% surge in mobile traffic apps during the 45-minute outage.<\/p>\nWhilst some of us turn to Twitter to see what\u2019s going on, popular news sites are still a preferred option for finding out the latest in global events. This activity was also reflected again last year when news sites lapped up a 20% increase in traffic during a YouTube outage in October 2018, with users flocking to news sources to figure out what the problem was.<\/p>\n
Facebook has made a concerted effort to downgrade the importance of news content on its platform, with traffic from news publishing websites falling by 40% since the beginning of 2017. The outage was a definite win for news sites across the world, who will perhaps be hoping for a repeat of the occurrence in the near future.<\/p>\n
![\"Chartbeat](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/News-sites_chartbeat-ref.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Global \u2018Outage\u2019 Websites<\/strong><\/h2>\nAs we\u2019ve seen, even a platform as established as Facebook, is at risk of outages. In fact, any website or app in the online digital space is at risk of hacking, malware or system errors which can take their activity offline. So much so, there are now websites dedicated to reporting outages to alleviate widespread panic and concern. Sites such as IsItDownRightNow.com<\/a> have spawned a new method of ascertaining if it\u2019s just your app or phone having issues, or if there actually is an outage.<\/p>\nThese sites extend far beyond social media outages, and handle updates surrounding popular services such as Google, Amazon, Paypal and AOL, as well as email platforms such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and Outlook. Entertainment services are also included, with users being able to check on system performance for paid subscriptions such as Netflix and Xbox.<\/p>\n
\u00a0![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Facebook-check.png\")
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nToo Many Other Winners To Mention<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"Mobile](\"https:\/\/www.techwebspace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/Instagram-marketing.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt\u2019s Not The First Time Either <\/strong><\/h2>\nLast year in September 2018, Facebook suffered a significant hack which resulted in 50 million accounts being exposed. In a coordinated attack, the hacker (who still remains unknown) used a combination of three separate bugs to attack Facebook\u2019s framework, resulting in a breach of personal data which made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Quick to deny a re-occurrence of this activity, Facebook were swift in posting an official company update whilst the issues were being resolved. Ironically, this statement was released on the company\u2019s Twitter account:<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEntering \u2018Damage Control Mode\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\nAfter almost 24 hours of no service, Facebook finally reinstated its operations, switching promptly to damage control. A Facebook spokesperson released a statement explaining, “Yesterday, we made a server configuration change that triggered a cascading series of issues. As a result, many people had difficulty accessing our apps and services.”<\/em><\/p>\nFacebook again took to its Twitter account to post an official statement letting its users know things were back to normal. Minimal fanfare. Business as usual.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nInstagram took a more jovial approach to being back online, posting a GIF of Oprah Winfrey celebrating the news. A more creative approach and worthy of recognition given the circumstance.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Impact Of The Facebook Outage <\/strong><\/h2>\nIt goes without saying that on the day of the outage, millions of businesses suffered extensively. Any business, influencer, entrepreneur (or individual for that matter) who had planned to spend money on any of the social media platforms would\u2019ve been faced with a day of lost revenue, missed business opportunities, miscommunication and a whole lot of frustration. After all, not many of us ever expect Facebook\u2019s central operations to go down. With the outage occurring on Wednesday, by the time Thursday rolled around, Wall Street reacted and Facebook\u2019s shares were down almost 3%.<\/p>\n
Whilst countless companies had invested dollar spend into the Facebook family of apps, Facebook itself released a statement saying it was still investigating the overall impact, \u201cincluding the possibility of refunds for advertisers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nGiven the company is estimated to pull in daily projected revenue of US$189 million, we\u2019re pretty sure they can afford it. Will advertisers see any future refunds though? Watch this space\u2026<\/p>\n
