As countries around the world have gone into lockdown, more and more people have been turning to social media to maintain contact with both friends and the wider world. But while this was a foreseen response to social isolation, the ways in which the public have been using and responding to social media during the Covid-19 pandemic may take some by surprise, with brands losing followers and shoppers changing loyalties. Award-winning UK digital marketing specialist, Shaz Memon, has been exploring the changing role of social media in a time of pandemic.

With social distancing in place, the fact that 27% of people interviewed by Digimax cited staying updated as the main reason for using social media during the last 3 months is to be expected. 16% said they are using social media to reach a new fitness goal, 13% using social media to communicate with friends and family, and a surprising 5% are using social media platforms to help them find new work. That is why businesses who are based online need to up their digital marketing presence so they can be more visible to those they want to connect with, this may lead them into using a Milwaukee SEO Company or one similar, to help them achieve their goals and bring in the traffic/audience that they need. Also, more companies are now focused on email management and how they can contact possible customers that way. For example, many businesses offer an email subscription and send out marketing emails using an auto emailer (browse this site to learn more about one of those).

Businesses may also be interested in the way that the public has been responding to the posts they’ve seen on social media platforms from brands. For example, estate agents have seen a surge of social media interest as people look at moving out of the city in favour of the countryside with more open space. So, if you’re an estate agent, you should be looking at how to do real estate social media content and how to implement it for free to get in on the action and take advantage of the increased demand.

If you have products that could be marketed through social media, you can explore TikTok marketing prospects as well. For instance, healthcare, beauty, and fashion products can be in higher demand on social media. So, you can hire an influencer to promote and review your product to generate new leads and customers. You can also take the assistance of a tiktok influencer agency or similar marketing companies for other social media platforms.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, 23% of social media users say that their attitude towards a brand has changed because of what they’ve posted during lockdown. 31% said that this was largely due to insensitive advertising. While almost half (42%) said they were more likely to buy from brands in the future who had helped charitably during the pandemic. This ties in with the more than a third (38%) of social media users saying that they had shared or liked content raising money for coronavirus causes. And 7% saying they had engaged in pandemic baking and sharing.

This interest in the charitable aspect of the pandemic is reflected in some of the most popular hashtags used recently. #Clapforcarers, has been used 40,946 times while #Captaintom appears 22,501 times.

Other popular pandemic hashtags include:

• Coronavirus – used 24M times

• Covid19 – used 21M times

But while social media has been used as a force for good in a number of ways during the Covid-19 pandemic, 14% of users stated that they found it to have a more negative impact in this time. While many users (19% of respondents) said they had unfollowed an influencer/celebrity on social media specifically because of their Covid-19 content.