The Dos and Don’ts of Social Media in Times of Crisis

We are living an incredibly challenging new reality as this COVID-19 Pandemic moves across the world and the US.

We are overwhelmed and trying to navigate the changes this Pandemic and social distancing bring us. Homeschooling our kids, adapting to cancelled projects and travel, loss of work or income, working from home or taking safety measures for those who can't do that.

Our social media audiences are also feeling sensitive and vulnerable, so as businesses we need to be careful not to sound tone deaf or misinformed.

Here are our do’s and don’ts on social media during this time.

DO THIS:

1. Communicate with your team. First and foremost, if you're part of a team, check in with your supervisor or communicate with your teams to make sure everyone is on the same page on the strategy you will adopt.

2. Focus on your audience. Use this time to build trust and grow your audience. Offer helpful resources, freebies, an ear to hear what they have to say or need.

3. Let them hear your voice. Respond to DMs with voice memos. As people are in isolation it's nice to hear someone's voice, plus it's a lot faster.

4. Check on your audience. Ask how everyone is feeling, if they need help, if they have tips to share with the rest of us.

5. Host Instagram lives. Many people will be feeling lonely and seeing and hearing you live (and maybe even be able to join you on screen) will be a welcome surprise. If you need some tips to do a live with guests, click here.

6. Reuse content. Reuse old high performing posts so you don't have to worry about creating new content (and don't worry, it's best practice to use your content more than once).

7. Take a break. Schedule your posts and take a break from social media if you feel the need to do so. You need to take care of Yourself and your family.

8. Sell your regular services and products. Life goes on, and your business does too. So unless people need to leave the house to do business with you, it's okay to continue promoting your business.

9. Review any scheduled posts. Make sure use unschedule posts who aren't appropriate at this moment and save them for once things are back to normal.

DON’T DO THIS:

1. Give COVID-19 updates. Of course it's okay to mention the pandemic, it doesn't need to be the elephant in the room. But make sure you do not add to the noise, or worse, help spread misinformation. Leave updates to the authorities and journalists.

2. Email your audience about your contingency plan, unless it affects them. If you've paid attention to your inbox lately, you probably know every single business is emailing their lists about their plans re: COVID-19. While some businesses need to do so (airlines, for example), if only a handful of people will be affected by your new plan, it's best to email them directly. Let's be respectful with your audience's time.

3. Post happy go lucky posts on social. While Instagram is a place for entertainment, you should be more careful at this time (and during any other crises, disaster or tragedy of a certain magnitude). Use your best judgement to make sure you're not sounding tone deaf and insensitive.

4. Take advantage of the situation. This is my biggest no-no. This is not the time to show off, play victim (most likely there are people in your audience way worse than you) or profit from the crisis. It's time to be humble and to serve your audience.

5. Push your audience to spend money in expensive things they don’t need. This will also depend on your business and audience. But be sensitive to the uncertainty people are feeling and reconsider dates or tone of your promotions and launches, especially if your business is a luxury.

6. Lose focus. This is important specially if you are a business owner doing your own social. You may be feeling stressed out, angry at some behaviors of your friends and politicians. While I am a big proponent of expressing your values and opinions as a business here and there, make sure your account doesn't become a place for negativity and rants. We are all getting enough of that in our personal Facebook feeds.

If you have any questions, reach out to me and ask! Remember we’re all in this together, remotely!

Stay safe,

Manu,

founder of Your Social Team