When you look at the user base of Facebook, the social media giant estimates that 2.7 billion people worldwide use its apps, with 1.52 billion users utilising its services on a daily basis. A staggering level of global influence. So when something breaks, it truly is an issue affecting companies and individuals worldwide. To put this into perspective, popular website Down Detector<\/a> graphed the outage below with some surprising results. It looks like Greenland, Russia, Canada and Alaska were the places to be that day!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nSo Who Were The \u2018Winners\u2019 On The Day?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn amongst the inferno of the Facebook outage, some savvy marketers seized the opportunity to snap up timely responses to the dramas unfolding online. In today\u2019s modern business world, reactive social media is beginning to offer opportunists the chance to capitalise on events, providing relevant (and at times jovial) content which connects emotionally with frustrated users.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a look at some of our favourites.<\/h3>\nWinner: Twitter Becomes Flavour Of The Month<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt seemed highly ironic that Facebook took to its Twitter profile to release its official company statements during the outage. As a popular news source with an active user base sending 500 million tweets daily, its global base of 261 million users grew in popularity, making it indeed a win for Twitter. Needless to say, a series of hashtags #facebookdown #instagramdown #whatsappdown and memes quickly began trending to capitalise on the scenario.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nIn the final quarter of 2018, Twitter released figures showcasing a user base of 126 million daily users, far inferior to Facebook\u2019s 1,520 million, and 60 million fewer than SnapChat. Whilst the platform doesn\u2019t have the same level of global reach as Facebook\u2019s suite of apps, as a news source, it still stacks up as a crowd favourite for conversation and news-related activity.<\/p>\n
In the Q4 and Fiscal Year 2018 Report<\/a> released in February of this year, Twitter revealed \u2018conversation\u2019<\/strong> as one of its four main investment priorities of 2019, stating; \u201cConversation is Twitter\u2019s superpower. Promoting more conversation on Twitter ensures we are the place where people all around the world go to see and talk about what\u2019s happening.\u201d <\/em>In light of recent events, it\u2019s clear to see that the platform is already aligning with its goals so far this year.<\/p>\nWinner: Telegram Steps Up To The Plate<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt didn\u2019t take long for Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram) to snap up the opportunity of releasing a targeted statement on his personal Telegram Channel<\/a> the day after Facebook\u2019s outage. Telegram is a free encrypted messaging service and is seen as a competitor to WhatsApp. It enjoys a healthy user base of 200 million active users (as of March 2018) and prides itself on a secure network which protects its users \u2013 who in fact fund the site through donations. A drastically different model compared to Facebook. It seems that it is this very difference which Pavel wanted to highlight in his update to his followers, focusing specifically on \u201ctrue privacy\u201d and a sudden influx of 3 million followers in the last 24 hours. Coincide or perhaps a subtle Facebook burn? You decide.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Soulja Boy\u2019s Swift Product Plug <\/strong><\/h2>\nStepping out of the corporate world and into the musical marketplace, American rapper Soulja Boy<\/a> took to his personal account (again Twitter is victorious) to leverage the occasion to market his personal app. He claimed an outage like that of Facebook\u2019s woes would \u201cnever happen to us\u201d<\/em> with an emoji and a \u2018shake my head\u2019 acronym to again take a swipe at Facebook\u2019s situation. Whilst the likelihood of a hack, outage or technical issue is still a risk to any app on the market, this opportunistic post seized the moment with a timely post to highlight a problem, whilst providing a solution. Basic 101 marketing executed to perfection.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: News Stations Prosper From The Facebook Outage<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt\u2019s official – when Facebook goes down, people turn to the news. Popular content analytics platform, Chartbeat<\/a> reported a 3-5% increase in traffic news sites during the March 13th<\/sup> Facebook outage. Whilst these numbers are notable, these numbers were even higher during Facebook\u2019s 2018 outage, where an analysis of 4,000 online news sources revealed an increase of 11% in direct traffic, supported by a 22% surge in mobile traffic apps during the 45-minute outage.<\/p>\nWhilst some of us turn to Twitter to see what\u2019s going on, popular news sites are still a preferred option for finding out the latest in global events. This activity was also reflected again last year when news sites lapped up a 20% increase in traffic during a YouTube outage in October 2018, with users flocking to news sources to figure out what the problem was.<\/p>\n
Facebook has made a concerted effort to downgrade the importance of news content on its platform, with traffic from news publishing websites falling by 40% since the beginning of 2017. The outage was a definite win for news sites across the world, who will perhaps be hoping for a repeat of the occurrence in the near future.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Global \u2018Outage\u2019 Websites<\/strong><\/h2>\nAs we\u2019ve seen, even a platform as established as Facebook, is at risk of outages. In fact, any website or app in the online digital space is at risk of hacking, malware or system errors which can take their activity offline. So much so, there are now websites dedicated to reporting outages to alleviate widespread panic and concern. Sites such as IsItDownRightNow.com<\/a> have spawned a new method of ascertaining if it\u2019s just your app or phone having issues, or if there actually is an outage.<\/p>\nThese sites extend far beyond social media outages, and handle updates surrounding popular services such as Google, Amazon, Paypal and AOL, as well as email platforms such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and Outlook. Entertainment services are also included, with users being able to check on system performance for paid subscriptions such as Netflix and Xbox.