And we’re not just saying that.

For 2020, online traffic was 24% higher than it is now for the same month. Daily use of social media increased for 4 in 10 internet users globally, and apps that prioritised video and audio saw a marked jump in their popularity. 

With a sizable portion of the world’s consumers captive, it should have been a golden era for brand communication. 

The reality was different. 

Brands did capitalise on the benefits of having an audience that couldn’t escape advertising – but it didn’t always work out. They had to tread carefully to make sure that the audience they were speaking to didn’t turn away from the ads they’d taken time to put together; that those ads struck home, and turned into profit. 

A year ago, we wrote our eBook on how brands could do that (psst! it’s free – take a look!). 

A year later, we’re taking a look at what we wrote and seeing how it’s changed. 

Social Media: General

In 2020, we finished off our social media chapter with the following tips: 

1. Your tone needs to be relevant to the situation – show empathy and awareness.
2. Get creative. Look for alternative ways to create value for your customers, to support and educate them, whether it’s about your industry or the current situation.
3. Quality over quantity – don’t let your brand speak because it wants to say something. Your brand need only speak when it actually has something to say. 
4. Be relevant but not necessarily by speaking about the current situation. Everyone else is doing that. Be empathetic but also original. 
5. Engage with your audience by asking for direct feedback. Uncertain times are no time for broadcasts, they are times for active conversation.

In 2021, we say: 

The more we get into the days after the initial pandemic panic, the more we’re starting to see that COVID-19 didn’t exactly break the mold on communicating and advertising: it just brought to light what we always knew all along. 

The tips that we wrote in 2020 hold value today, they’ll hold value tomorrow, and they’ll hold value a hundred years from now. 

People are obsessed with social media. 

It’s where they go, whether it’s to look for news, follow their favourite celebrity, or dig up something to form an opinion on. For brands, this is a good thing: an audience on social media is an audience you can track, analyse, and monetise. 

But you need to know how to hold onto that audience first. 

And to hold onto that audience, you need to be human. Your social media needs to be human. Your brand needs to be human. 

You need to be human. 

Social Media: Strategies

In 2020, we wrote: 

Should I change my social media strategy? Yes, but let’s pick that apart. Firstly, no matter what product you’re selling, you should definitely take the time to look through your editorial calendar for the next few months, and make sure that your subject matter is constantly realigned with current realities and that there is empathy and compassion in your tone going forward. Anything that might sound tonedeaf can and will bring you the backlash that you definitely don’t need at this time. 

In 2021, we’re saying: 

That still holds true. You need an editorial calendar to make the most of social media – it’s not a ‘post something off the top of your head’ kind of medium any more. Social media takes planning, careful analysis, and tweaking to make it profitable and successful. Are there brands that get away with no planning? Sure. But the chances of you being one of those brands are small and growing smaller as a fed-up population uses their tiny amount of power where it matters most – on brands. 

As for if you should change your social media strategy – is it working for you? Are you happy with the way your socials are running? Can it be better? We’re personally a fan of changing your social media strategy until you’re sure it can’t get better. That can mean anything, depending on the brand you have. 

CASE STUDY: Google’s ‘Get Back to What You Love’ came a little bit out of the left field if you weren’t aware of their COVID-19 advertising campaign, but if you’re a fan of how Google tells its stories, you’ll notice what we’re about to tell you – the strategy is a work of art. Google’s perfected the understated narrative, and going back to their pandemic ‘search bar’-style advert was the perfect duological loop to enter into the next phase of their pandemic marketing. 

Social media: Content

In 2020, we wrote: 

Get creative! How can you create value online? Can you take your knowledge and teach? Can you offer product reviews? Can you start live video broadcasts

with Q&As? Can you find ways to educate your audience about your field? The goal is to add more individual, customised value versus what someone could find online themselves.

Whatever you do, don’t stop talking, otherwise you’ll be forgotten. However, remember that your content has to be in context with where your audience is. If your audience’s house is on fire, now isn’t the time to educate them on fire safety. 

In 2021, we’re saying: 

Creativity is still relevant. Creativity is always going to be relevant. People are so used to passive, low-effort posts that having a post that gives them something to think about will reach through the screen and grab their attention. Additionally, people love free content. Giving them valuable content – based on what you can teach, what you can do, what you can give – is one of the best ways to build a relationship with your audience that lasts. 

