When Facebook and its family of apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, went down for six hours last Monday, panic ensued for brands and influencers that rely on the platforms. Panic, and then clarity. (Though perhaps short-lived: Instagram was down for some users again on Friday.)

Blume, a DTC plant-based wellness company, saw a significant drop in web traffic and sales when the outage hit. “Our Instagram, and Facebook, is a huge component to our overall business strategy, whether it's directing [people] to our product pages...social promotions or just establishing a relationship,” brand manager Lauren Ryan said.

The brand had a giveaway with another company scheduled for that morning. Both partners decided to get the post up as soon as possible to avoid pushing the rest of the calendar back. “We realized that this collaboration may be a bit of a flunk,” Ryan admitted, but ended up sharing the promo at 6pm PT that evening.

• Surprisingly, the post ended up being among the brand’s most successful, as content-starved social media users flooded back to the platform.

Divide and conquer: According to Mae Karwowski, CEO and founder of influencer marketing firm Obviously, October is a “very high-volume month for brand sponsorships” on Instagram.

“It was a wake-up call,” Karwowski told Retail Brew. “It’s really important to think about how you’re diversifying and not just kind of putting all your eggs in one basket.” The basket, in this case, is Instagram. Brands and influencers should also devote some eggs to TikTok and YouTube, she said.

• Instagram is the main channel for brand-influencer partnerships, Karwowski noted. Last week’s outage caused scheduling “backlogs” for content and news.
• TikTok has quickly accelerated within her business. Last year it made for about 20% of Obviously’s overall brand deals. Now, it’s “at least 60%.”

“We work with so many large brands that are spending millions of dollars on advertising. It’s just great to have other platforms that you can go to so you can really play around with your mix of ad dollars and also which creators you’re working with.”

Ch-ch-changes: Karwowski recommended brands expect the unexpected and prepare for constant shifts when it comes to social platforms. “Any platform could change their algorithms, from one day to the next,” she said. “There are so many different factors that go into how platforms are promoting what content...which platforms are actually fertile environments.”

• Blume, for example, plans to think beyond social media next year, leaning into in-person events, experiential brand activations, and “taking a more old-school approach.”

This kind of uncertainty—if an audience leaves a platform, if a social media app mutates or disappears—underscores the need to diversify. “It’s really important to always be on the lookout and ask, ‘What’s my insurance policy here?’” Karwowski told us.—JG

Higher prices. Fewer workers. Increased demand. These are supply-chain issues affecting companies of all sizes. But for nonprofits like food banks, the crisis is magnified as they struggle to keep up amid soaring needs.

“[Covid] continues to be in control of this economy and supply chains, so it is hard to say when things will improve,” Barbara Abbott, VP of supply chain at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, told Retail Brew.

Given some food banks’ shift from relying on canned goods to fresh produce, one issue is that deliveries haven’t always been in the best condition lately. Delays have left inventory stranded in ports. “By the time some of those items reach us in the emergency food space...they are in far worse condition than we normally receive them,” said Jordan Tarwater, executive director of the Urban Outreach Center based in New York.

Needing a lift

Blame a dearth of drivers, which every food bank we spoke to said they are facing.

While industries across the board have been hit by labor shortages, Anna McGovern, chief supply chain officer at Food Bank For New York City, said food banks are losing drivers to the e-comm boom.

“We were already facing a shortage of over-the-road drivers before the pandemic,” she told us. “The situation became more dire as demand for local drivers skyrocketed due to e-commerce, and many drivers were able to quickly land jobs driving locally.”

• Consider that even FedEx is rerouting 600,000+ business packages daily due to a lack of staff.

Keeping afloat: Back on the West Coast, at San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, transportation costs have more than doubled compared to what they were two years ago, Abbott said, mostly due to increased warehouse capacity during the pandemic and a 40% increase in food distribution. “That has meant more transfers between our facilities and wear and tear on our equipment,” she added.

The California Association of Food Banks said it continues to seek volunteers to meet the uptick in demand and “get food sorted, packed,” and delivered to those who need it.

“While we were fortunate to keep hunger levels relatively steady during the pandemic to date, that’s not because there wasn’t great need,” Lauren Lathan Reid, director of communications at the nonprofit, said.

Click here to read more about how the supply-chain crisis has trickled down to food banks.—JS

Today’s top retail reads.

No alternative: A look inside Hermès’s Bordeaux-based leather workshop, and how the luxury brand is thinking about durability’s relation to sustainability. (Vogue Business)

Out of stock: From paper towels to syringes, American retailers are running out of just about everything. But the demand keeps surging. (The Atlantic)

Revving up: Vehicle service startups like RepairSmith and YourMechanic are starting to slowly embrace e-commerce as consumer expectations shift. (Modern Retail)

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