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While coronavirus restrictions are slowly getting lifted in all countries, significant trends have been observed in social media usage during COVID-19. There has been an increase of more than 10% in social media usage in the past year. On average, more than 1 million people started using social media each day over the past 12 months, which means there are almost 12 new users every second on the internet. Social media is used by more than half of the world population now.

Impact of social media on your business

Social media can impact your business significantly. It has completely transformed the relationship between brands and consumers. It helps in developing relationships with your prospects and customers. Effective social media marketing can be a significant source of traffic, leads and revenue for your business..

Social media promotes visibility and aids brand recall and loyalty. According to research, 66% of users between 18-24 years of age are more loyal to brands they follow on social media. One of the key aspects of  Brand loyalty is service and social.media can be used to provide excellent customer service. We all have seen customers posting their queries on social media. Customers nowadays prefer posting their questions on social media rather than talking to a customer service provider over the phone.

Benefits of Social Media

Using social media for business has many advantages. 

• It helps you better understand your customers by providing you with a platform to interact with them.
• Allows you to respond to grievances and questions instantly,
• It is a cost-efficient way to promote and market your products.
• It helps you get an insight into changing preferences and lifestyles so that you can adapt product and marketing strategies accordingly.
• It helps you create brand awareness.
• It enables you to convert potential customers to actual customers.

Social Media as COVID goes away

Your social media marketing strategy and social media management can be crucial for your business in such testing times.

• There was a 70% increase in the usage of all Facebook apps in march.
• 43% of social media users said they used Instagram more while confined in their homes.
• News consumption through social media increased by 9% between January and April.

This data clearly indicates that now is the most crucial strategic time to implement well thought out social media marketing strategy for businesses.. You need to strengthen your relationship in areas where consumers are spending most of their time. By understanding the target audience, developing mindful communication, and elevating your communication strategy, your brand can reach consumers in an impactful way.

This is the right time for you to show your consumers that you listen to them and seriously acknowledge the situation. Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, Coca Cola are some of the top brands that have received positive sentiments from their consumers through goodwill during COVID times. Helping the community can build your online reputation.

Tips and Tricks

A few tips and tricks for effective social media management

• Adopt a tone consistent with current times: your communication style should neither be too bold nor too subtle. It would be best if you didn’t sound too cheerful or humoristic nor too intense or dramatic. Use a tone that infuses positivity in people, rather than irking them. Also, remember that situation is continuously evolving. So, your style of communication should be up to date with the changing situation.
• Use your social media platform to educate people about the current situation: people have been using social media to communicate for a long time. Using your digital communication as an educational platform and infusing brand values in your communication can en excellent social content strategy. Avoid avoid fake / unverified information, as it can tarnish your brand image.
• Don’t try to speculate the current situation for gaining profit: do not speculate with sentiments for profit. You can use social media to inform your consumers how your product / services or any 3rd party services can be useful during the COVID pandemic or how you are contributing to the community in these difficult times.
• Use real-time marketing: real-time marketing means utilizing the current trends to create content for your social media platforms. It can be a very successful strategy for your digital communication and marketing. However, remember to use a sensitive tone of voice. Otherwise, you will end up ruining your brand reputation, which will be very hard to recover from. For example, the American brand Nike exploited the current trends to spread awareness positively. After the coronavirus outbreak, Nike’s motto was “Play inside, play for the world.” This was a great marketing strategy.

• Be creative in your communications: creativity is the most potent weapon for communication. While staying at home, people get exposed to many brand campaigns. Hence, you need creativity to make your brand stand out from rest and impact consumers’ minds. Some brands in the travel industry heavily affected by coronavirus came up with really creative campaigns. Using innovative personal branding strategies can give you an edge over your competitors.
• Post content consistent with current health guidelines: your content should not promote things that violate current health guidelines.
• Shift your focus to the digital world: most businesses are closed due to Covid-19 or have recently opened with a very low footfall. At this time, you can start working online, to take your business to far off places.
• Make a positive atmosphere: create a lively atmosphere with your marketing campaign by spreading a message of hope and positivity.
• Don’t spread fake news: you should avoid spreading fake news at such times. Make sure your content is authentic and gives truthful information. Social media communication should never be used to spread lies.
• Be ready to adapt to changing situations: always remember that the conditions are continually changing. Hence, your communication should be consistent with the current situation.
• If you are a small business then you can take the help of a digital marketing expert to help you with strategy and planning and do the rest inhouse. If you have a growing business and find it difficult to manage all social campaigns inhouse then you are better off by hiring a professional social media agency.

Our best wishes for a successful business marketing campaign. We will your business growth as we emerge from the shadow of the pandemic..