The Gita and your stats
The Gita's advice for a marketer who checks the stats too often
One verse from an Indian text written long before advertising existed is the best cure I know for the anxiety of likes, opens and clicks.
The Bhagavad Gita, chapter two, verse forty-seven, holds the sharpest piece of advice I know for anyone who works in marketing.
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन ।
मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ॥karmaṇy evādhikāras te mā phaleṣu kadācana,
mā karma-phala-hetur bhūr mā te saṅgo 'stv akarmaṇi.You have the right to your work, and never to its results. Let the results never be your reason for acting, and never let that turn you towards doing nothing.
That is the whole lesson. Do the work. Let go of the result. Keep working.
Here is the problem it solves. Every tool we use now gives us a number. Opens, clicks, likes, views, watch time, reach. We check the number ten minutes after posting. We check it again at lunch. By evening we have decided the campaign failed, or we are a genius, based on a day of data.
The Gita's point is older and colder than that. You control the work. The result depends on a thousand things you do not control. The weather, the news, the algorithm, what the reader had for breakfast. If you tie your mood to the result, you will go mad, and worse, you will start making bad work to chase the number.
The verse does not say the result is unimportant. It says the result is not yours. Do the work with full attention. Then let go.
In practice, this is what it looks like for me.
I decide what good work is before I publish. Is the fact correct? Is the sentence clear? Would I be proud to show this to the client's best customer? If yes, the work is done.
I look at the numbers once, on a set day, with a clear question. Did the plain subject line beat the clever one? That is useful. Refreshing the dashboard at midnight is a hobby, and a bad one.
I judge a quarter, never a post. One post is weather. Twelve posts is climate.
There is a strange reward for working this way. The work gets better. When you stop writing for the number, you write for the reader, and the reader can tell.
A warrior on a battlefield was told this five thousand years ago, or two thousand, depending on who you ask. The message was: do your duty, and stop bargaining with the outcome. It turns out the same advice works for a person staring at a LinkedIn analytics page at 11pm.
