How do you conduct a marketing or social media campaign through such worrying and uncertain times? How can you post and advertise with purpose and yet empathy to people when literally every person on the planet has felt the effect of the crisis in some way? Do you promote or advertise at all? Should you change your social media personality? Do you drop the comedic posts? So many questions and clearly there isn’t one true or right answer?

We have gone through a period of reassessing so many elements of the business, with particular focus on social media. Our concerns about our social media campaigns during the current world crisis even pushed us to conduct weekly surveys on twitter about businesses and social media activity. These go out every Wednesday and are live until Friday afternoon for now, in case you are interested.

The results to date have been interesting to say the least. We didn’t promote the poll tweets, but we included hashtags and decided to just put them out there as an experiment. Some answered. Most didn’t! Of those that did however, it was found that in general people and businesses are posting and advertising are far less and in some cases have stopped entirely. If you have a business that is still operational, how do you go about promoting and posting in an ethical and understanding way. I think most have achieved a good balance and from what I can tell it boils down to a number of things.

1. Clearly state your current state of affairs.

Online will obviously be the first port of call for a customer and your social media will very likely be the first place they check in order to see if you are operational and are offering services, or any online alternatives. Clearly state that you are in operation, if you are, and how you are conducting business.

2. Tell people what you’re doing to change and to help, with emphasis on help

Don’t pitch or sell, offer help and empathy. How can you or your business help in these times? What are you offering? How can you make it easier for your customer? People are feeling abandoned, isolated, confused and vulnerable. Make it easy for them to get what they are looking for. Your business may have been a constant comfort for someone up to now. Reassure them that you are doing everything you can to bring that same comfort during these uncertain times if at all possible.

3. Your social media tone should remain largely the same, but be aware of jokes etc.

If you have established a certain social media persona, then I would say stick with that. It’s jarring for a person to see social media posting that is at odds with what they are familiar with or used to from your brand or business. It might be an idea however to tone down the comedy or constant joke gifs. People will have enough of those through WhatsApp. This doesn’t mean you change completely. Just be very aware of customer feelings and national and international news trends etc. Be sensitive and read the room.

For more advice on social media check this out.

If there is anything we can help with or if you require any advice about any online aspect of your business, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.