How To Market Your Business On Social Media During COVID-19

How to market your business on social media during COVID-19

Guest Feature By Sam McFarlane of Sam Says Social

11/12/2020✿inUncategorized

Guest blogger Sam McFarlane from Sam Says gives us the 411 on how to navigate marketing your beautiful brand on the socials scene throughout a pandemic.

COVID-19 has undoubtedly thrown the world as we know it into chaos. Crazy times hey! Months ago, it was business as usual, then suddenly, so many were forced to close down.

It’s something we’ve never seen before. And honestly, it’s tough!

Thankfully, things are slowly returning to normal. And women across Australia are celebrating. Horror home hair colouring attempts are being fixed, eyebrows are being sculpted, eyelashes are being extended, and we’re starting to feel human again.

So, how do you handle social media during these trying times?

You can’t afford to stop marketing as you need to increase your business once again. But you also don’t want to be seen as desperately trying to make sales. It’s not useful to your audience, and you may find yourself offending people.

Image courtesy of Sam Says Social - ©Sam Says Social 2020

How you should be thinking about your social media posting:

Social media is just another form of advertising for your business. And with all advertising, the first thing you must do is think of your customer. No matter what you’re posting, they’re always going to look at it from the angle of, ‘What’s in it for me?’.

You need to develop a ‘customer first’ mentality. Figure out what your clients need. Take a look at what they’ve asked you on social media and through your websites or blogs.

Then look at the gaps in your content that you may be missing from your client’s perspective.

Do a bit of stalking! Check out others in your industry and see what they’re doing. If they’re receiving lots of attention, see if you can create something similar for your business. Or even better, share their posts and spread the love!

Embrace ‘social listening’, engage and support your community. See what your clients are posting. Can you see a theme running through posts – do they have bad hair days, feeling alone, working from home and hating it, missing their mates or their favourite beauticians?

So, what should you be posting on social media?

Everyone wants to feel part of something, so we’re not so alone. Reach out and reply to a tweet, comment on an Instagram post, or share someone’s story. Show that you’re listening, paying attention and sharing the love.
Give a shout out to other businesses to show your support. If they’ve created a video like, ‘How to dye your hair at home successfully’, share it with your audience to show you’re supporting your industry at the same time as helping your audience.
Create lead magnets and give people something for free. If you’re in the beauty field, this may be something along the lines of, ‘How to avoid shaver rash when you can’t get waxed!’. You’ll build your email list so you can sell to customers when things get fully back to normal.
If you’ve returned to work, highlight the ways that you’re protecting your clients and staff with the new regulations put upon you by the Government. Everyone is super aware of hygiene now, so you must assure people that you’re taking it seriously.
People want to be entertained and to have reasons to smile during the day. Don’t be afraid to share some light-hearted posts about fun things you’ve seen (or to create your own posts). You could share things like the best home hair colouring you’ve seen, mum’s giving kids the old bowl-cut and failing, eyebrows going crazy, home remedies etc.

The secret to social media at this point is to add value and be empathic.

Image courtesy of Sam Says Social - ©Sam Says Social 2020

Social media usage is going up, so keep plugging away!

With so many people now working remotely, they’re free to browse their socials more during the day without the boss knowing! Staying connected with your audience is now more important than ever.

Lock-down meant that people and businesses came to rely on social media to stay in touch with colleagues, friends, consume the news and most importantly, be entertained (Netflix gets old after a while!).

Even though we may not be seeing business as usual, the business of social media marketing continues. Keep going!

Sam McFarlane is a marketing specialist who works with busy entrepreneurs and small business owners to grow their business with content management. She’s an avid social media user, both professionally and personally, a popular and engaging speaker, a shopaholic, a foodie and to the endless amusement of her children, is completely unable to manage the act of voluntary unilateral eyelid closure. That’s right- she’s an online marketer who can use the winky-face 😉🙃 emoji like a boss but she herself can’t wink.

https://www.samsays.com.au

http://instagram.com/samsayssocial

https://www.facebook.com/SamSaysSocial

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammcfarlane