5 Ways Social Media Can Support Your Business in a Crisis
Where can you focus your efforts when the economic climate makes it harder to drive sales? If your customers aren’t buying right now, you can put yourself in a far better position post-crisis by using social media to foster your relationships, create long term loyalty, and build brand equity.
As social distancing is making us all feel increasingly isolated, all eyeballs are on social media, and there is a huge opportunity for you to give back to your customers by facilitating connection, trust, and authenticity.
So why should you invest time in social media when a crisis is unfolding? Because it can futureproof your business and more.
1. Social Media Captivates Customers
A picture tells a thousand words. An insightful article shows that you’re a master of your discipline. A live webinar shows that you care.
Any time you click on a paid social ad, you also expect to be taken to a business with a compelling backstory and value proposition. Anything less than that feels disappointing.
You always do our research online before purchasing and you can expect the same of your customers. Use social media to tell your brand story, make a memorable impression, build relationships, create an emotional connection, and boost your validity.
2. Social Listening Tools Allow You to Care For (And Retain) Your Customers
It’s hard to know how to communicate with your customers in a time of crisis. Think about how your customer’s priorities have shifted, and how you can help them with your content and business offering.
Social listening tools can help you to tap into consumer sentiment, gauge what your community is engaging with, and develop an effective response strategy.
Listening tools can give insight into how customers feel about your brand and your competitors. These insights can also feed into your wider marketing and communications strategy, while also allowing you to provide better customer service.
By listening to and weighing in on your follower’s conversations, you will also show that your business has its finger on the pulse. Helpful and authentic customer care is incredibly important as it increases customer retention, and ultimately your bottom line.
3. Social Media Gives You the Power to Influence
Social media gives you the opportunity to show who you are, not just what you sell. With a range of rich media formats, you can push the boundaries of creativity, explore your brand voice, and engage your audience when your business needs to make a quick pivot.
We saw one of our own clients shift their 3-day conference to a completely virtual event in a matter of days. Our retailers have announced store closures with humility and others are offering extensive online customer service options.
4. Social Media Creates Brand Awareness
Building your social media presence and driving brand awareness go hand in hand.
Although consumer intent currently remains, many decisions are being deferred. While there’s not a lot any of us can do right now, we’re still planning and dreaming of a brighter future.
It might be tricky to drive sales now, but it’s always a good time to focus on creating brand awareness and engagement. You can shift from encouraging people to ‘swipe up to shop’ or ‘click the link in your bio’ to providing educational, meaningful, and engaging content.
Doing this will equate to longer-term loyalty and customer satisfaction.
5. Social Media Engagement Can Help Drive Sales and Leads
You can also remarket to customers who have engaged with your socials and visited your website. So, when opportunity allows you to focus on sales activity, you can remarket to all the customers who have already warmed up to your brand.
Customers have become highly accustomed to the concept of social selling, but can smell opportunistic brands from a mile away, so be sure to make your content authentic!