Posted by The spread of Coronavirus has impacted billions of lives around the globe; people are remaining indoors, and usage of social media has drastically increased. Needless to say that it is the perfect time to adapt your business to the current circumstances.
This increased used of social media has made marketing managers think about the unique ways they can use social platforms to connect with their target market. Why is this change necessary? Take a look at the following:
The spread of Coronavirus has impacted the way people use the internet:
- People are now inclined to find indoor online activities to stay entertained
- Social media is used less for entertainment and more for information
- People now prefer to engage in learning-based sessions
- Video game trend has massively increased
- Video-chat has become a common way of communication
- The readership has increased drastically, as people want to read about virus-related information
The worldwide usage of social media apps has increased by 44%. If you are a social media manager thinking what to do in times of Coronavirus, we have gathered 5 things to do right now:
1. Postpone Scheduled Posts
Drastic times call for extreme measures; halt your regularly scheduled post in favour of unique COVID-19 related content concerning your business.
Just like live TV, you need to pause your regularly scheduled program for a special broadcast.
Open your social media calendar and have a look at the content you have already scheduled for this time. If there is a post about a new collection launch, some event, a book launch, album release, or anything similar, you need to postpone all of this content.
Instead, develop new and useful content that will inform your users about your products and services during these special circumstances. Here are a few reasons why this strategy is a great idea:
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Decreased relevancy
The reason you cannot post your standard content is simply that people cannot relate with such news and events these days. If you continue to launch your planned things, people won’t pay attention to it as they would’ve in the normal circumstances. To create relevancy in your content for better engagement, it’s better to pause this scheduled content.
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Changed working hours
Now that people have started working from home, their routine has changed, which has affected the time when people surf the net. For example, if your target audience was someone who used to engage with your content during his work commute, now his routine must have changed, and his time dedicated to social media usage might’ve shifted to late night rather than early morning.
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Priority
With quarantines and social distancing, there are new burdens and workloads on people staying at home to cater to the whole family, and hence their priorities have changed.
For instance, an employee from carpet cleaning reports, “At work, our top priority was to clean every carpet brought in thoroughly. Since COVID-19, our priorities have changed; we have to disinfect the carpets to get rid of the virus. We also have to follow safety protocols, and I am regularly checking the corporate website for updates and new information.”
Along with employees, consumers are also more interested in information than entertainment. They are looking to their favourite brands to provide the things that matter; for example, safe delivery.
2. Follow the New Trends
Now that you have paused your scheduled content, you need to pay attention to new trends. Analyze how people are relating to the content to engage your audience using real-time information and stay up-to-date.
If you are creating content about something that is trending, the audience is more likely to engage with your content. Just remember to avoid sensationalism and focus on providing useful content. Talking about how the current situation is working for you and what are the dos and don’ts might attract your audience to engage.
Use live sessions and video-based interactive channels to be heard and communicate about the on-going challenges through your social media to increase relevancy in your content. As the routines have been changed over time, you need to test your posts to check which time now suits you better than the previous timings.
For example, for a gym or fitness center’s social media now the content must change to “how to work out while staying at home with no equipment,” rather than posting about their gym timings or a live Q&A session that might be informative for people who want to stay active while staying at home.
3. Interactions over Conversions
Typically, social media goals are mostly to increase the conversion rates through redirection towards your platforms, however, during these unprecedented times, the use of social media has changed, and people are not thinking of purchasing right now.
Due to the unpredictable situation, consumers are thinking a lot before purchasing, and impulsive buying has reduced massively. This is the time where you can use your social media platforms to interact with people and talk to them using various sessions, Q&A, and benefit them in any and every way you can through conversations.
Right now, people are willing to engage with informative and useful content rather than a post that is convincing them to shop online. According to these stats, 67% of the people are watching more news coverage than before.
Therefore, use your social media like Facebook pages and groups, Instagram Live sessions, Snapchat, or TikTok to provide COVID-19 related information that’s useful to your client.
This will help you develop a rapport with your target market and will strengthen your relationship in the long-term. For conversions, the ideal way during such circumstances is to send newsletters and follow email marketing to offer personalized offers and increase conversion rates. The audience can stay engaged with your platforms through customized offers.
4. Expand your Audience
Now that people have more time on their hands, they are looking for things to do at home. This is the perfect opportunity for you to increase your audience and create engaging content for people who are staying at home.
You have already postponed the scheduled content; to fill that gap, you have to create new and fresh content that is more relevant to people. Over the past few weeks, there has been a massive increment in online course registrations, webinars, informative sessions on Zoom, services such as Coursera offering free and discounted online learning programs, online book platforms offering free trails, etc.
According to Statista, 35% of people are now Reading more books/listening to more audiobooks than before. All of this new trend is to engage the audience by offering them free and discounted informative content. You can also think of creating collaborative content with the influencers to engage the community and to expand your potential audience.
5. Follow Content Show Strategy
The Content Show strategy advocates the idea of posting your content at a specific time to engage your audience. You can advertise your content release time, for example, tune in to our live session every Saturday at 9 pm.
Now, this is how you make the audience wait for the content release and develop a feeling of anticipation and curiosity about the show. People will start to wait for the next show/ episode/ content while knowing the time of release.
You can create an online show based on informative sessions, talk shows with celebrities or influential personalities, start a podcast that is relevant to your audience, and release a video. Using Facebook and Instagram, you can put an event invite to engage the audience and hence increase your views while adapting to the new normal.
Conclusion
The world is facing an unprecedented situation; as a result, people, their behaviours, and outlooks have changed significantly. The spread of Coronavirus has affected the economy’s purchasing power and marketing strategies. Business owners, marketers, and economists are devising newer strategies to keep their company alive. The new normal is making people think out of the box and come up with ideas to suit the current circumstances. The above mentioned 5 tips can help you adapt to the new circumstances as a social media manager and content creator.
Nouman is a digital marketing expert from Dynamologic Solutions for many years. He considers bringing all the keywords to the top of his duty and constantly strives hard to achieve the best result. Along with finding & implementing content optimization strategy, he is also fond of writing interesting blogs on SEO & digital marketing related topics.
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thanks for this Strategy your the best!!