26 Mar Best Social Media Marketing Tactics To Use During COVID-19

Are you looking for social media marketing tactics to help your brand through COVID-19?

Are you looking to stay top of mind to your target audience during this COVID-19 pandemic on your social media channels and feeds?

For small businesses, operating at a lower level or being temporarily closed could be the business’ livelihood at stake as they pivot to be more communicative online, through social media or digital marketing channels.

Many businesses are not able to offer products or services that you normally would in this time due to social distancing or being a non-essential business.

What if this goes on for the next months?

What if this pandemic impacts your business for the rest of the year?

For many, their businesses may not be able to stay operational for that for so long without bringing in new customers and catering to loyal fans.

When it comes to promoting your business through marketing channels through this pandemic, social media marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways to do communicate with your audience at this time.

I have compiled a list of social media marketing tactics to help your brand during these tough times.

Best Social Media Marketing Tactics For COVID

Sympathize With Your Audience

Understand where they are coming from and what they are dealing with. Some have lost their jobs, their careers, their business or maybe their ability to work. Others are just at home waiting for their company and the economy to come back. Postings about your top-level service may be off the table at this time, but showcasing essentials and the value you bring might be a better option.

Try Not To Showcase Anything that Defies Social Distancing

If you are posting a group photo on social, you better make it a throwback post saying things like ‘missing my team, staff, customers, etc.’ because if you are posting things that defy social distancing now, it might be plain insensitive. Instead, post content related to the situation at hand with the pandemic, make your audience aware that you know about the situation at hand, post good times with your team as a throwback and how you are video conferencing now.

Showcase Leadership

Now is the time to showcase action and response.

Showcasing the actions that your company is taking to listen, engage, and better the experience for your customers is very important. It could be to lower your prices, give options away for free to your customers for the next few months, offer different plans, offer proceeds to charitable causes, and start to outshine your competitors with how much you outgive to your customers, audiences and the people impacted the most.

Be generous during this time, if you can.

Pivot To Creating Entertaining, At-Home Content

Instead of showcasing non-essential content of products and services people can’t obtain right now (let’s say if your store is temporarily closed) showcase other types of content to entertain those who are at home. Audiences right now are craving entertaining content. They want an escape from boredom. It could be funny, informative, entertaining content that showcases a more personal side of your brand. Look up the top TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube videos in your niche for more inspiration.

Post About Ways You Are Helping Combat COVID

Purchase health masks and deliver to hospitals, deliver food to local food banks, retool your facilities to help or showcase that you are ordering take out from a local, independent restaurant to support the gig economy, all while leaving a big tip for the delivery staff.

If you are doing something special for your staff (bonuses, salary paid, support salary increases, etc.), talk about that. Support the front line, the essential businesses, the providers, local small business and those who are operating.

Post More About Your Health Protocols

Trust with people is at an all-time low right now.

When you go to stores that are a little more fast and loose with health protocols, you feel uneasy compared to ones that have stricter rules in place. Showcase that you understand the brevity of this pandemic and showcase that you are taking social distancing and sanitation aspects seriously.

Gaining trust now and post-COVID will be an important currency in our society for the rest of the year.

Show Your Plans For The Future

Now is to plan and be vocal about your plans for the post-COVID world. Showcase what’s coming up for your brand after this passes over. What people can look forward to. Book things for the fall, showcase what is coming down the pipeline, showcase the projects you are working on now, and get people excited for the future of working with you.

Highlight Your Staff Working From Home

Showcase how your staff has adapted to working from home, highlight creative working environments, how you communicate through your online conference call, how you stay engaged with your clients and staff, and stay productive. It’s a great way of showcasing company culture and togetherness during negative times like this.

Create Content That Helps The Pain Points Of Your Target Audience

See what pain points your customers are going through. Maybe it’s they are having trouble communicating with their team, the stores are closed, and they can’t buy what they want.

Maybe your customers are disorganized and not structured because things have been shifted only online. Be empathic towards their situations and create content that helps them ease that stress and frustration.

For example, if you are an events management team, you might be faced with a lot of cancellations. Weddings, corporate events, conferences, retreats are all canceled or postponed. Think about how it’s affecting your clients, it’s also affecting everyone else’s clients too. Showcase content that’s supportive to the clients and couples, by showcasing how you would handle this situation. Maybe talk to your audience about ‘what to do when you have to postpone your event’, ‘how to properly deal with deposits’, ‘how to make your postponed event better than before’ and even steps that you would take about notifying people, type of messaging, pivoting to a bigger and better idea later in the year and so on.

Create Content That Helps The Pain Points Of Your Target Audience

Now is the time to be open to adapting to change. Lots of changes are coming, even more than before. So you have to stay flexible with your content and be open and creative to new and even stricter situations.  One day you could be open, the next day you may not be operating in the same way. Be sure to keep your eye on the news and develop content according to the different waves of content and behaviors of your audience.

The Bottom Line

There are a lot of social media marketing tactics you can use to create content, share positive messages, be helpful and educate your target audiences during this unprecedented time. Just because you are temporarily shut down, does not mean the wheel has to stop. Inaction is one of the worse things you can do at this time. Social media marketing is about connecting with people, being helpful, being a part of a community and creating awareness about what you do. Now is the time to promote the positive things you do to an audience that’s hungry to listen to it while fighting boredom or being overwhelmed by their own selves. Creative content created can be an escape to people right now, just be cautious of the messaging you are putting out there. Don’t be insensitive, be helpful and be mindful of what people are going through.

For more information about COVID-19 and how to properly handle the outbreak, be sure to visit this source provided by the Government of Canada.

Remember, we need to help, we don’t need hard sells right now.

Read more stories by BenchMRK Social Media Agency in Toronto

• 20 Helpful Ways Your Business Can Adapt To COVID-19
• Adapting Our Social Media Marketing and Digital Services To COVID-19