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nToo Many Other Winners To Mention<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nEntering \u2018Damage Control Mode\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\nAfter almost 24 hours of no service, Facebook finally reinstated its operations, switching promptly to damage control. A Facebook spokesperson released a statement explaining, “Yesterday, we made a server configuration change that triggered a cascading series of issues. As a result, many people had difficulty accessing our apps and services.”<\/em><\/p>\nFacebook again took to its Twitter account to post an official statement letting its users know things were back to normal. Minimal fanfare. Business as usual.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nInstagram took a more jovial approach to being back online, posting a GIF of Oprah Winfrey celebrating the news. A more creative approach and worthy of recognition given the circumstance.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nThe Impact Of The Facebook Outage <\/strong><\/h2>\nIt goes without saying that on the day of the outage, millions of businesses suffered extensively. Any business, influencer, entrepreneur (or individual for that matter) who had planned to spend money on any of the social media platforms would\u2019ve been faced with a day of lost revenue, missed business opportunities, miscommunication and a whole lot of frustration. After all, not many of us ever expect Facebook\u2019s central operations to go down. With the outage occurring on Wednesday, by the time Thursday rolled around, Wall Street reacted and Facebook\u2019s shares were down almost 3%.<\/p>\n
Whilst countless companies had invested dollar spend into the Facebook family of apps, Facebook itself released a statement saying it was still investigating the overall impact, \u201cincluding the possibility of refunds for advertisers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nGiven the company is estimated to pull in daily projected revenue of US$189 million, we\u2019re pretty sure they can afford it. Will advertisers see any future refunds though? Watch this space\u2026<\/p>\n
When you look at the user base of Facebook, the social media giant estimates that 2.7 billion people worldwide use its apps, with 1.52 billion users utilising its services on a daily basis. A staggering level of global influence. So when something breaks, it truly is an issue affecting companies and individuals worldwide. To put this into perspective, popular website Down Detector<\/a> graphed the outage below with some surprising results. It looks like Greenland, Russia, Canada and Alaska were the places to be that day!<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nSo Who Were The \u2018Winners\u2019 On The Day?<\/strong><\/h2>\nIn amongst the inferno of the Facebook outage, some savvy marketers seized the opportunity to snap up timely responses to the dramas unfolding online. In today\u2019s modern business world, reactive social media is beginning to offer opportunists the chance to capitalise on events, providing relevant (and at times jovial) content which connects emotionally with frustrated users.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take a look at some of our favourites.<\/h3>\nWinner: Twitter Becomes Flavour Of The Month<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt seemed highly ironic that Facebook took to its Twitter profile to release its official company statements during the outage. As a popular news source with an active user base sending 500 million tweets daily, its global base of 261 million users grew in popularity, making it indeed a win for Twitter. Needless to say, a series of hashtags #facebookdown #instagramdown #whatsappdown and memes quickly began trending to capitalise on the scenario.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nIn the final quarter of 2018, Twitter released figures showcasing a user base of 126 million daily users, far inferior to Facebook\u2019s 1,520 million, and 60 million fewer than SnapChat. Whilst the platform doesn\u2019t have the same level of global reach as Facebook\u2019s suite of apps, as a news source, it still stacks up as a crowd favourite for conversation and news-related activity.<\/p>\n
In the Q4 and Fiscal Year 2018 Report<\/a> released in February of this year, Twitter revealed \u2018conversation\u2019<\/strong> as one of its four main investment priorities of 2019, stating; \u201cConversation is Twitter\u2019s superpower. Promoting more conversation on Twitter ensures we are the place where people all around the world go to see and talk about what\u2019s happening.\u201d <\/em>In light of recent events, it\u2019s clear to see that the platform is already aligning with its goals so far this year.<\/p>\nWinner: Telegram Steps Up To The Plate<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt didn\u2019t take long for Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram) to snap up the opportunity of releasing a targeted statement on his personal Telegram Channel<\/a> the day after Facebook\u2019s outage. Telegram is a free encrypted messaging service and is seen as a competitor to WhatsApp. It enjoys a healthy user base of 200 million active users (as of March 2018) and prides itself on a secure network which protects its users \u2013 who in fact fund the site through donations. A drastically different model compared to Facebook. It seems that it is this very difference which Pavel wanted to highlight in his update to his followers, focusing specifically on \u201ctrue privacy\u201d and a sudden influx of 3 million followers in the last 24 hours. Coincide or perhaps a subtle Facebook burn? You decide.