This doesn’t mean you should take over everyone’s feeds constantly. You need laser-precision. You need to know when to post what you’re posting so that it intersects with your audience’s life, not gives them another choice to make: listen to you, or keep doing what you’re doing? 

You need to talk. You need to make that conversation matter. And you need to make the content of that conversation relevant. 

This hasn’t changed post-pandemic. 

It just showed us how important it is. 

CASE STUDY: Extra’s ‘For When It’s Time’ made the rounds way back when it came out, and even within our agency, it’s controversial: people found it gross, people found it genius, people loved the direction, people thought it was overblown. Love it or hate it, you have to admit: it’s eye-catching, it’s funny, and it’s creative. That makes it memorable. And when something is memorable, you’ve hooked an audience into listening to you, seeing what you’re going to get up to next, and following what you do in the hopes they’ll see more of what makes them laugh. 

Social Media: Community

In 2020, we wrote: 

During a time of uncertainty, people look for support and reassurance whilst trying to adapt to a new way of living, communicating and working. They will be turning to online communities for this purpose. Facebook Groups provide fertile ground for long-lasting connections with your audience, especially at a time of uncertainty.

In 2021, we’re saying: 

Facebook groups are amazing – if you’re willing to spend some time building a community there. Though people are spending less time online than they were during the pandemic, those connections that they’ve brokered – with brands, with each other – will last through that, so if you’ve spent time building those connections, here’s our advice: keep them going. An audience that feels for your brand the same way they feel for their friends is fundamental to make it on social media.

CASE STUDY: Guinness’ advertising consistently rated highly among people who watched them, whether it’s because they follow the brand directly on social media or were directed to it, and this is why. Even if you’re not a Guinness drinker, ‘Welcome Back’ makes you a part of the fold, gives you a reason to feel like you belong. That’s powerful. Profit is never going to stand in for community, and Guinness shows us why. 

Social Media: What’s Changed?

We said at the start that COVID-19 didn’t change social media; it just made us more aware of what it actually means to use it. To start a social media account and make it work for you takes time. 

It takes patience and effort. It takes empathy. It takes the understanding that your brand is never going to go back to the days when it could advertise half off, and float on from year to year. Price is important; it’s no longer the only thing that’s important. 

What your brand did, and didn’t do, when people needed it matters more. How your brand talks matters more. 

In essence, nothing has changed about social media. 

A lot has changed about the people who use it. It’s become more unforgiving, less likely to avoid disaster, and more likely to create problems for you if you don’t use it right. 

So use it right. Read our ebook, read our articles, ask us questions if you want. 

We’re here to help.

The post What Do We Do Now? Social Media Strategies for (Almost) Post-Pandemic appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.

The pandemic will be on its way into the history books. 

And your industry can start to recover. 

But it will never be the same ever again. 

 The Great Restart

Every stage of the pandemic brought new changes to how we did things. 

To a certain extent, that’s human nature. Whatever challenge we face, we adapt to it, we survive it, and we come out on the other side with a handful of new skills and more ideas than we can use. 

It’s the best part of humanity. 

When offices shut down, we went remote. When events stopped happening, event managers turned to the virtual. Restaurants delivered. Art went viral. Connections happened through audio-only, text-only, visuals-only. Little by little, the better bits of being won. 

Now that the pandemic is hopefully on its way to becoming a footnote in history books, those ideas and changes aren’t going to budge. People got used to the faster, easier, more convenient, more human-centric way of living that the pandemic gave us. To take it away makes no sense. 

But there’s ways for brands to talk post-pandemic. And there’s ways to get back to your marketing without going back to the old ways of marketing: buying enough ads to populate a small browser, pushing hard on selling, making people feel like your product is the only product. 

Those methods don’t work the way they used to. 

Here’s how to use methods that do. 

How to set up your marketing for the restart

The future is stable. 

It’s also still really, really vulnerable. 

The world as we knew it is gone. 

(And if I hear anyone mention the new normal once again, I think I’ll throw a burrito out of the window. 

