We hope everyone’s taking care of themselves, your families and staying at home, where possible.

The ongoing situation with COVID-19 is a clear crisis, we are living in unpredictable times, with huge changes to our daily lives. People and businesses alike are worried about the impact this may have, this is understandable and you have a right to be concerned.

Consumer behaviour is changing, everyone is in isolation using social media now more than ever before. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok are seeing a huge increase in the number of users and the time being spent on their apps. If you’re a business, you need to alter your approach and use social media to stay connected to your customers and maintain your brand presence. If you don’t you risk being left behind.

The Gateway Platform

Social media is the key platform for people looking to stay in contact with and communicate with their family & friends. It offers multiple communication channels, such as text chats, tweets, video messaging, etc. We can say what we want about social media, but in this current climate, it has proven its worth. 

It offers everyone a much-needed distraction from the real world. Every day you see people creating new challenges and trends for others to follow and recreate. Similarly, you see businesses creating new, relevant content to showcase to their customers. This offers a much needed “We’re still here and in this together”.

People need reassurance that things will go back to how they were, which at the moment feels like years ago. They’d be happy to hear from their local shop or restaurant to see how things are going at the moment and see content which reconnects them with their favourite brands.

Appropriate Content

Ensure your content is tailored to your audience. What do they want to see? During this difficult time, you don’t want to offend people. So be sure to check content which is going out. Does your content have clear messaging? You want to get your message across and like we said before, people are seeing a lot of content on social media, so be sure to create unique content which will get higher user engagement.

Another great way to engage with your customers is through polls and questions. Social media platforms offer great tools for this. Find out what they’re doing and stay up to date with latest trends. Customers love when brands keep in touch and get involved. Twitter is great to spark up conversations. Just be sure to maintain your brand’s tone of voice.

Social media gives businesses a great platform to offer users advice and help during the crisis. Remember it doesn’t cost you anything, but it can save lives. Be sure to get involved and help people when you can.

Long Term Distractions

We don’t know how long this crisis will last. We can only hope that it doesn’t go on for too long and we can get back to our normal lives. However, people are already getting set up for the long run. A quick browse on social media and you’ll see the vast number of people watching TV shows and movies to past time. Netflix even took to Twitter to inform people of the number of seasons some binge-worthy shows had. So users could start a TV series, knowing they’ll be occupied for a long period.

People go on social media to get distracted. Comedy, positivity and light relief goes a long way in this current climate. If your brand can offer this to your customers, they’ll be sure to remember it. From videos to memes, brands create and post content which they find entertaining. 

Resuming to normal

When the crisis finally comes to an end. There will be a huge boom for brands all over the globe. However, your brand needs to stay connected and consistent on social media. This is the wrong time to take a break when the entire world is using social media. It is essential to maintaining your brand presence. You don’t want to fall behind your competitors.

Make sure you alter your approach to connect with your audience. You don’t want to be sending out irrelevant content with poor messaging. Not utilising social media platforms at a time like this, might lead to you playing catch-up once we resume to normal.

If you need content created for social media, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at hello@theiirthcompany.com.