Should I drop social media management during the coronavirus outbreak

Originally answered by me on Quora

Your community need you more than ever

I’ve had this question a lot with brands not knowing how to respond to their communities. Everyone is talking about coronavirus and due to lockdown (here in the UK) there’s even more time to look through social

Review what you’ve got

If you’ve got a social media strategy in place then chances are you’ve got your content in your calendar if not scheduled to be published. Review everything that’s scheduled to be published and make sure it works in the current situation. Change dates were necessary and maybe remove references to going out if you’re under lockdown.

Your response depends on your audience

You’re not going to get your response for this perfect to everyone. Every individual in your community has their own circumstances and challenges with this crisis. Look at conversations already happening and make your best judgement to how much you want to be talking about Covid19.

Start managing more manually

If it’s going to work for your business I’d recommend keeping some content as before. If you’ve got value-adding content which is creating engagement on social platforms then yes, keep it scheduled and keep posting it.

Now depending on your community, you might not want to talk about Covid at all and instead just turn down some of your posts. And whether to do that is best made on your judgement managing the social media.

But this situation offers your business to step up, rather than shy away from discussions. Being part of your community can help connect you more to them, and keep you in mind during the crisis.

What are your brand’s values?

What do you stand for with your branding? Think about what your social channels do (do they make people laugh, get them inspired, help them out with useful tips etc). What can you offer the community in this pandemic as well?

This affects everyone

The people in your business, colleagues and customers are going to be affected by this. On social everyone is going through this crisis. Can you offer any help (even if it’s providing some distraction with a good laugh on a Facebook post)?

Come away from selling

You want to be treating your businesses social more like a personal account. Bring your brand values to life and get involved in the conversations that are happening in the community. You want to come away from being product/service focused and be community-focused instead.

How does this all work in practice?

You have an opportunity here to really make an impact in your community. For local businesses such as brick and mortar stores, you can bring the community together via your social and keep in touch and connected. You can become the resource for that area that’s joining those discussions on social (Twitter would be key here).

Just ask what your community needs. See if they’ve got any challenges and how you can help with that. Help doesn’t have to come in the form of offering your products/services for free or donating money as not everyone can do that.

But instead of stepping back from your social media management, you can step up and manage it more manually to get to know your community, get them engaged and help them through this crisis.