Don’t worry, it will be into the yard, and our dog will scavenge it at some point. I don’t waste food).

Brands should, and do, need to work to boost the economy. On this, everyone is in agreement. 

The question they seem to struggle with is how. 

So what should brands be doing to restart the economy right after one of the biggest shocks to the economy in living memory?

They should be communicating. 

Brands should be screaming from the top of rooftops in a way that matches the expectations of people in a post-pandemic world. 

Brands should be screaming about how they can understand the position that people are in and that they’re there for them. Brands should be talking about how they experienced it too: they know what their consumers have been through, and they’re here to help them. 

If there ever was a time for new beginnings in brand communications and marketing, then this is definitely it. 

This is a clean slate. 

This is the time to revisit everything you were doing to bring it up to scratch with where you should have been before the pandemic, and to where you have no choice but to be post-pandemic. 

And I can talk about it forever, but this is a blog post, not a book, and even blogs have a word-limit. 

So let’s focus on the questions you should be asking yourself, your marketing team, and your marketing agency (if you have one or if you’re looking for one). 

Your (Brand) Story

What brands do you remember from the first lockdown? 

It’s fine if the answer is ‘none’. Most brands struggled to communicate to a literal captive audience, not through messaging but through getting their messages heard, and getting people to respond to them. 

There are a few reasons for it: disposable income dipped, people couldn’t purchase a product, there wasn’t enough demand to make the marketing worth it. 

Mostly, though, people just didn’t want to listen to brands. 

And they especially didn’t want to listen to brands that only wanted to sell. 

Or brands that ‘stood’ for nothing. 

Think about it. 

The world shuts down overnight. People lose their jobs. Most get separated from their families, isolate themselves within four walls, and do their best to keep their heads above water. 

Brands that threw money at the problem – that competed against other, small brands by slashing prices, increasing sales, going doggedly and viciously after each customer – are not going to come out of the pandemic well. If you somehow got by solely on shady economic practices or simply by competing in a commoditized fashion, then there is likely a nasty wakeup call waiting for you as soon as the lockdown restrictions lift properly.

People remember. And they’ll especially remember brands that didn’t help, that had nothing to offer them when they needed it, that only wanted to use them for money. 

That didn’t build a connection.  

2020 was harder for a lot of people. The more isolated and miserable they were, the more they looked for small enjoyments, tiny little links, an understanding that there was someone there at the other end of the screen. 

Brands that understood that – that leaned into it – did well. Brands that spoke back, built their campaigns about people, switched their messaging inwards, did what they could to answer every message with, hello, we’re here, we want to help, stayed relevant and talked about. 

People wanted the escape. People wanted brands to talk. 

And people are going to look back at the brands that had a story to tell and reward them with loyalty that lasts.  

Brands that didn’t had their own notoriety, and it won’t be as quick to fade or as easy to bury as it used to be. If you used the pandemic as a way to make a quick buck in a money grab then you’re going to have as much success as a bunch of greedy football clubs who tried to launch a breakaway football league.

Your Social Media

A lot has changed since Zuckerberg made Facebook to creep on the pretty girls in his class. 

Digital advertising and social media marketing have become two separate behemoths. You can’t talk about one without the other, but there’s a lot that you can miss by putting them in the same playground. 

Digital advertising is where you live on the web. 

Social media is how you live. 

It’s the place where you can actually let your brand out to play. It’s where you can tell your brand’s story, have people respond to it, and engage with your audience without boundaries. 

(Well. Some boundaries. We don’t recommend harassing your audience, for example).

And social media worked beautifully during the pandemic. There was a slower shift in actually using social media to communicate – from static stories, for example, to pick-your-own-answer polls – but once it did, it spread like wildfire. The idea that you could reach out through your Facebook, your Instagram, your Twitter, and get a response back from your audience gave social media communication a new boost. 

Everything old made new again. Every conversation restarted. 

It’s hard to remember what social media was like before the pandemic. 

That’s a good thing. 

Social media has to stay as it is: a newer extension to communication, a way of reaching out to your audience. The point of social media can no longer be just to sell, if it was ever successfully that. 

