What Precautions Digital Marketers need to take During Load Shedding

In the past couple of days, South Africa has been gripped by the most recent load shedding crisis. It is playing havoc with business owners who aren’t lucky enough to have generators to take over when the municipal supply goes down and whose smooth operations rely on the presence of electricity.

As digital marketers, we rely heavily on electricity to do our jobs. We  need power to fuel the Internet routers that allow us to do our daily jobs. In addition, we need electricity to keep our laptop batteries topped up.

However, what happens when the power goes down frequently as is the case at the moment? How can digital marketers do to make sure that there is no interruption to their work despite the lack of power?

Load shedding tips

Know which block you’re in

As you’re probably aware, the power utilities divide the city up into grids. For the purposes of loadshedding, each of these grids is allocated to a specific block. They turn off each block, for a specific number of hours, on a rotational basis. So, in order to make sure that you are in an area that has electricity when yours is off at the office, make sure that you know which block you’re in.

Plan for the unexpected

Sometimes, the electricity doesn’t come up when the power utility says that it will. This means that should you be relying on power coming up at a specific time and, if it doesn’t, your timelines are thrown off totally and – as such – so are your deliverables.

To counteract this happening, make sure that you have organised as much as you can in advance so should the unforeseen happen, you’re covered.

In previous articles, we’ve spoken about social media automation tools to help you ensure that your presence on social media happens seamlessly without you having to put in extra effort to make this happen. With tools such as Hootsuite, you’re able to schedule a number of posts to go off at a time that you require. So when you have a gap where there is electricity you’re able to make sure that your bank of social media posts is up to date.

Create a content calendar and stick to it

The beauty of a content calendar is that you can create a bank of content in advance and upload it. This means that should you be stuck in the position of being without electricity owing to loadshedding (or an extended period of load shedding) you can rest assured that your content marketing will remain on point.

We’ve written previously about what best practices you need to employ in order to create the best content calendar for your business. Just as a reminder, the golden rule for creating such a calendar for your organisation is to make it revolve around your company’s core value proposition to your customers. Once you do this you’ll find it easier to come up with topics that will suit your audience’s needs.

Find a place which has electricity

If all else fails, find out where has electricity and set up shop here until the electricity has come back up. If you’re a freelance digital marketer, your time is your own so you can easily do this. However, as an owner of digital marketing agency you need to afford your staff members the ability to be able to do this so that productivity remains high. Want to keep the team vibe? Why do go to your local co-working office space or coffee shop that has electricity. You’d be re-creating the office vibe just in a different location.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Loadshedding is a nuisance but, by employing these simple tactics, you can make sure that you don’t experience any business interruptions. Learn more about the exciting world of digital marketing with the online digital marketing courses from the Digital School of Marketing.  With their bespoke range of online digital marketing courses you’ll get a well-rounded education in all aspects of online marketing. For more information, visit our website.