Social Media is Bad for your Clinical Research Consulting Business

This may sound controversial, but social media is a waste of time for your clinical research consulting business, especially when you are just staring out.

This article will outline the reasoning why you should not put your energy into social media, but focus it somewhere useful.

Trying to be Heard 🔉

With social media, your posts are one of millions every day.

It is difficult to be heard. It would be like trying to make an announcement next to a jet engine. Practically no one will hear you over the noise.

Not only is it difficult to be heard in general, but having your content exposed to potential clients is even harder.

You would need a semi-popular post (hard to do) or have a large amount of your potential clients follow you (also hard to do). These are even more difficult to accomplish when you are just starting out.

Pay to Play 💳

Another issue with social media is that it is pay to play.

Even if you had a large following of potential clients, social media companies will not serve your content to all followers unless you pay up and "boost"your post.

Your content is also not likely to be served to new potential clients unless you pay up.

You Don't Own the Audience 🚫

Even if you could create a following AND afford the recurring cost to serve them content, you still don't own the audience.

You are at the mercy of the social media company. They could decide to ban your account, change the algorithm, raise prices, or all sorts of different tweaks that could make a large impact on your clinical research consulting business.

A lot of effort could be wasted.

Time Suck ⏳

The goal of social media companies is to keep your eyeballs on the screen so they can serve you ads.

They are quite good at it.

They use human psychology against you to keep you on their site. This can impact your clinical research consulting business if you spend hours a day scrolling through social media rather than doing something useful like solving problems for your clients or finding new clients.

Toxicity ☠️

Social media sites can be a very nasty place.

This bad experience can be better or worse depending on your community and targeted social media site.

People can treat others terribly on social media. Even with very thick skin, you are probably better off not exposing yourself to so much negativity.

Even if the negativity is not directed at you, you can still be affected.

Social media sites make their money by keeping your eyeballs glued to the screen and scrolling as long as possible. Part of the human psychology used against you is that content that invokes FEAR and ANGER keep people on their sites longer. Sure, there may be the odd adorable kitten content, but the algorithms are biased to serving you content that makes you fearful or angry.

Feeling FEAR and ANGER frequently can't be good for your mental health. If your mental health suffers, your clinical research consulting business will suffer too.

Passive 🛋️

Social media sites are a very passive way to try and start or grow a clinical research consulting business.

You are just putting content out there and hoping someone likes it enough to want to hire you to solve their problems. There is almost an inherent expectation that you deserve clients. If only they could stumble upon your content they would see how brilliant you are at solving their exact problem.

This is the wrong way to go about getting clients.

The onus is on you to find clients, not for clients to find your business.

In this regard, social media sites are too passive.

Your time is much better spent finding your ideal clients and trying to sell to them.

Where does your Ideal Client Spend Their Time ⌚

Are your ideal clients actually using social media sites?

Successful business owners are likely not spending their time scrolling social media sites. It is not a good use of their time (nor is it a good use of yours).

If they have a social media presence it is likely run by a lower level employee or outsourced.

That means that your witty remarks or carefully crafted content is not being seen by your ideal clients, but by their employees or vendors.

Finding Success 📈

A like or a share is not a sale.

Social media rewards content with likes and shares, but these are worthless. You don't make any revenue from digital accolades, though they might make you feel good. At least for a little while.

It is probably more likely that you will feel worse posting your content on social media due to the lack of likes and shares.

Likes and shares also won't validate that you have a viable clinical research consulting business.

Only actual money from a client with give you that validation.

Long Road 🛣️

It takes 1-2 years to get any sort of traction on social media.

Until then, likely the only people viewing and enjoying your content is your mom and other friends and family.

Community Interactions 💬

Social media may be less of a waste of time if your ideal clients actually are using it.

Not their employees, and not a third party hired by your ideal clients.

In this case, you could engage with your ideal clients on social media by answering questions that pop up, or offering up advice for free to a community where your ideal clients are.

My Experience 🥼

I wasted my time with social media, so hopefully you don't have to.

I would post content to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn hoping to attract business.

I never received a single dollar of revenue from all the work. I have never received even a message from someone interest in my clinical research consulting business through any of these platforms.

Thankfully I realized what a waste of time social media sites were early on and found my ideal clients elsewhere.

Summary

This article has outlined many reasons why social media is a waste of time to start a clinical research consulting business. Your time is better spent communicating with potential clients directly or solving the problems of existing clients.

If you found this article useful please let me know! If you found a use for social media that isn't a waste of time I would love to hear from you. Get in touch.