Content Strategy During the Covid-19 Outbreak Part 2: Engaging Content
By: Elizabeth Zorn
Tags: Facebook Marketing, Social Media For Business, Optimize Social Media, Facebook, Social Media Management

A lot of business owners are struggling with what to post on their social channels right now to engage with their customers during the Covid-19 outbreak. At Optimize Social Media, we are here to help! We have compiled a list of tips, tricks, and ideas detailing what your business can do to stay relevant and compassionate.

In our previous blog and webinar, we discussed what steps to take to really start handling your social media announcements, statements, and initial comments about the Covid-19 outbreak. In this miniseries of blogs, we will break down 5 types of content, why they are important and work, and best practices to get results. If you have not checked it out, please take a look at our first blog in the series all about posting contests.

In part 2 of the 5-part series we will discuss engaging content that is relevant to your users at this time.

Engaging Content

We define engaging content as content posted intending to have the audience interact with the post. Those interactions can be a comment on the post, liking the post, reacting to the post, sharing the post, and more.

For example, because of the Covid-19 outbreak over 30% of Americans are working from home, many of whom have pets, children, roommates, or significant others. Creating a fun question asking your followers to post a picture of their new “co-workers” or fun antics their new “co-workers” are doing at home is a lighthearted way to commiserate and laugh with community members about the struggles we are all experiencing. The goal of this post is to create an ice breaking moment that is not sales related for your customers to connect with your brand online.

This is a great way to break the ice with online users and create a little traction from the current events with the Covid-19 outbreak. It encourages a sense of comradery and shared empathy.

So how does engaging content help your business in the long run?

The first of many reasons engaging content can be beneficial to your business is the entertainment factor. If you look at the reasons users flock to social channels, you will find that one of the main reasons is for entertainment. If users are seeking entertaining content, they will be turned off by businesses that are only posting sales-related content.

Social media opens the door for you to be more relatable with your clients by sharing anything that hits on human emotions, thoughts, interests, hobbies, culture, location, and much more. With 66% of users on Facebook wanting to connect with a brand on social media this is your opportunity to not just sell to potential clients, but to connect with them and drive brand recognition and loyalty.

We frequently remind our clients to show the human element behind the business and it is because we believe people buy from people. Therefore, it is key to remind your customers of the humans connected to your brand.

For example, we can all agree most pet owners will take any opportunity they have to show off pictures of their pets. If you post your pet in your vehicle as your riding buddy and ask your followers to post theirs in the comments you will probably see a lot of proud pet owners responding with adorable images of their pets. This builds a shared experience with that brand and the person by connecting an image they are proud of with your brand. That positive shared experience may come to them when they need your product or service vs a company they have never interacted with online.

If you have one take away from this blog, let it be that posting engaging content that is not directly sales related creates a connection between a customer and your brand using a positive experience.

In the next 3 parts to this series we will provide additional examples of content your business can post during the Covid-19 outbreak. Optimize Social Media is doing all we can to help support local businesses just like ours. We thank you for your continued support.