APPLETON (NBC 26) — Facebook and Instagram, owned by parent company Meta, faced outages early Tuesday morning.
- Social media users woke up to error messages on their Facebook and Instagram timelines
- Experts advise users — especially businesses — to have a plan should another outage occur
(The following is a transcription of the full broadcast story, with additional details for the web)
On Tuesday morning, Facebook and Instagram users began to notice issues, including refreshing, sending messages and even logging on.
Reid Trier from marketing firm Weidert Group says this can cause a stir for businesses.
“If someone is running Facebook advertising, for example, or advertising on Instagram, they’re really relying on that spend to help them reach their audiences. If that’s out for even a matter of hours, that can have a big impact on a business," said Trier.
While people like you and me may cruise social media in our free time, there are businesses who use it to function. So, when Facebook and Instagram went down, Trier says many businesses likely had to sweat out a few hours without some marketing.
In Appleton, Legendairy Ice Cream owner Jeremy Mattson says the short outage was not a big blow to his shop. But he says he understands the importance of social media for business as a whole.
“Just being able to get the word out helps people see the products. Once people see it, they want to come in and try it out," said Mattson.
Weidert Group consultant Chelsea Drusch says being prepared is crucial for those who really lean on social.
“It’s not going to have long term business effects, but the best way to plan for it in the future is to have that backup plan for mitigation communication-wise," said Drusch.
Facebook and Instagram were back up and running after a few hours. Meta owns the apps and says it was caused by “a technical issue.”
