Things are tough right now. As a small business owner, you are wondering when are the governors going to give you the green light to open your business in this “new normal”. Just like everyone else, we don’t have the answers to that. But, as a Social Media Marketing Agency that caters to small businesses and entrepreneurs, what we can tell you is how to use this time while you are managing your business from home, to use social media to your advantage, and keep your business top of mind, until your business is open again.

Social Tip #1: Check-In

During these tough times, your following will appreciate the check-in. Just because your business doors may be closed, it doesn’t mean you need to go radio silent. You can do simple things like asking them how they are doing. Start a Poll, Survey, or Quiz to see how they are coping, and how they would like to see your business move forward. Bonus Tip: you can also do the same thing to your email following. They would rather hear from you, rather than ghost them for months and then pop-up when your brick & mortar business location is officially open. If you become a part of their community and show that you care, that will go a long way for staying top of mind with current & potential customers.

Social Tip #2: Find More Followers

You may already have a strong following, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t want to find more people that would be interested in your services or products. We suggest picking one social platform and making that your main focus, you don’t want to be all things at one time on social media. It’s too difficult to man at one time, and you want to put your best foot forward while you have a little downtime to learn one. Once you decide which platform is best for your business, check out what your competition is doing, or follow a hashtag or 3, and engage and follow members of that group. Bonus tip: If you don’t engage with members on the platform, they will not engage back, and if they don’t immediately unfollow you, you will just have a list of zombie accounts in your following, eating away at your analytics, keeping the people that do want to hear from you from seeing your posts. All it takes is 30 minutes a day to begin engaging with people on social media. You will thank us later.

Social Tip #3: Collaborate With Other Businesses

This can be huge for you and your business. Taking the time while your business is open from your house to find another business to collaborate can be good for both you and the other business. It leads to cross-promoting and gives both sides access to social followings that they may not have had in the past. If neither of you has e-commerce products to sell right now you can come up with either an e-book or maybe some sort of giveaway like an Uber Eats gift certificate. Promote the event on social and ask people to participate by liking, comment & tag a friend, and share the post. This will give you high engagement, you can gain evergreen leads that build your email list. Pro Tip: Use a Tool like Shortstack or Vyper to manage your giveaways or contests!

Social Tip #4: Post Often

When we say post often, we don’t mean spam your following, but be consistent with your postings.  Once or twice per day would be good. Pictures are great, but a video is better. This is the era of working from home, where everyone is in isolation. Give the people what they want, and that is to hear from you. Posting a video of yourself at least once per week is the best way to engage with your following and showing them that you care. If you want to see the best times to post on each platform, check the infographic below. Your insights tool of your social platform will also be able to give you detailed information on what to post and when to post it.

Social Tip #5: Promote E-commerce Products On Social Media

Just in case you may have missed the memo, business as we know it, is changed forever. It is important now, more than ever to have some sort of product that you can sell online. Whether that be ebooks, virtual products, or even items that would be sitting on the shelf in your business (i.e. self-tanning oil if you are a tanning salon, etc.) One thing is for sure, the mail may be slow, but it is not shut down. So take advantage of the situation and continue generating income while you are Netflix and chilling from dusk until dawn.

Final Thoughts

We know the stress of being stuck at home may be getting to you, but taking this nervous energy and putting it into the future of your business is so important right now. If you are unsure about what e-commerce products you should sell or need some advice on how to make edits to your website, maybe even a social media strategy give us a call or email: info@twinningpros.com and set up a free consultation. We are all in this together.

Social Media for Covid-19 FAQ