To prepare for the pandemic, traditional intelligence and planning is not enough to improve your social media management and marketing. Organizations in the middle of economic crisis are facing immense challenges to improve their strategies regarding social media conversions; Corona virus is impacting many aspects of business in addition to SEO and SMM. Today’s business environment is integrated with technology; however, Coronavirus pandemic poses a great risk of losing too many customers due to a specific product or service. Depending on the widespread global spread of the virus, the impact on SMM professional businesses can be negative as well.

The history reveals that in 1928’s pandemic of influenza, almost one third of the world’s population was expected with 50 million deaths. However, after a century, medical technology and therapies have significantly improved with effective information exchange mechanisms to improve public health. Now social media platforms can be utilized to optimally support the emergency response and increase resilience.

Understanding the Role of Social Media and Pandemic of COVID-19

Some companies may have a viewpoint of investing less in pandemic management capabilities. Moreover, cyber criminals can also be more active and targeting the companies who are managing the affected citizens. There are many differences between business disruptions caused by natural disasters and events compared to this pandemic. The differences occur due to increased losses, severity, and duration of Coronavirus which increase the need for global firms to expand their strategies beyond original resilience.

So the key question is how you can manage your Facebook or Instagram platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic because such times call for immediate adjustments to your online advertising methods. Let us provide you the six strategies for running Facebook and Instagram ads during the COVID crisis more efficiently.

Things you should know for Social Media Marketing

During Coronavirus pandemic, you need to know the key things which can help you boost your social media campaigns and planning. Because things are changing day by day, you job is to remain sensitive to changes and plan things wisely.

• Engagement is down due to less face to face meetings. Brands and industries are not able to connect thoughtfully with their followers. Twitter engagement has also declined to half; things are bad for Facebook and Instagram as well. People are turning to more Twitter news however because they need more updates every day. It is time to redesign your strategy about Facebook and Instagram which depend on heavy algorithms because they can help you connect with customers easily.
• The best thing you can do right now is to stay calm and mindful. The advice is good for both social media marketers and conventional marketers. Focus on some positive ways t oboist your brand engagement. That includes posting the relevant and thoughtful content on social media.

Now let us guide you through how to accomplish these goals and get a chance to increase your Instagram followers.

1: Extend your High Performing Ads and Stay Consistent

Due to the pandemic and other challenges, Facebook staff has also reduced tremendously in offices. The CEO announced that due to absence of key staff, there can be changes and delays which call for the resilient efforts on the part of the company. The company is increasing its reliance on the automated systems instead of physical human beings to get the work done. But how does that affect your ads strategy?

The above situation dictates that when an advertiser submits a new ad or edit them on Facebook, a new review policy will be applied to the ad whether you have changed copy, images, or headlines etc. you need to avoid disruption of your ad, Facebook recommends that brands extend the delivery period of their best performing ads, as new campaigns will be subject to a new review. Therefore, the vital strategy is t extend your high performing ads and stay consistent on Facebook.

2: Increase your Brand Awareness with your Audience

Since more consumers are searching their products at home, we are likely to see consumers browsing their products from online platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. Many people are just passing time and can happen to land on your ad or home page. Luckily for you, this can affect your rankings and conversions if you plan to put a solid brand awareness strategy on the social media platforms to better inform your audience.

With more impressions and shift in the competition, your CPM is likely to reduce. In this case, you can increase your budget on Facebook and Instagram because according to WordStream post, a decrease of 12.7% has been observed in one month since the global spread of pandemic. You need to watch your Facebook account statistics and how they are evolving over the weeks. If you are planning to post more ads in advance, this is the best time because people will bib looking for the content to consume.

The bottom line is that your content should revolve around the value of your services or products and how it will benefit people in the real world. Then they will be ready and happy to purchase whatever you are offering them. Be sure that you create content to keep your audience engaged with the latest news about your business and highlight how they can help you during these times. Focus on the following business activities during the pandemic days:

• Shopping online during a promotional sale.
• Writing positive online reviews
• Shopping with smart phones
• Ordering delivery pickup

3: Build your Strong Email List to Find New Leads

If your business is service based, online and other local businesses are already taking advantage of email marketing to boost their sales. You should send emails to your prospective clients to help them keep unformatted and engaged with up to date newsletters. You should shift your strategy to email marketing because this is the best time to focus on people online; email marketing strategy can get you new leads in less than a month in addition to Facebook ad campaign.

For example, if you are social media marketing and graphics design company, then you can do a great job by prompting a 30 day challenge for your audience. You can raise audience’s interest to subscribe to your challenge. On the other hand, if you are selling physical products or even software, you can have your audience subscribe to your newsletter to let them know about the upcoming events and promotions.

4: Plan your Remarketing Campaigns

A Search Engine Journal post reveals that almost 75% prospective clients will abandon your site without signing up for your services or buying your products. However, during the time of pandemic, now it is a good opportunity for you to tap into increased browsing attitude of people and to re-engage with the previous website visitors to get them visits your site again.

For achieving that, you can send them your incentive such as a free e-book to browse social media platforms effectively or special promos. This is true for those businesses that are experiencing high traffic in the days of pandemic such as home based IT companies and graphic designers.

In addition to website visitors, you can also drive new potential leads and sales by testing engagement custom audiences. This includes doing remarketing for those users who have already liked your posts on social media and Instagram business pages. You can remarket to people who have been watching your Facebook videos or have filled a lead form. For getting better engagement results, you need to get more relevant to your niche and segment your audience as much as possible.

