How to utilise social media in the Coronavirus recovery phase

Ayse: Why should businesses put effort into social media now?

Duncan:

Social traffic has skyrocketed since we’ve been in lockdown. At the virus peak, Facebook usage was up by 70%. LinkedIn usage is currently down 23%, however as businesses start to enter the ‘recovery phase’ and start returning to business, we expect this to soar too.

These people are online looking for distractions and this is great opportunity to get ahead of your competitors and grow your presence online.

Customers and potential customers will be more open to connecting and communicating on social media as many of them will be working from home and will likely to continue to on and off over the next few months. They will be using Zoom, Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp, Facebook etc. to keep in touch with their friends, family and colleagues and so will be more open to ideas delivered to them in this digital / social format and appreciate the contact and information during their working day, without their colleagues.

As you begin to get back to business and look at where you are, you may need to grow 20-30% to standstill and achieve the same revenue you did last year. This means you need to increase your sales and get new customers in order to survive.

LinkedIn especially is a great tool to drive new business as it gives you an opportunity to find similar businesses to your best customers and approach them with your offering. You can also stay engaged with your clients and keep a close eye on your competition.

Ayse: So how can your business look to social media to take advantage of these changes?

Firstly, if you haven’t already, you need to update your online marketing strategy to reflect the current times. I wrote an article recently on refocusing your online marketing strategy in the recovery phase, which is a good place to start when thinking about social media too.

Duncan:

Strategy: When it comes to your social media strategy, it’s important to have a calendar of what you’re going to post and when. Then you need to ensure your team is aware of this so they can share and comment on the posts you are sharing on social media.

We have a lot of clients having daily or weekly team meetings online to stay in touch when working from home. It would be good, if you can, to include 10-15 minutes of this meeting to discuss upcoming posts, sharing on social media and any other interesting business-related posts or articles your business could have an angel on that you could share on social media.

Testing the water: I’m sure all of us have been reading A4G’s output since we started lockdown and they have covered numerous interesting and relevant topics. By doing this A4G have also gained a huge amount of information on what’s important to their clients and where to focus their messages, through their reach, comments and engagement numbers on their social media posts.

Every business can do this (you don’t have to do it to the extent A4G are!) and you will then know what really resonates with your clients and when it’s worth leveraging with some paid advertising.

Online advertising: As we move into a time with less direct contact with clients and potential clients, online advertising will become more relevant to push your business offering. LinkedIn has relaunched sponsored messaging which gives an opportunity to get your message out there in a business environment.

Currently social media usage is up, and advertising cost is down as we are obviously in a challenging business environment, but this balance will change going forward.

Assistance: Perhaps the most important takeaway point of this article: be the company that when clients look back in months and years to come, you’re the ones that were there for them and that they remember. Clients will remember businesses who went the extra mile during difficult times. What you do now, will be remembered for years to come.

You don’t need to dive headfirst into social media and build complicated strategies. Use this time to educate your clients, help them add value, support them during this time. And the easiest, quickest way you can do that, is by connecting via social media, sharing your own posts, sharing their content and so on.