During this incredibly difficult time of COVID-19, many businesses are trying to figure out what they can do online and how to stay relevant while they’re out of business or downsizing.
Social media is everyone’s lifeline to the outside world right now and it’s your lifeline to your customers.
Many businesses feel stuck on social media and don’t know where to start, so I wanted to share some examples of businesses I’ve seen that are pivoting, shifting, rolling with the punches, and finding success both monetarily and through brand awareness so you can use them when you think of which direction you’re going to go in.
- Gigglewaters Restaurant in Safety Harbor, FL.
Gigglewaters shows movies and has a dining room, but obviously both are out of the question right now. So what are they doing instead? Their brunch is legendary (I’m a little biased, I’ve been there), and so are their burgers (award-winning), so, like many restaurants, they’re offering takeout. They are also very involved in the community and their owner takes part in conversations in the local Facebook groups. Instead of just weekend brunch, they offer brunch EVERY DAY – with mimosas. They share photos of their incredible food (food is always great content), and every day at 4:30 p.m., they do a Facebook Live Happy Hour, where they show people how to mix a drink. Also, during this, their audience gets to know their owner and their staff. Facebook Lives double, triple and quadruples your page’s reach if you do them regularly and they’re great for consistent engagement! If you can do them daily, great, find yourself a topic to talk about every day, but if you can do them weekly at least that’s good too. It’s all about brand awareness and reach. One last thing that Gigglewaters has done is begin to help SERVE the community by delivering food to our community helpers like hospital workers and firefighters – and they’re also giving the community an opportunity to help by sponsoring a meal for them. So many people want to help and don’t know how, so this is a perfect opportunity. And also – these deliveries are great social content! They’re serving the community, staying relevant online, and when this is all over, people will remember that.
WATCH: Keeping small businesses in business during crisis, free webinar
2. In Georgia, Wes Sewell Photography decided to go out into his neighborhood and take photos of families’ quarantines (from a safe distance of course.) Even though this is a difficult time, it is unprecedented and will always be something we will remember. Sewell is making it memorable (in a good way) for families. One of the posts from one of the families got 6,000 likes! Talk about brand awareness! He said on his post, “I had so much fun taking these photos.” This is a great example of service. People remember this.
3. The Bushido Karate Academy in Pinellas Park. I originally saw this ad pass through my feed probably because I’m within 10 miles of that city, however, I looked through the comments to see if the ad was successful and they had almost completely booked up! And rightfully so, it’s four weeks of online karate classes for $1. It’s an amazing deal and it will help kids get their physical exercise, plus, and this is a huge plus, PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER THIS WHEN THIS IS ALL OVER. This was a great use of Facebook ads.
4. This is an example that I used when I gave a presentation on this topic: Whatever you’re doing to pivot as a business is very likely newsworthy. So let the news stations know! Two breweries in my area have stopped brewing beer and are filling massive need by making hand sanitizer instead. How can you help? How can you take what your business does and pivot or serve? What need can you fill or how can you comfort your customers who are full of fear? This story was a big deal to the news station and they put a reporter into it to do a story. When it ended up on the station’s social page, it had more than 2,000 shares, 8,000 reactions and hundreds of comments. PEOPLE WILL REMEMBER THIS.
5. Crayola created a campaign to chalk the walk with their sidewalk chalk and guess what?! It became a thing EVERYWHERE. #ChalkTheWalk was all over Facebook feeds with photos of sidewalks with inspiring, hopeful messages. This was a very simple and easy idea for them to talk about their product but also insert art and hope into communities everywhere. Great idea!
6. The Salon People had a brilliant post. Everyone is quarantined, which means roots are going to happen, people are going to need haircuts, and their post is using THEIR EXPERTISE to tell you what not to do. Don’t color it yourself, try new hairstyles, don’t go out and get face wax if you’re not used it (light plucking only for eyebrows!) This is valuable advice. Super simple execution on this.
Even though they’re not currently up and running, they’re talking about when they will be, and sharing things to do while you’re in between appointments. They’re the experts in their field, just like you are – so, what expertise can you offer your clients and customers from afar?
More importantly, how can you share it in a creative and social way, from a point of service and storytelling? What topics can you use to create content from?
Grab a piece of paper and answer these questions, let’s brainstorm:
- What are your stories?
- How did you get started in business?
- What are your most popular products?
- What are your most VISUAL products (sometimes weird products?)
- What problems can you help people solve?
- What precautions are you taking during this pandemic as a business? (Be transparent, let people know what safety precautions you’re taking and also let people know what’s happening with your employees step by step.)
- What topics in your clients’ lives bother them the most that’s related to your business? Can you do a Facebook live that addresses their concerns in a Q&A fashion, or do a live or video demo?
- What talents do you or your staff have that can bring smiles to your customers’ faces? (Do you play the guitar or the ukelele, or do you read children’s books? Happiness is a real need right now!)
- What can you do online – can you hold online yoga classes or workouts, cooking demos, a demo sewing masks perhaps or making homemade sanitizer? Can you show people how to take off that difficult to remove nail polish since no one is getting manicures? Subsequently, how can people pamper themselves at home?
- What are your good deeds in the neighborhood and how are you helping in this time of crisis? This makes for great pictures and videos that your customers and clients would love to see!
- Who are your employees, and what are their backstories? Can you profile them? This gives people a way to care about your business and staff and therefore want to support it.
People LOVE STORIES.
So: keep the camera handy. Take photos of your community, your business, your beautiful products, capture moments that resonate with people.
Take videos and plan out Facebook Lives on relevant topics.
Write stories that go along with your photos so you can bond with your clients and customers.
Once you plan out what could be good content, figure out a plan to execute it and put it together. Then, you can schedule it out ahead of time using Facebook’s built in scheduling tools in Creator Studio (under Publishing Tools.)
I’ll have more on “batching content” soon. That’s when you do multiple posts in a day but you don’t post them all at once, you spread them out.
Please message me if you have questions!
Right now, I’m offering a free 30 minute call to any business who needs ideas for their social content during this time. Email me at christie@christieo.com.