There have been user reports of Facebook outages in the United States, Brazil, Tunisia and other locations. People first had trouble logging in from around 4:30pm PST, and it wasn’t until 8:00pm PST that Facebook finally seemed to be stable again in the problem areas.
As usual when one particular social network experiences problems, the users turn to another to vent their frustrations. Unsurprisingly, Twitter was the forum for people to make their voices heard. Some tweets took a shot at Facebook itself, with many posts along the lines of “Facebook is down. Just like its stock price”, while one user made the tongue in check observations that as “Facebook goes down, U.S. workforce productivity suddenly spikes for the first time since 2004“.
While for some people it may be a source of humour or a minor inconvenience, for those whose businesses heavily rely on Facebook this could pose a serious problem. Not being able to access a brand page or being unable to find crucial contact information can be hugely problematic – especially if a situation is time-sensitive, as they so often are in business.
One step you can take to limit the impact any social network access issues have is to backup your content. There are various services out there that cater to different needs. SocialSafe is one such service that allows you to backup Facebook profiles and pages as well as Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram and Viadeo accounts. All of your data is available offline in a searchable journal, so if the network you rely on has its own problems, at least you’ll still have your own content at hand.