The Great Purge: Is your business immune?

A coffee shop employee reprimanded for poor work performance. He calls his friends & tells them his boss is racist. Collectively they flood the shop’s Facebook page with negative reviews. 

A patron enters a restaurant and only sees white Americans serving. She uses Yelp’s new label to accuse the racist behavior. The owner of the restaurant is African American.

A stay-at-home mom starts a nonprofit that feeds; clothes will pay past due rent or utilities for veterans who fundraise 100% on Twitter. 1% operating costs & 99% of $2.2 million raised annually. A tweet announcement that two country-western stars got wind of this one-woman show and made a donation. Following the announcement, her account is suspended and then purged of followers. Zero political rhetoric from her account but guilty by association as the two stars are outspoken conservatives. 

Rucksack, gym bag, and fitness gear company whose sales are exclusively online hosts military-style events. What are these events? They are mock Navy Seal, CrossFit type endurance events. GoDaddy drops website. 

Political conflict and correctness have boiled over into every area of our lives. The saying perfect people aren’t real and real people aren’t perfect, seems to be lost while we are striving for balance in social inclusivity and diversity. 

Live in a world where one mistake is catastrophic. Concerns about recovering from the pandemic, managing loss, implementing new safety procedures, and the mounting pressure that no matter how much they strive for excellence can be destroyed by one swift action thru an online platform. 

Over the past five years, not only have we witnessed an increase in social accountability, but we have seen a steady rise in staying competitive thru online advertising. Today, our own AI technology can tell us what your competition is spending on digital advertising. While you may be thrilled about knowing how to have a competitive edge, we have seen the adverse effects of it working against clients as big businesses have the same data and know-how to compete with small businesses. 

So the social dilemma and the counterbalance of paying for online advertising that will continue to increase has to be a necessary risk assessment for any business. 

It is a bit of a moral dilemma for me as an agency owner. Ten years ago, we were begging companies to have a Facebook page and invest in online advertising, and today with the continued online advertising costs increasing aggressively, it is my responsibility to look at the trends and back up to today’s environment and see how we need to prepare. 

My experience on the big four tech companies, Amazon, Google, Twitter & Facebook, with their subsidiaries have gotten a little spoiled. They are a necessary evil. But, we do have options. My concern is not whether you agree with their market share or their actions in the current accounts purge. 

With the social trends, climate, and an increase in advertising costs, I will be providing some insights on how to navigate these uncharted territories. As an entrepreneur, we know healthy competition makes us better as a business. But it has to be a healthy competitive environment.

Meaning living in fear of your business being de-platformed or branded incorrectly for something very innocent or having to outspend your competition; none of this gets better in time. The gap will continue to get broader and more challenging. 

So we have to pause and look at strategies that insulate us while we get our footing on how our businesses need to manage the social climate. We have to explore our investment in marketing efforts not put all of our eggs in one basket. 

This year will be an evolution of bringing what we see on the horizon to action items that are rational and affordable. We are going to push you to take your marketing in a unique direction. A direction that has longevity and is beneficial for your business and keeps in mind that these actions collectively as a small business community that supports by the way 50% of our GDP has the potential to rebuild stronger & more resilient than before the pandemic. 

Now, we are testing as any marketing company new technologies. As mentioned, the big boys are a little spoiled. So, listed below are all the places you can find me. And we will be having some future conversations about garnering a competitive edge on these platforms in their development phases.