Caught up in conversations about what your social now needs to be in this new world?
There are two sides of a scale, and ideally you want to stay away from either 'burying head in the sand' and 'doom-filled-hyper-realists'.
The bigger your organisation - and the higher your production investment - might make you feel like you need to carry on, BAU.
But ask yourself - can it wait. Even a little bit.
If you're caught up, paralysed with what your brand could do and could say in this time:
1. Be Helpful, if it's relevant to your business.
An interiors business telling you the technology to use to work from home might sound a little odd.
However, offering tips and advice on how to create a great office set up for one person, or if you're currently now sharing a space with your partner or family might help.
2. Be Fun.
Sharing memes that sit in the same cul-de-sac as your business vision and strategy will work.
Being flippant, muscling in on a topic irrelevant to you, or trying to gain traction for your brand in a way that is inauthentic don't.
3. Be Flexible.
Does that video have to go out right now?
Do emerging events now mean part of it isn't relevant?
Consider what content might last beyond the next Government Announcement
4. Be Open.
Be clear with what your business will now do, and what may change.
Update as this changes.
Give useful information your competitors might not consider worthwhile sharing.
Be that brand that in times of stress for your customers were helpful, open and honest.
5. Be Good.
Be good to your staff, be realistic with what's achievable in this new world, be kind, and be reasonable.
Resist the panic.
Be good to your customers, give them time to come to terms with what's happening, don't pressure sell, sales will still happen, conversions might drop a little.
Be good to society - being a responsible company is good for your brand. Offer help (see point 1), support, guidance, offer without necessarily expecting anything in return. Things feel frantic, so be the calming influence, don't add to the noise.
6. Think ahead.
All those boutique fitness studios offering free classes might feel like "goodness they're doing a lot for nothing right now".
But think ahead.
Grow your brand, get people to love your classes and they're more likely to come and join you for the real thing.
Plus, and this is a key thing to remember: the more views your Facebook video gets, or visitors to your Instagram Lives, or any interaction means - and this is important - you can retarget them later.
So you have a lovely, warm, engaged audience, travelling down that funnel, from awareness, to consideration, towards conversion, so while they might not be giving you money right now... they are much much more likely to than if you hit go on your spend when everyone else is going to.
7. Stay on top of it.
Things change. So last week's post about staying open, to a new viewer of your feed suddenly looks out of date.
Remove old posts as you work through things. Update and tweak those that still stand. Remember - new visitors will check out your profile, so keep it up to date.
You got this.