Social media needs to be a linking point. You, and your audience. Your audience, and your brand. It should be a way of generating goodwill sustainably, and cheaply. It should let you talk to the people you want to reach, and convince people you haven’t reached yet. 

It needs to be your voice. 

Seeing social media as just another way to advertise your business cuts down all the possibilities of what you can do with social media. 

And it’s going to hurt you in the long run. 

Your Website

Have you updated your website since the pandemic?

How about before the pandemic?

If you’re still rocking the geocities maximalism, or the WordPress drag-and-drop, you might want to consider branching out and rebranding your website. Like social media, your website is no longer just a placeholder on the internet, something you have just to say that you have it. 

You might have entered the Covid era happy with a site that’s just a decent showcase for who you are and what you do, but you definitely can’t expect this to be enough as the world moves on. 

Your website should become your absolute top priority once again.

Social media has started – and will continue to – fragment. Tinier and tinier groups are spreading out across social media platforms and communicating in increasingly insular ways. It’s becoming harder to search on social media.

Besides, if your social media has become the place where you talk, you need a place to sell. 

Your website can be that place. From information about your latest products to updated listings, your website can be your selling point – literally and figuratively. Using your website as the sole point of information means that you can generate interest and interaction, to sell and to build a loyal following that’s not at the mercy of social media giants who can just kill your page or throttle your traffic at a whim.

Your Content

Once you have a decent website set up, you really need to think about the content you’re producing about and around your brand and industry. 

It’s true that people expect more now. 

What’s equally true is that it’s easier to fulfill those content demands, especially if you care about building and bridging a connection to your audience. 

With content that resonates, connection to an audience is easier to build. If you’re focused just on selling in the short-term, the longer-term will get pushed aside. After all, there’s only so much talking you can do. 

But higher-quality content gives you an abundance of topics to talk about. It’s geared towards the longer-term; towards building a connection that will last throughout the days of silence when you have nothing to say, and through any mistakes you might make until you figure out who your brand is and what it stands for. It’ll last through a pandemic. 

It’ll outlast you. 

Brands are not finite, fragile things. With high-quality content, a brand can become effectively immortal, effectively immune. 

Everyone wants to believe in something. 

Why not you?

And the way to build and hone that belief is through content that shows the better side of your brand. Through content that sings. Through content that brings it to life. 

Through content that works.

Your SEO

The argument over whether or not we ‘truly’ need SEO has been going on since SEO practice developed. My opinion is that you do. 

The market has broken. What could previously have taken you a handful of minutes to find now takes you through a parade of Facebook, website, google, Twitter, Instagram – and it’s a lot. Most people won’t go through the effort of digging through your social media to answer the question, ‘do you carry this product?’ Most people will try and find a website. Or reach out on Facebook. Or just give up and go to the person that does carry that product – the one whose listing comes up when they type the query into google. 

SEO is vital. As people are searching from devices all around the home, search engines are becoming even more relevant. It isn’t just a case of coming up in the results: it’s a case of coming up fast enough that you’re always top of mind. 

And that only works if you’ve taken everything else into account. Your website. Your social media. Your content. Where you talk. Where you advertise. Where you sell the most. 

You can only be present if you’re checking all of the boxes above and working on both technical and content-based search engine optimisation. There isn’t an option to do just one or the other; you need to do it all. Competitors – bigger, stronger – will. 

Keep in mind that the industry you’re advertising in has broken. It’s no longer one long, whole object, but something granular, split into multitudes. To address all of the people that live in those multitudes, you need SEO. 

And you need good SEO. 

Conclusion

I know it seems like a lot. 

The truth is it probably is a lot. 

But it’s equally true that you have something in place that you can build on. Nobody starts a brand with nothing anymore: no social media, no content, no website. You have a stepping stone somewhere. You have a way in. 

And the thing is, it’s easy to work on when you start working on it.

Everything above links to each other. It’s one looping circle of possibility.

So pick your direction. Start working. Get help, if you need it. 

Once you see the progress in one area, you’ll see the progress in the rest of it. 

It’s easy. 

It’s fixable. 

Just don’t ignore it, and you’re golden. 

The post Restart your economy with marketing, or: everything old is new again appeared first on Switch - Digital & Brand.