What a strange time we’re living in. This morning Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin suggested an economic stimulus package that could include giving checks to ordinary Americans to help workers cope with the economic effects of the Coronavirus crisis. Mitt Romney is onboard, suggesting the government hands out checks of $1000 to every American. (Wait – we’ve heard that somewhere before.) This kind of Helicopter Cash will go a long way in ensuring we, as individuals, make it through the worst economic aspects of this event, is it enough to help businesses also survive?
Then steps in the private sector. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg also announced today their plan to help small businesses by offering $100M in cash grants and ad credits to 30,000 eligible small businesses in over 30 countries.
We spend a lot of time, effort, and marketing dollars putting content out on Facebook. With information changing everyday, social media is a vital communication tool for the companies we partner with and sometimes you have to pay to get that information out there.
Facebook’s move should go far in helping keep businesses alive but will it go far enough? Maybe they should follow the Treasury Secretary’s lead, join the #YangGang, and offer universal cash grants and ad credits to all businesses that have been using Facebook Ads as part of their media spend for years. Facebook needs these businesses to survive so they can protect future revenue, and SMBs might now need Facebook in order to keep their businesses going.
So this year will hurt for a lot of us. But these windfalls of cash to citizens and businesses, whether from the government or the private sector, could just be the Tylenol we need to get us through this.
