Here are a few tips to keeping in touch with your customers during COVID19
People around the world are adjusting to the new normal of the impact on their business from COVID19. We are faced with social distancing, small business owners are closing their doors and large corporations as scrambling to reposition campaigns, adjust content to essential travel, first responders, PPE and anything they come up with new creative and changing day to day.
While others are abandoning all marketing efforts during this time. This is a mistake you can not afford to make. If you use a social media company to run your social media marketing, yet you can't afford them during these troubled times, reach out to them and negotiate a temporary rate until business rebounds.
Staying connected is now more important than ever, with people and businesses working from home, or remote offices, more of the population is on social media more than ever. Frankly the population is relying on social media to stay in touch with friends, consume the news, and be entertained.
In fact, Facebook and Instagram have seen a 48% increase in usage due to Covid-19, with views for Instagram Live and Facebook Live doubling in one week.
If your business is open but working hard to survive right now, like many retail stores, hotels and restaurants are, you’ll be wanting to share content with the goal of getting sales from social media. But just because people are spending more time on social media doesn’t mean it’s business-as-usual.
Your followers are spending more time online than they ever have before, so it does present you with a unique opportunity to deepen your relationship with your audience and increase brand affinity. But you also can’t just be running business-as-usual, or you risk coming across as tone-deaf to an audience with heightened anxiety and sensitivities. And the hardest part? It feels like our world continues to change by the day (or hour).
But remember: this is brand new territory for all marketers (including us). No one is an expert in how to market your business on social media through a global pandemic.
So while we can’t offer you tried-and-tested strategies for marketing your business through this challenging time, we can give you some guiding principles to help you think through your posts and make decisions as the crisis evolves.
Ignoring Covid-19 or pretending like everything is normal can come across as inauthentic at best, and tone deaf at worst. Let your followers know that you’re listening and acknowledge our new normal.
Even a simple “We are in this together" and "updates on your staff and business"
can go a long way in showing your followers that you’re listening and caring.
Let them know you also are experiencing hardships without coming off as "crying for help". Take the approach that you are trying to stay open, operating and keeping your staff employed.
Celebrity & business owner Kristin Cavallari did a good job of explaining why she was promoting a sale for her jewelry brand Uncommon James, by simply stating that she has 100 employees and will do everything she can to help them keep their jobs, which means promoting her sale on Instagram.
If you’re unable to market or sell your products during COVID state that and let them know your desired return to normal operations. Focus on sharing content that aligns with your brand values instead, along the way updating your pages on staff, products, service and the latest news.
Turn your Instagram into a valuable resource for your audience. Focus on engagement first, instead of driving traffic, by providing extra education through videos, carousel posts, or captions – instead of constantly asking to swipe up or click the link in your bio.
Adjust your hashtags during this time and stay current with trends and changes to social media platforms.
These are un-tested times, stay safe, social distance but stay active on your pages.
