For convenience, businesses will schedule their social media output using a product like Hootsuite. Often these planned posts will co-exist alongside content a business owner posts in real time. Cease these scheduled posts now.
As of today the business environment has stopped being what it was. If your business has social media posts dripping out over the next days and weeks, assuming nothing has changed, you will be damaging your reputation.
Planned social posts, dripping out into your timelines, as if nothing has changed WILL damage your reputation.
Don’t rush to replace the posts that you’ve cancelled. It will take a bit of time to consider what your audiences want you to tell them now. It’s likely they will be looking for calmness and reassurance in a world that feels like it’s been turned upside down. Don’t be afraid to talk about COVID-19 in your posts and level with people about what it means for you and your early thoughts on what you might do in response.
It looks like we are all in for a prolonged period of inactivity. We certainly won’t be ‘doing the usual doing’. That being the case, it could be the time to get onto all those marketing tasks that you were always too busy to do before. Our intention is to produce a list of them, with guides on how to make it happen.
We think we are in this together and that we’re stronger together.
Nick Shrimpton is a Director at Sixth Sense Marketing