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Soulja Boy\u2019s Swift Product Plug <\/strong><\/h2>\nStepping out of the corporate world and into the musical marketplace, American rapper Soulja Boy<\/a> took to his personal account (again Twitter is victorious) to leverage the occasion to market his personal app. He claimed an outage like that of Facebook\u2019s woes would \u201cnever happen to us\u201d<\/em> with an emoji and a \u2018shake my head\u2019 acronym to again take a swipe at Facebook\u2019s situation. Whilst the likelihood of a hack, outage or technical issue is still a risk to any app on the market, this opportunistic post seized the moment with a timely post to highlight a problem, whilst providing a solution. Basic 101 marketing executed to perfection.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: News Stations Prosper From The Facebook Outage<\/strong><\/h2>\nIt\u2019s official – when Facebook goes down, people turn to the news. Popular content analytics platform, Chartbeat<\/a> reported a 3-5% increase in traffic news sites during the March 13th<\/sup> Facebook outage. Whilst these numbers are notable, these numbers were even higher during Facebook\u2019s 2018 outage, where an analysis of 4,000 online news sources revealed an increase of 11% in direct traffic, supported by a 22% surge in mobile traffic apps during the 45-minute outage.<\/p>\nWhilst some of us turn to Twitter to see what\u2019s going on, popular news sites are still a preferred option for finding out the latest in global events. This activity was also reflected again last year when news sites lapped up a 20% increase in traffic during a YouTube outage in October 2018, with users flocking to news sources to figure out what the problem was.<\/p>\n
Facebook has made a concerted effort to downgrade the importance of news content on its platform, with traffic from news publishing websites falling by 40% since the beginning of 2017. The outage was a definite win for news sites across the world, who will perhaps be hoping for a repeat of the occurrence in the near future.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Global \u2018Outage\u2019 Websites<\/strong><\/h2>\nAs we\u2019ve seen, even a platform as established as Facebook, is at risk of outages. In fact, any website or app in the online digital space is at risk of hacking, malware or system errors which can take their activity offline. So much so, there are now websites dedicated to reporting outages to alleviate widespread panic and concern. Sites such as IsItDownRightNow.com<\/a> have spawned a new method of ascertaining if it\u2019s just your app or phone having issues, or if there actually is an outage.<\/p>\nThese sites extend far beyond social media outages, and handle updates surrounding popular services such as Google, Amazon, Paypal and AOL, as well as email platforms such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and Outlook. Entertainment services are also included, with users being able to check on system performance for paid subscriptions such as Netflix and Xbox.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nToo Many Other Winners To Mention<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Facebook again took to its Twitter account to post an official statement letting its users know things were back to normal. Minimal fanfare. Business as usual.<\/p>\n
Instagram took a more jovial approach to being back online, posting a GIF of Oprah Winfrey celebrating the news. A more creative approach and worthy of recognition given the circumstance.<\/p>\n It goes without saying that on the day of the outage, millions of businesses suffered extensively. Any business, influencer, entrepreneur (or individual for that matter) who had planned to spend money on any of the social media platforms would\u2019ve been faced with a day of lost revenue, missed business opportunities, miscommunication and a whole lot of frustration. After all, not many of us ever expect Facebook\u2019s central operations to go down. With the outage occurring on Wednesday, by the time Thursday rolled around, Wall Street reacted and Facebook\u2019s shares were down almost 3%.<\/p>\n Whilst countless companies had invested dollar spend into the Facebook family of apps, Facebook itself released a statement saying it was still investigating the overall impact, \u201cincluding the possibility of refunds for advertisers.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Given the company is estimated to pull in daily projected revenue of US$189 million, we\u2019re pretty sure they can afford it. Will advertisers see any future refunds though? Watch this space\u2026<\/p>\n When you look at the user base of Facebook, the social media giant estimates that 2.7 billion people worldwide use its apps, with 1.52 billion users utilising its services on a daily basis. A staggering level of global influence. So when something breaks, it truly is an issue affecting companies and individuals worldwide. To put this into perspective, popular website Down Detector<\/a> graphed the outage below with some surprising results. It looks like Greenland, Russia, Canada and Alaska were the places to be that day!<\/p>\n In amongst the inferno of the Facebook outage, some savvy marketers seized the opportunity to snap up timely responses to the dramas unfolding online. In today\u2019s modern business world, reactive social media is beginning to offer opportunists the chance to capitalise on events, providing relevant (and at times jovial) content which connects emotionally with frustrated users.