Ok, where do I start…
Let me share an excerpt from an email I received on Friday from a client of ours (their Director of Marketing, to be exact).
“Mark!!!
WTF. You told me last year to invest in TikTok because that’s where the attention is going. We’ve spent a lot of money and time on this and now it’s getting banned??? What are we going to do with all the followers we have built on there? I’ve allocated 30% of our marketing budget to TikTok… you’re going to get me fired. Can you fly out Monday to discuss?”
Oy vey, eh?!
Now, before I dive into this, let me clean it up a bit by sharing that the aforementioned 30% budget allocation has resulted in 4x growth in ROI when juxtaposed to the previous allocation of that 30% (so, simmer down, Mrs. Director of Marketing) and we’ve beaten the drum of moving that attention to other platforms and mediums since these efforts started, so let’s not ring the alarm.
📝 Side Note: When I started this agency out of college, I didn’t realize how much of this type of shit I’d have to deal with. Quid pro quo I suppose.
Ok, we’re back…
If you go through all my blogs, you’ll see that a few times a year, I rant about how: you can’t be reliant on just 1 (or 3) platform(s).
This is no different than when people were whining about Google “screwing them” in 2004 or Facebook in 2011 (or somewhere around then) with their algorithm change. Businesses that were once #1 on Google Search for XYZ were on page 14 when they woke up one day – bye-bye, business. (Question: Do you know the best place to hide a dead body? Answer: On the 2nd page of Google.)
This is why you build brands, folks. Not companies built on a singular platform or a fucking funnel via ClickFunnels (unless, however, you’re building ephemeral businesses and abstract the most you can and dip (but that’s another Oprah in itself).
Listen, whether it’s a market acquisition that changes the platform (e.g., Twitter buys Vine), an inherent platform change (e.g., Instagram creates Stories – which fundamentally changed Snapchats position), or in the case today – political/homeland Security – you diversify here just like you do your portfolio!
Build on the underpriced attention when it is there, and move it to other platforms to nurture that relationship to build BRAND.
