Facebook Goes Down. Businesses Panic.

A Forbes Magazine blog reported that when Facebook went down this week, any number of businesses became invisible. No Web presence. No opportunity to showcase their wares and converse with their customers. Panic ensued.

While social media is an important part of an overall communications strategy, no company should rely solely on it to communicate. And to rely solely on Facebook is so short-sighted as to be crazy.

It's understandable for small companies looking to spend zero on marketing. There's always a tendency to gravitate toward free media like Facebook. Let's face it, the only investment with Facebook is time. No big ad bills. No creative to pay for. But a social-media-only approach is not a clever communication strategy. It's more of a desperation strategy.

Social media has undoubtably helped many small businesses to grow and become better known. It's helped several larger businesses bond better with their supportive customers and soothe the savage beast in the unruly ones. It's even boosted sales so that some companies have parleyed social media into big rewards.

But this week's Facebook outage should be eye opening. A wake up call. Not because it was Facebook, but because a strategy that relies on one communication channel rarely works in the long run. As the old saying goes, don't ever put all your eggs in one basket.