Organic Social Media Teams: How to be Great Partners in a Recession

Businesses are getting more and more nervous as we edge closer to an impending financial downturn. 📉  And what happens when businesses are faced with financial pressure or uncertainty?

They tighten their belts. They make cuts. They scale back. And as a cost center, marketing teams and their budgets are typically among the first to experience the squeeze. This leads to an interesting (and frustrating) phenomenon – especially in large organizations with marketing teams that are accustomed to large budgets with which to run lower-funnel ads:

They run to the organic social media team and ask if their display and paid social ads can be "versioned out" for organic channels.

9 times out of 10, they don't mean to cause issues, break the content strategy framework, or put undue pressure on their teammates – they're just looking for a port in a storm.

Here are 3 things you can do as an organic social marketer to be a good partner to your colleagues while maintaining your strategy:

1. Partner with them to understand where, why, and how your business' organic social channels should be used. Assuming that everyone within your organization knows your team's SOPs will leave you frustrated 25/8.

2. Ask them about the end goal – what, REALLY, are they trying to achieve with the post(s) they're asking you to push live? Is there a better way to achieve that goal via creative execution that's better suited for organic channels?

3. Straight-up "no" can feel extremely uncooperative, especially in a high-pressure environment. Instead of shutting down requests immediately, explore the "yes, if..." approach. For example, "Yes, we can help you promote your new event landing page if you give us some stories to tell our audience about the event's keynote speaker."

Just a few ideas to get you started.