Thursday morning was a rude awakening for the world. As some of us slept, media professionals, businesses, and some early risers were ready to tackle the day; turning on their computer, the bright light of their monitor flashing to life, opening a browser, and then realizing that something just wasn't right. At first you think perhaps you typed the wrong URL. Then you think perhaps your internet connection is faulty, but a quick check shows signal is coming in just fine.

www.twitter.com...nothing...

Then the realization sinks in, Twitter is down, and not even so much as a "failwhale" to greet you with its so familiar presence.Many turned to Facebook to see the same symptoms were starting to appear, if you had LiveJournal account, that too was down. A worldwide hacker attack perhaps?

Has your company's message come to a standstill?

Nothing Out of the Ordinary

As a company that has marketed what their offer in terms of products or services, it's not unusual to hit snags every now and then. In the world of traditional media, radio stations can go dark when they lose signal, the same can happen to a TV station; unless there is a hurricane billboards don't necessarily go down, and unless the presses stop, newspapers still go to print.

New media should not be held to a higher standard. Social networks and online applications all rely on servers and "uptime" to maintain their connectivity to the world, but just like freak accidents can occur in the world of traditional media, the same can  happen in new media, and today is just one of those days.

So what do you do in new media to keep your presence going despite the loss of some social networks? That leads me to my next topic.

The Key Is to Diversify

Nowadays it's not unusual to have multiple outlets for your message. Chances are if you did radio you did TV and newspaper, or any combination of those services. The same mindset should be applied to your social engagement attempts. Basically don't put all your eggs in one basket.

If Twitter or Facebook were your only source of outreach to your audience your attempts would be stunted at best. Chances are your mindset would be that social media is a failure and it didn't save your company. On the other hand, if you had created a FriendFeed account, lots of displaced Twitter and Facebook users were connected there, exchanging the same kind of information that would have been shared on any of the previous networks.

Alternatively, if you had a video account with 12seconds, YouTube, Seesmic, Vimeo, Viddler, or any other network that accepted video, you could still go before your audience and share your content in a new way that perhaps you had not used before. Same with audio recordings through networks like Utterli or Audioboo.

Try to see these events as unique opportunities to push the envelope on the tools you use. Find a way to connect to your existing audience, but along the way, perhaps you'll find a new one too.