Facebook is the top used social media platform among global users, including the US (66%), and Europe (64%).
Reportedly, configuration changes being made to Facebook's backbone routers triggered the recent global outage of Facebook and its ecosystem of apps, including Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus VR. However, this ecosystem, powered by a single backend infrastructure, improves operational efficiency, and protects Facebook from a possible regulatory breakup.
But the backend infrastructure puts Facebook at the “risk of concentration”, impacting flexibility and resulting in a loss of social media ad revenue. The outage lasted for six hours. To avoid over-reliance on one ecosystem, brands need a diversification strategy to spread advertising budgets across channels, including social media.
Analysing "what if" scenarios can help businesses prepare for the next outage. Advertisers should put pressure on Facebook to change its measurement and tracking optimisation benchmarks during the next outage, so their ads don't underperform.
[3 minute read]
