SOCIAL MEDIA SOUL SEARCHING DURING THE PANDEMIC

What’s your new pandemic-era social media routine?
We’ve-always-done-it-that-way might have worked fairly well up to this point. But we're now working in unprecedented times.

If you’ve spent hectic pre-pandemic workdays engaging daily with users via social media, it’s understandable that your team might have neglected each social media channel’s style, foundational information and metrics.

Government-mandated closings and social distancing have temporarily driven away customers from your physical locations. But these situations have also increased traffic to websites and social media channels. They have also provided a chance to re-train yourself and your team, consult with experts to sharpen skills, and elevate your commitment to defining the engagement experience on your social channels.

Here are a couple of ways to look at the new landscape and learn from it.

Are you automatic?

While automated processes and procedures are cost-effective and easy, have you ever received a SPAM email or seen a television commercial that is completely unrelated to current developments? Now is not the time to turn on automated messages and just let things run. Looking out of touch now, will not help your organization in the long run. The challenge is how can you create blocks of content that can be turned around at a moment’s notice and that are actually ‘dressed appropriately" for the current events? It's important to continue planning your daily content, but also plan content sets that can easily be refreshed in the moment and still fit with your general awareness campaigns. Be sure that you are communicating "our brand has been, is and will continue to be here for you" in multiple ways.

Deep cleaning.

Are there tasks that you never had time for? How might you tweak or refresh your social media channels for a post-coronavirus world? Use this time to do the following:

• Create a proper marketing calendar
• Re-design or punch up the 'About' information on each social media channel
• Write and schedule post content with a strong perspective
• Think of how you might use alternate media (videos, slideshows, etc.) more effectively
• Review each channel’s metrics, match them with website metrics and think of ways that they can become more valuable in communicating with your clients

What do your followers look like after COVID-19?

People laid-off, let go or even threatened by lowered employment or business prospects tend to have a new perspective on things. There is nothing like seeing your prospects through the clarity of employment upheaval and financial uncertainty. Experiencing the fragility of services, routines and processes will galvanize people toward education, training and pre-planning. It will be rare to find those who don’t have a significant story of lessons learned from this experience. Remember that this customer base will be interacting with your social media content after the pandemic concludes. Keep this in mind when selecting and developing imaging and messaging.

What does your post COVID-19 story look like?

People will now read mission statements and policy briefs in the context of the ‘new normal.’ Your customers will distinctly remember what you were doing when things were desperate, and they will remember what you might have neglected to do. More importantly, how you and your organization conducted itself in a time of turmoil will be remembered. Be prepared to share examples from your team and your organization that showed your compassion and integrity during unprecedented times to assure your customers that you were tuned in and not turned off.

Is your preparation perfect? Is your response?

Your preparation is not just to stockpile messaging but to test your flexibility during the upheaval. ‘That was not supposed to happen.’ ‘We didn’t train for that.’ Exactly. Work on your customer response inventory (you should be revising this critical document on a weekly basis).

Thank people when the health crisis concludes.

Your disaster procedure did not deploy itself. People made it work and people made human connections along the way. Be grateful for the ingenuity, patience, persistence and sacrifice of people who represent your brand and every connection they make with your customers. Repeat that statement for the users on your brand’s social media channels - be grateful for the ingenuity, patience, persistence and sacrifice of people who engage with your brand. Gratitude is healthy, level-setting and sustaining. Acknowledge the health crisis and prepare post COVID-19 messaging for your users.

The current health crisis is a watermark for workflow, style and messaging on your brand’s social media channels. Stay healthy and work hard to make significant gains during this unique time period that will position you and your customers for whatever comes next.