Now, more than ever, social media is a valuable and important tool—a way to stay up to date with what is happening with COVID-19 and a means of communicating with customers, employees, and other stakeholders.
Read more about some practical guidelines for using social media in the current environment. Note that these are not intended to be sequential steps. Rather, they are pillars of activity, designed to be executed simultaneously, continuously, and interdependently.
Plan
It is important to establish clear and actionable plans for how your organization is using and managing social media. In particular, you should determine the role of each of your different social channels, based on an ongoing assessment of how your different audience groups—customers, employees, media, etc.—are using them.
Monitor
Social media can help you understand what your key audience groups are saying—both in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic and in relation to more general life and/or business challenges. Make sure you have a person or team dedicated to monitoring the conversation on social media and updating the organization on the latest trends, policies, and news from the public. This may require a temporary change in working practices, with teams operating in shifts to cover different time zones. You can also sign up for Edelman Intelligence’s Daily Media Update to stay on top of the latest Covid-19 developments.
Guide
From company social media platforms to the personal accounts of leaders and individual employees, everyone needs to understand what content is appropriate to share, be aware of response protocols, and feel comfortable with how to escalate potential issues. Ensure that passwords and access to corporate social media channels are not confined to one person—that way, you can mitigate the impact of team members becoming ill or unavailable.
Evaluate
Do your planned social media content, influencer campaigns, and/or advertisements align with relevant and appropriate purchases in the current environment? What would your harshest or most cynical critic say? In a time of unprecedented crisis, everyone is watching what organizations say and do. Being seen as opportunistic or insensitive can result in serious and lasting damage to your reputation (see also How to guide: brand marketing during the Coronavirus pandemic). Also, make sure your content does not contradict any local guidelines around Covid-19 management.
Respond
How you respond to inquiries and interactions on social media is critical to maintaining trust among stakeholders, especially in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak within your organization or local community. You should develop specific messaging for the coronavirus and, if possible, aim to hold a daily conference call with your community manager(s), setting clear guidelines for how, when, and where to respond. Often, you will need to act quickly, but there are still precedents for your response. Be cautious and thorough in all responses, no matter how innocuous the interaction may seem at the time.
EDC is Edelman’s Affiliate Partner in Portugal. See the original Edelman news story here.
