This week I’m talking to website expert Kieran Thomas about a scenario business owners dream of – going viral.

Hundreds, thousands, even millions of people trying to find out about why they do all at the same time and this can totally happen if you’re a petpreneur.

Imagine your product or service being mentioned on a radio show with millions of listeners.

Or being on a show like Dragons’ Den and having a huge surge in people all over the country wanting to know more about what you do.

Maybe you feature on a site like the Dodo and go viral all over the world. How do you prepare?

A few weeks ago, I was talking about how to make the most of these golden opportunities when it comes to PR after a lady in a business community I’m part of had Amanda Holden wear her T shirt.

I did a video on what to do if a celeb endorses your product where I talked about telling your social media followers, your mailing list subscribers, getting the mention on your website and sending out a press release. 

But what I didn’t cover was websites and Kieran stepped up with some fantastic advice.

He explained: “It’s really important to make sure your website platform and hosting support is robust enough to deal with the extra traffic.

“I know from experience from being on a TV show about Start Ups that many businesses miss out on the interest generated from media coverage as their website crashed.

“In some cases it was down until the next day, not because it took that long to fix but because their hosting support staff had gone home for the night.

“They lost out on the potential custom because by the next morning most people have lost interest, so they lost the moment.”

You can put steps in place to prevent this as Kieran explains in this video including:

How to set up a Disaster Recovery Plan.

Kieran explains that you CAN prepare for going viral and talks you through the steps you need to take to ensure you’re back in business within an hour.

How to set up a super simple back up site.

This is a holding page explaining what you do where people can input their e mail and get a message when your site is back up. It took just four hours for Kieran create one and investing half a day is absolutely worth it for the peace of mind.

How to use the opportunity to grow your e mail list.

Instead of going into meltdown when your website is down, use it as an opportunity to capture people’s e mail addresses on your back up site and turn them into customers.

How social media can be your saviour in your hour of need.

Kieran’s advice is to use a pinned Tweet or Facebook post to explain what’s going on, and create posts for other platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn so people know you’re addressing the situation and can send them to your back up site.

How to incentivise your potential new clients.

It’s key you strike while the iron is hot and you want to make sure people don’t lose interest as you lose them as a potential customer.

Kieran suggests offering a discount code in return for them sharing their e mail address with you.

You can watch the video here:

I hope you find this helpful, and I’m grateful to Kieran for keeping things as simple as possible as it’s easy to get overwhelmed with technology.

Following his advice will take a little time but means you are prepared should you be in a position where your website goes down.

Kieran has also created a download sharing everything you need to know to make sure you’re back online fast.

You can get a copy here – Website Disaster Recovery Plan.

To find out more about Kieran, visit his website www.spikeycactus.co.uk

And keep your eyes peeled for Kieran’s new dog puzzle which is coming soon at http://www.chillibongopets.co.uk/

If you found this post interesting you might like to read What it’s really like on Dragons’ Den with Aneisha from Scrumbles.

If you’d like support with this, my Pets Get Visible membership is a place where we can chat about both types of publicity.

Find out more here:  Is my Pets Get Visible membership right for you?