Pandemic Social Media Strategy Cheatsheet

We’ve officially entered uncharted territory with COVID-19 fully rearing its head into our nation’s economy and the public’s physical and emotional health. It’s unlike any natural disaster in that it’s not anything that we can see, touch, or feel. As we’ve been bracing ourselves and reacting to our government’s rapidly changing recommendations and mandates in an effort to flatten the curve of infection, we took some time to write a quick cheat sheet for small business owners, social media managers, and the like to use as a reference when planning and posting social media content in the coming days, weeks and possibly, even months that we’re required to self-isolate.

Review, revise, and reschedule all upcoming content.

You’ll want to immediately review any upcoming campaigns, promos, and scheduled content that may come off insensitive or ignorant to the current state of our country. That would include visual assets, graphics and the tone of your copy: if they’re in celebration of any upcoming holidays, we’d recommend reviewing and modifying the content as necessary to ensure that it doesn’t offend or suggest any actions that may appear contradictory to current mandates.

Establish a dedicated support contact to manage incoming messages.

There’s an overwhelming influx of information coming from the national, state, county and city levels regarding updates to requests, guidelines, and mandates, which has been leading to a lot of misinformation and confusion. With these rapidly changing requirements, the best way to mitigate any confusion or misinformation is to establish a dedicated contact to respond to these incoming inquiries in a calm, informative and timely manner.

For example — just last Tuesday, Los Angeles required the closure of all bars, movie theaters, and gyms, which led to Santa Barbara residents believing that that mandate might also have been applied to their county as well. The closure of gyms didn’t become a requirement until the next day — Wednesday afternoon, to be exact.

Remain active on social media.

With the majority of the country being called to stay home, more people than ever before will be glued to their phones to remain abreast of the status of the Coronavirus, as well as to have a distraction from the panic and uncertainty of this current time. Therefore, right now is a great opportunity for your business to remain top-of-mind and to even potentially capture the attention of individuals who’ve heard of you but still haven’t purchased from you yet. Not to mention, if you were among the countless number of other businesses who sent an email blast to their entire list about measures they’re taking in light of COVID-19, chances are that your email became lost in the frenzy of other Coronavirus-related communications. Social media is another great way to disseminate important information in bite-sized pieces.

Here are some post ideas you can use to mix things up online:

• Share real-time, honest updates with your business.

  With the rapidly changing nature of the pandemic and the laws that are consistently being rolled out on a daily basis, people are relying on social media to find out what businesses are still even OPEN for business. If a potential customer is seeking Thai food and your competitor has left its social media idle for years, that customer will continue its search online until it finds a restaurant that’s providing the immediate information they’re looking for.
  
  This time is also a great opportunity to foster a greater sense of investment in your business by sharing honest, behind-the-scenes updates of your business from the owner themself. Social media is truly just a facilitator for in-person connection and relationships, and nothing will ever change the fact that people will be much more receptive to faces and personal stories. An easy way to get started with this is to share social media posts as journal entries written in the first-person, recounting your day, emotions and needs/hopes for the coming day.
  
  

• Give people ideas of ways to support you.

  Being based in Santa Barbara, we’re seeing incredible organic local community support towards spending money on small businesses that are trying as best as possible to keep their employees on payroll. An easy and practical way to support consistent cash flow is to give people ideas of ways to support you. Some great ways you can ask for help are to ask customers to:

  • Purchase gift cards

  • Purchase a special offer/package

  • Leave a positive review on Yelp, Google My Business, Facebook, etc.

  • Spread the word about your business on social media by:

    • Resharing your post on Facebook or Instagram Stories

    • Tagging their friends in the comments of a social media post requesting help
      
      

• Educate, inspire, and entertain in the spirit of hope and positivity.

  Just because it’s a scary and uncertain time in our nation’s history doesn’t mean that the rest of your marketing has to play to the same fear-driven tune. In fact, once you’ve shared your brand’s PSA on social media about certain steps and precautions you’re taking, you can share creative assets of your brand, products or services and adapt the copy in such a way to provide solutions, educate, inspire, or crack a few laughs. As for making jokes, we wouldn’t recommend it unless you TRULY know your audience, it aligns with your brand persona, and have a history of using humor in your brand communications.

Finally, take it day by day.

We’re all on this crazy ride together, and figuring things out one step at a time as the state of the pandemic and the country’s laws continue to change. If you’re in need of any advice or assistance, we’d be happy to help. Send us an email at hello@robeandsignet.com or get in touch via our contact page.