If all your Facebook friends disappeared tomorrow, would your business suffer?‘Crisis’ plans are meant to prevent business interruption in case of an emergency. Often, people think of natural disasters when they think of a crisis, neglecting to plan for the more common power outage… computer meltdown… or even Facebook shutting down your account. Why would you possibly lose your Facebook account? Perhaps you posted an inappropriate picture… Perhaps you maxed out on your friends… Or perhaps a hacker group like “Anonymous” has shut down Facebook for the day… If you are a small business leveraging the social media giant for your marketing efforts, you need to have a backup plan. Even if your fan page is restored completely, the cost of lost sales and reputation from your customers not reaching you could be damaging. How can you be prepared? 1) Collect as much data about your fans and customers as possible. Use your Facebook page to route people back to your website so they also submit an email or cell phone number for you to follow up on multiple channels. 2) Stay active and engaged, so that you don't fall off the radar. If you regularly provide valuable information to your customers, they will 'miss' you when they don't see you and start looking for you. Should your network crash, have an emergency news page with all your pertinent contact information. 3) Backup important thinks like photos and story links. Hopefully, you are promoting them through other channels so it won’t be too difficult to manually keep them. 4) Don't put all your eggs in one basket. However successful your Facebook page may have become, always have other sources or channels of marketing. A twitter account, put out an e-newsletter, update your website. If Facebook really does disappear from your life, then your business will not miss a beat if you have crisis plans put into place. Immediate reaction to crisis will assure your clients and help you keep them.
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