A recent Verizon outage has made some social media users upset, and they are turning to an unlikely place to voice their concerns. T-Mobile’s social feed includes a post today that mentions the competition and followers are not holding back about what they think. The main lesson to learn when it comes to marketing and how to handle a controversy involving the competition? Stay calm and state the facts.
The widespread Verizon outage started a few hours ago and has led to customers seeing nothing but an SOS option if they are trying to use the cellular service.
In response, a post by T-Mobile went viral because it doesn’t mince words: “T-Mobile’s network is keeping our customers connected, and we’ve confirmed that our network is operating normally and as expected. However, due to Verizon’s reported outage, our customers may not be able to reach someone with Verizon service at this time.”
From a marketing and social media standpoint, it’s pure gold because the post doesn’t criticize anyone, doesn’t make a grand statement or even include a call to action. It states in a clear and concise way that it might not be possible to reach people who use the Verizon service. (I reached out to Verizon reps to ask about the T-Mobile post but have not heard back.) AT&T also posted about the outage with a bit more sass.
Why users are turning to social media about the Verizon outage
Verizon did release an official statement and there was a response on social media when a user asked for a discount or credit on the service.
At the same time, it’s not clear why the outage has occurred and users posting on social media are not sure what the timeline is for getting back to normal. As of now, the outage is still happening and has impacted at least 1.5 million people.
Some users have turned to social media, including about 6,000 likes on the T-Mobile post I mentioned and a few hundred comments. I also reviewed dozens and dozens of comments on X from users expressing frustration about the outage.
Most of the comments are poking fun at the incident, suggesting that they might switch to another carrier while they also post memes of Will Ferrell laughing or clips from The Godfather about T-Mobile making them an offer they can’t refuse.
My favorite comment about the T-Mobile post paints a clear picture of the issue: “At least your (sic) also letting Verizon customers know what’s going on.”
To be fair, some commenters also said T-Mobile isn’t always available. In fact, wireless service outages have become more common as we rely more and more on digital services.
Marketing lessons to learn from the Verizon outage
There are a few lessons to learn from this particular outage.
T-Mobile used to be more brash and sardonic in their marketing, to the point where it seemed like the company was the underdog trying to poke at the major carriers.
This post takes on a dramatically different tone. There’s no real sarcasm, although you could read into it easily enough that it’s trying to point out the obvious. (When one carrier goes down, it means those users will be harder to reach.)
The lesson is to stick to the facts. When there is an opportunity on social media to state a view that is hard or even impossible to counter, that’s pure marketing gold. With the Verizon outage, those who run the T-Mobile feed saw an opportunity and ran with it.