Downtime On Facebook & Instagram Is A Major Threat To African Creatives, Models, & Bloggers; Read What To Do Inside!

Facebook, Instagram & Whatsapp Are Down

Facebook and instagram and whatsapp are currently experiencing technical difficulties. As of 4th October 3:30pm GMT, the social media giants all under facebook went down. And as of the time this article was published neither had it been resolved.

So under our books, all is well, and like many, we do believe that such a large platform that has managed to build many livelihoods, extend businesses online, hosting credit card details and much more will be reinstated very soon.

But one can only imagine for that second of thought when it comes to mind the possibility that the 3 platforms may just never return. So many careers will be absolutely banished from the face of the earth and here is why.

Who Is Getting The Shorter End Of The Downtime

In a world of fast trends, fast fashion, fast music, fast celebrities, fast memes, and more, many have built their businesses, their reputation off of social media. And to be more specific, we don’t mean many have enhanced their careers on social media, but we mean built their careers on these particular platforms.

For example, there are celebrities like Dwayne Johnson (actor), or here in Ghana, Jackie Appiah, Two Sweet Annan, Kobby Rana, and more, who have a wide collection of talent on film, social media or not their presence, the reason for appreciation and more still lingers.

On the other hand, you have celebrities like Bintu Hajia, a talentless big bum girl who rose to fame simply based on having a big bum, and generated funds due to her large following. Surely they can always find another platform to attract their thirsty followers if facebook and instagram never return, but would they survive in an alternative arena as they did on instagram?

On The Creative Industry

Focusing our attention on the creatives, models, and bloggers of the Ghanaian fashion industry! What becomes of our models who have done little to no work in getting published in editorials? What becomes of our photographers whose portfolio is visible only on their instagram page that is now gone. Is this a wake-up call for them to look into pinterest, or other platforms like behance.net. Even better yet create a website of their own.

The worst of the lot is the social media fashion bloggers whose only platform is on Instagram. Sure the platform will be back, but what is there to account for your years of talent based on reposting other people’s talents. Where do you go from here?

You Should Have Never Been Solely On Instagram Anyways

But then how good was instagram to the creative industry? When did one ever google and saw the results of instagram besides a creative profile. Ie. take Designer A. If one googles Designer A collections if their only platform is Instagram nothing will pop up on any search engine.

What is someone wishes to research your work, ie. check your history and all, and your only platform is instagram, it means they will have to stress their thumb to allocate your history.

The other disadvantage many don’t consider is, yes there are millions on social media, but who told you your clientele base is heavily embedded on Instagram. In fact, if you consider your last three physical clients, ask yourself how many of them spend a large amount of resources on social media.

What To Do Now!

There have been many facebook and instagram shutdowns in the past, but this might just be the wake-up call creatives, models, and bloggers, especially in Africa need to really establish themselves if they wish to grow their business.

First and foremost we would advise you to build your own following, and home, preferably a website unique to your business. However, if you are old school, you can gather emails and numbers.

Secondly, don’t let your livelihood depend only on one social media platform, even if it means exploring platforms where your friends are not heavily engaged in. For models that could be pinterest, for photographers Behance, for bloggers there is tumblr and wordpress, and for bloggers there is also twitter.

Starting new accounts is always tedious, but if that fear of no return for Facebook and instagram is ringing in your head, take this time out to do just that.

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