5: Test New Audiences and Ads

If you are lately thinking of creating new ads and testing your audience with a new perspective, then it is the best time to implement that thought. If your business has closed down or near the end of shutting down, now is the best time to test a new creative ad and gather audience information to make your future campaigns more effective.

You can consider creating a new set of ads for a brand new set of audience instead of updating an existing add That will help you better understand the new audiences and will give an opportunity to test an already better performing ad on social media. You can easily compare the results with the past results of an ad on Facebook or Instagram that has performed well for the business.

A more professional tip is to that you can test one element at a time for more accurate analysis. For example, if you have created new social media images, you should keep the same headlines in the content or ad copy and watch the ad performance for a couple of days. You can try to test some more things in addition to a new ad image such as headlines and CTAs, landing pages, design, and videos.

6: Use Live Features of Instagram and Facebook

The local businesses are hunting clients with a serious urge to remain profitable. We also suggest you to modify your business plan according to the situation to offer more services online. It is always possible to get in touch with your prospective customers online with Facebook and Instagram live features.

Live video is awesome when you need to connect with your existing customers on the Internet. It offers a genuine and direct method to exchange the information with your clients. Effective video marketing can already work wonders to improve your conversions, so why not try Facebook and Instagram live video that will help you to receive 3 times better engagement prospects.

It is simple as one plus one, you can grab your Smartphone and start engaging with your clients on Facebook or Instagram. People who are sitting in isolation will always be cheerful to talk to you live instead of face to face meetings. Because it is not a physical contact, the current Facebook live solution will offer more interaction and craving for audience. Moreover, answer client’s questions in the real video and webinars will keep them updated about your latest business happenings and progresses.

Operating a successful live event is also not difficult; just make sure that your Facebook broadcast is reaching people with a good camera and high quality resolution. The microphone should be in working condition; you should also learn to face the camera in order to create a good impression on your audience. Therefore, the real benefit of live stream is to offer a real and genuine reflection of your business to the consumers.

7: Promote yourself Tastefully

Promoting your business in Instagram is entraining, while you need to do things carefully during the pandemic days. There are two ways of approaching this:

• Incorporate a few posts on Instagram that are specific to your business or niche. The posts should talk tastefully about your brand and business mission. Tell readers that you are proud of the services you sell.
• Even if you are stuck at home and working virtually, many people are still planning a doping to shop outside in the near future. Show people what value you can add for them during the pandemic and offer them a roadmap what they can do after the pandemic.
• Try to become a source for everyone online who needs some extra help to save their business or rank their website.
• Use emotions in your language in each integral post. While emotions are good source to offer empathy to customers, put some thoughts into your posts that help them to share the content with their loved ones. For example, you can say “we all have problem due to pandemic, but your company is trying best new technologies to face pandemic”.

8: Share more Positivity on Instagram and Facebook

Ever since the global pandemic began and people are getting locked in their homes, everyone is trying to say positive things and hoping for a better future ahead. As a social media professional, you are constantly in tough with various platforms which can help people modify their thoughts and become more positive in the turbulent times. People don’t want to keep reading and listening the same things again, you need to write some happy and hopeful content that spreads good news for the people.

Now is the best time to help people become happy and do wonderful things for their business and future. Sharing positivity shows that you are really optimistic about grooming yourself and other people to make a positive difference in the world. People need to feel hope, courage, and dignity. They still need a reason to smile after seeing so many deaths and sick people around. So as long as you set the right tone for boosting their mood, they can surely feel better in the difficult time.

9: Plan for the Long Time Game

Instead of short-term planning regarding your Facebook or Instagram strategy, you need to keep your eyes on the future. Because COVID-19 pandemic is forcing many businesses to cut their costs and stick with a low budget, marketing should be the last thing to remove funding for you. Because social media is vital for cultivating the voice of your brand, therefore, when you remove marketing from your budget, you are cutting your brand message off and stopping it from reaching a far wider audience.

Now people need to know about your specific brand more than ever, they need to know someone is there who they can depend on. On the social media, you can play a long-term strategy effectively by investing in ads and engage more community while others are cutting their costs. This will make sure that your business could stand takes a down turn again.

10: Know and increase your Value

During the difficult times, the marketing and digital gurus are under immense pressure because they need to prove their value and show customers their worth in the real-time. If you are a startup or a small company, then you need to prove your value to the customers. A recent Sprout post reveals that 70% of marketers are not even aware of their true value.

This shows that most of the marketers including SMM professionals cannot prove their worth to the audience. It does not rank your work higher; you need to rethink your reporting and tracking methods to ensure that you are using up to date strategies. Track your campaigns more effectively by using technology; track social media activities daily during the pandemic to improve your brand value and create awareness for the customers. When you create more engagement, it can lead to more conversions and traffic. Therefore, the best strategy is to set social media benchmarks and program KPIs to show your value to prospective clients.

The Bottom Line

Facebook and Instagram are the place of discovery for millions of people. Especially, Instgram is linking so much with the commerce industry because people are just pushing products and telling people where they are. However, during the time of social isolation or quarantine, this strategy might not work the best. No one is going to go outside and visit you at your office address mentioned on Instagram or Facebook. During the time of economic uncertainty and frustration, your agenda should be creating positive mindset for the potential clients and show them a way for the future to accomplish their goals. You can utilize the power of social media posts to be more empathetic with your customers and use different strategies like email marketing to introduce your brand positively. Taking your approach to next level during pandemic can surely make a difference to your business.

www.seo.ae is your most trusted Social Media Marketing service provider in the UAE. Our service in Dubai and rest of the region is specialized on boosting social media presence for all target brands. Check out our Digital Marketing service and make the most of your online business even in these worst times of pandemic.