2020 & My Experience Owning A Social Media Agency During A Pandemic

Jan 6

Ok guys. I remember in early March (just before the pandemic hit hard in the U.S.), I hopped on a group Zoom hosted by EightLoop Social. They’re a large Facebook Ads Agency based in New Zealand (which was affected by the pandemic before the US) and she basically started the call by breaking down & crying, saying she had just let go some team members because of how quickly NZ was shutting down and how many clients were cutting their spend or contracts because of the pandemic.

I remember thinking that there was no way that this could happen to the US (lol… if only I knew). Probably about a week later, the US “shut down” and a couple weeks after that, we lost our first big client due to the pandemic.

I had to scramble to keep things afloat, so here’s what I learned along the way. xx

Finances

Let’s start with what everyone is probably most interested in learning about haha.

We got hit hard with 2 large clients (both of which we managed multiple accounts for) putting in their 30 days notice to cancel their contract at the end of March and April. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I had to cut back the team’s hours for about 6 weeks. When something big like that happens, it’s hard not to picture the worst-case scenarios.

What if every other client has to cancel?

What if I have to break our lease at the office?

What if I have to let go of my team?

I relied heavily on Louise at The Finance Agency, who not only guided us (successfully!) through the PPP loan application process but helped me to navigate our finances while I scrambled to make up our lost income.

By August, we were able to get our sales to exceed (!!) our pre-pandemic levels. Here are some things I did to do that:

Launch our Own Your Instagram course
Launch Group Zoom Calls - which gave other social media managers a community a sounding board to help us all figure out how to navigate the pandemic, the racial movement, the election, etc.
Update & systemize our client process, that way we could keep our current clients happier and on our roster for longer contract lengths

Pro Tip: Have at least a 30-day cancellation policy in place for clients. That gives you 30 days to find another client and devise a back-up plan to replace that lost income. Also, hire The Finance Agency LOL. Tell Louise I sent you!!!

WFH vs Office Life

So, like basically every other office in the world, our office quickly transitioned to remote work in mid-March - literally days after I had re-signed our office lease for another TWO YEARS. Bad timing lol.

One way I helped to off-set this cost was by offering my other business-owner friends the opportunity to sublease my office one day a week. A lot of my friends either wanted to get out of the house once a week or needed a place (that wasn’t a co-working option) to meet with their team. I was able to consistently have 2-3 people somewhat “sub-lease” the office, with permission from my landlord. That made me (and my accountant) feel a lot better about continuing to pay for an office and utilities that were hardly being used!

Going into 2021, our team plans to meet twice a week in the office. I just got the girls new desks, chairs, and laptop stands that are honestly too cute *not* to use. So I’m excited about our hybrid approach to working!

Onboarding Remote Interns

During the summer and fall semesters of 2020, I faced my first challenge of training our intern class remotely. This was hard to navigate since many of our interns apply with little to no experience.

The solution?

I had our interns take our online courses on Instagram & Instagram Stories!!! A win-win. They could learn about Instagram + Stories at their own pace at home, can learn the methods HMS uses to grow our clients’ accounts, and it saves me time from having to teach it to them!

I now plan on having all intern classes do the same!

Implementing Crisis Communication Plans

2020 was the year of “Houston, we have a problem.”

We had to help our clients navigate a global pandemic, a racial movement, and an election. It was exhausting lol. But it goes to show the importance of having a plan in place to make quick, last-minute decisions on behalf of your clients.

We now have an “emergency” plan in place for each client and know how to contact them in off-hours in case something needs to be done with their approval immediately.

While we hope 2021 won’t throw as many curveballs as 2020, it at least feels great to go in prepared!

Pro Tip: Work with a PR pro and lawyer to develop your crisis communication plan. From there, hand it off to your social team or agency. They’ll help you execute the plan on social when the time comes!

PROMOTING DIVERSITY & Inclusion

When the BLM movement took off in June, not only did we have work to do internally, but we had work to do to help our clients support, represent, & work with the black community.

In June, we donated all of one day’s sales from our online shop to Black Lives Matter. We educated ourselves and listened to the black community.

Our friends at Creative Label created & shared a bunch of great resources. Here are some of their blogs and resources that I learned the most from:

We created “rules” for ourselves and our clients to not only promote diversity & inclusion but to help them lead by example. Moving into 2021 and beyond, we will require our clients to:

Work with & hire black influencers (& pay them equally to non-black influencers)
Work with & hire black models when booking for brand photography

Yep. It’s required. So if a client doesn’t want to support black lives, they can’t be a client. Peace. OUT.

Looking into 2021

It feels a little surreal to be on the other side of 2020 and looking back. There were moments I wasn’t sure when we’d make it out alive (literally), and I’m so thankful for our team, our health, and our clients. I can’t believe we made it out better than ever!!

Looking into 2021, I have some internal goals: