Social Media Marketing Faces The Same Challenges As Any Industry

Two months ago, our biggest client submitted notice due to internal budget cuts. Unfortunately, this was not a new scenario for us.

When businesses face financial struggles, the marketing budget is frequently on the chopping block, and social media can be particularly vulnerable. Social media is relationship marketing. It’s a longer-term effort, and when companies need more immediate revenue, it can be difficult to justify something that doesn’t always produce an instant return.

Trying to Replace the Lost Revenue

We knew it was time to get to work on securing new business, and we had no time to waste. We embarked on what I can only describe as a business development mega mission, coming up with more than 30 things we could try to recover the lost income. Some were simple, like creating new marketing materials, getting more involved in networking groups, and following up on past leads.

Others were much more involved. We developed a new service offering based on feedback we had received from prospects and clients. We also tried a direct mail idea from a colleague in Canada. We researched more than 100 businesses that had some connection to our existing clients, ranked them according to where we saw the greatest need for our services, and sent customized letters explaining the mutual connection and where we thought we could help. We even included a lottery ticket to pique their interest.

Then we followed up with personalized emails, LinkedIn connection requests, and phone calls.

We spent countless hours brainstorming, researching, reaching out, and talking with colleagues to make sure we were doing everything we could to generate new business.

When More Effort Didn't Mean More Business

So, how did we fare?

Not so well. After two months of all that activity, we had gained zero new social media clients.

I was disappointed, but there was also something familiar about the result. At the end of the day, none of those tactics could manufacture the thing that has always mattered most in our business: relationships.

I knew this. Heck, it’s what we told our clients every single day. But when I was faced with replacing a significant amount of income, I wanted to believe I could accelerate a process that I already knew took time.

When there’s financial pressure, patience becomes much harder. The instinct is to do more, try more, reach more people, and find the thing that will produce a result quickly. I don’t regret trying those things. Some of them forced me to think differently, and others reconnected me with people who were important to me professionally and personally. I met people for lunch and learned what had been happening in their lives and businesses.

But none of it changed the basic nature of how people decide to work with us.

Facing the Same Pressure as Our Clients

That’s particularly interesting in retrospect because we were experiencing the same tension our clients experience with social media. They sometimes wanted social media to produce results faster because there was pressure elsewhere in the business. When our own revenue was under pressure, I wanted our marketing efforts to do exactly the same thing.

Years later, I still don’t believe in complacency, and I don’t think trying something new is wasted simply because it doesn’t immediately produce business. But I have a much better appreciation for how difficult it is to stay patient when there’s something real at stake.

We tell clients that relationships take time, consistency matters, and not every effort will produce an immediate return. It’s much easier to believe those things when you’re saying them to someone else.