<\/p>\n It seemed highly ironic that Facebook took to its Twitter profile to release its official company statements during the outage. As a popular news source with an active user base sending 500 million tweets daily, its global base of 261 million users grew in popularity, making it indeed a win for Twitter. Needless to say, a series of hashtags #facebookdown #instagramdown #whatsappdown and memes quickly began trending to capitalise on the scenario.<\/p>\n In the final quarter of 2018, Twitter released figures showcasing a user base of 126 million daily users, far inferior to Facebook\u2019s 1,520 million, and 60 million fewer than SnapChat. Whilst the platform doesn\u2019t have the same level of global reach as Facebook\u2019s suite of apps, as a news source, it still stacks up as a crowd favourite for conversation and news-related activity.<\/p>\n In the Q4 and Fiscal Year 2018 Report<\/a> released in February of this year, Twitter revealed \u2018conversation\u2019<\/strong> as one of its four main investment priorities of 2019, stating; \u201cConversation is Twitter\u2019s superpower. Promoting more conversation on Twitter ensures we are the place where people all around the world go to see and talk about what\u2019s happening.\u201d <\/em>In light of recent events, it\u2019s clear to see that the platform is already aligning with its goals so far this year.<\/p>\n It didn\u2019t take long for Pavel Durov (CEO of Telegram) to snap up the opportunity of releasing a targeted statement on his personal Telegram Channel<\/a> the day after Facebook\u2019s outage. Telegram is a free encrypted messaging service and is seen as a competitor to WhatsApp. It enjoys a healthy user base of 200 million active users (as of March 2018) and prides itself on a secure network which protects its users \u2013 who in fact fund the site through donations. A drastically different model compared to Facebook. It seems that it is this very difference which Pavel wanted to highlight in his update to his followers, focusing specifically on \u201ctrue privacy\u201d and a sudden influx of 3 million followers in the last 24 hours. Coincide or perhaps a subtle Facebook burn? You decide.<\/p>\n Stepping out of the corporate world and into the musical marketplace, American rapper Soulja Boy<\/a> took to his personal account (again Twitter is victorious) to leverage the occasion to market his personal app. He claimed an outage like that of Facebook\u2019s woes would \u201cnever happen to us\u201d<\/em> with an emoji and a \u2018shake my head\u2019 acronym to again take a swipe at Facebook\u2019s situation. Whilst the likelihood of a hack, outage or technical issue is still a risk to any app on the market, this opportunistic post seized the moment with a timely post to highlight a problem, whilst providing a solution. Basic 101 marketing executed to perfection.<\/p>\n It\u2019s official – when Facebook goes down, people turn to the news. Popular content analytics platform, Chartbeat<\/a> reported a 3-5% increase in traffic news sites during the March 13th<\/sup> Facebook outage. Whilst these numbers are notable, these numbers were even higher during Facebook\u2019s 2018 outage, where an analysis of 4,000 online news sources revealed an increase of 11% in direct traffic, supported by a 22% surge in mobile traffic apps during the 45-minute outage.<\/p>\n Whilst some of us turn to Twitter to see what\u2019s going on, popular news sites are still a preferred option for finding out the latest in global events. This activity was also reflected again last year when news sites lapped up a 20% increase in traffic during a YouTube outage in October 2018, with users flocking to news sources to figure out what the problem was.<\/p>\n Facebook has made a concerted effort to downgrade the importance of news content on its platform, with traffic from news publishing websites falling by 40% since the beginning of 2017. The outage was a definite win for news sites across the world, who will perhaps be hoping for a repeat of the occurrence in the near future.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve seen, even a platform as established as Facebook, is at risk of outages. In fact, any website or app in the online digital space is at risk of hacking, malware or system errors which can take their activity offline. So much so, there are now websites dedicated to reporting outages to alleviate widespread panic and concern. Sites such as IsItDownRightNow.com<\/a> have spawned a new method of ascertaining if it\u2019s just your app or phone having issues, or if there actually is an outage.<\/p>\n These sites extend far beyond social media outages, and handle updates surrounding popular services such as Google, Amazon, Paypal and AOL, as well as email platforms such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, Hotmail and Outlook. Entertainment services are also included, with users being able to check on system performance for paid subscriptions such as Netflix and Xbox.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nThe Impact Of The Facebook Outage <\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nSo Who Were The \u2018Winners\u2019 On The Day?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Let\u2019s take a look at some of our favourites.<\/h3>\n
Winner: Twitter Becomes Flavour Of The Month<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Telegram Steps Up To The Plate<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Soulja Boy\u2019s Swift Product Plug <\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: News Stations Prosper From The Facebook Outage<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nWinner: Global \u2018Outage\u2019 Websites<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nToo Many Other Winners To Mention<\/strong><\/h2>\n