How do we do marketing when everything is terrible?

If you’ve been following this newsletter for more than 5 minutes, you know it’s for folks who might consider ourselves, “a bleeding heart with a business.”

…which meant, if you’re in the U.S., you’ve probably also felt foolish, or selfish, or absolutely paralyzed about promoting your business at one point or another, because EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE IN THIS COUNTRY. 

I know it because I live it: it feels weird and awful to carry on with marketing myself. I’m basically trying to do a capitalism, even though I’m an anti-capitalist who gives a crap about what’s happening to her neighbors and communities.

So, how do we move through it? There’s no perfect answer, but here are a few things that have helped me.

Protect your livelihood and your capacity.

It can pretty easily feel insensitive or tone-deaf to keep marketing our businesses in the midst of, well, all of this. How do we just keep doing the “business as usual” stuff in the face of repeated atrocities?

Here’s the thing, though: what happens if we stop marketing ourselves? Do our businesses shrink into nothing? Does it put our homes and our families at risk? 

I believe with all of my being that we fight the baddies better when we have resources. We can’t feed the revolution by starving ourselves. We do, unfortunately, live under capitalism, and we have to work to survive, so it’s okay to look after your own needs. Secure that oxygen mask, so you can better help others.

Let your values guide your marketing.

In case you need to hear this: it’s not necessary, or even possible, to post about everything. I remember reminding myself of that over a decade ago, but it’s even more true now. We’re inundated with bad news daily--if we posted about all of it, there’d be no space left for anything else.

What matters most is whether your values come through in your online presence. If a particular issue hits you on a personal level, or it inspires you to create and share (like Lisa Congdon here), follow that instinct. 

Don’t feel like you have to force it, though. Resharing content that aligns with your values also makes it clear where you stand on social justice issues. Resharing content from other creators is also a great opportunity to amplify underrepresented voices, and help your audience see a fuller picture of the issues we face.

Answer the call to action.

For those of us who reshare often--myself included--we can also periodically look beyond the scroll-and-share, and consider what we actually want from those activities. 

The urge to doomscroll is strong, but it rarely makes us feel better. So, how can we replace some of that doomscrolling with action?

For the recent National Strike Day, I saw countless small businesses in Portland committing to community. They offered free food and drink, provided community safe spaces, and donated proceeds to our local immigrant rights org. There are ways we can contribute to the cause, both big and small, as individuals and as businesses.

Business doesn’t just have to be about sales and marketing. It’s an opportunity to fuel a better world. And, in case it wasn’t already clear: if you have to post less often to create space for other ways to stay active, that’s okay. It’s about finding the balance that lets you lead with what you care about.