3 Social Media Strategy Updates Your Brand Should Take In A Covid-19 World

The coronavirus crisis has set in motion several trends that are changing the business landscape and affecting companies’ social media strategy for better or worse.  In-store sales channels are limited as consumers shift to e-commerce and delivery to get the things they need. On the agency side, we’ve felt the bite too, as many clients review their retainers downward.

While these changes created new challenges, coronavirus also provides a steep but long overdue learning curve towards digital transformation. As a brand manager, here are some ideas to help you stay ahead of that curve in your brand marketing.

#1. Experiment with new forms of content.

It’s become anodyne, but content sadly is still king in a COVID-19 world.

Brands that tell emotive stories through fresh content formats are the ones that will command attention now. A spectacular example of brands using this strategy is Hanifa; a Congolese fashion brand that used 3D animated models to produce a virtual runway show to outdoor their new collection; the pink label. The virtual out-dooring became viral and subsequently led to a significant brand lift.

#2. Become an early adopter of new social media features.

For better or worse; the various social media platforms are aware of the drastic effects of Covid-19 and are actively rolling out new features to support your growth. An example is the support small businesses sticker that Facebook rolled out in April, which helped customers spotlight their favourite local businesses.

By jumping on new features early, you can leverage the social media platform in-house roll out strategy. Social media companies have been known to prioritize content that used their new features over those published with old regular ones.

LinkedIn algorithmically increased engagement on video and LinkedIn Live content when it launched the feature back in 2017. Reels has prime real estate on Instagram at the moment because Facebook is driving its adoption hard. You can never go wrong by jumping on this new feature early.

Work with your agency or your internal team to have a responsive content strategy. Finally, make sure you use one of these marketing frameworks to guide your approach.

#3. Encourage user-generated content.

Led by TikTok; user-generated content was the most prominent type of content while several countries were on lockdown. Pepsi had a good run in India with its “#swagstep” campaign.

In Ghana, we are currently curating user-generated content from our followers with the #SmileChallenge for one of our brands, and engagement has been off the charts.

This strategy is eternally excellent since it strengthens brand-consumer relationships and generates content which can be used on all social media platforms.

Finally, do not hesitate to discuss with your online marketing agency how to use the situation to your advantage, we have a ready-made list of questions to ask any agency here.

There you have it, some upgrades that will help keep you relevant on digital in a COVID-19 world. Which of these strategies will you be adding to your marketing roster?

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