There has never been a better time to engage your customers through social media and digital channels.

Take your business online

The first thing to think about is how you can take your business online. It may only be one part of your business or you may develop something to sell that was never a part of your business initially.

Imagine you are a real estate agent. You can advertise on social media ahead of time and let potential renters or buyers know when you’ll be doing a live inspection on a digital channel. Best of all, people can ask questions in real time so they can ask about the property as you’re showing it.

Service providers like hairdressers tend to also have products to use at home. Why not develop videos or instruction sheets on how to use these products? Just because people are steering clear of high streets doesn’t mean they’ll stop pampering themselves.

Don’t have anything to sell? Why not offer gift vouchers to honour at a future date? This could help ensure some cash flow through the door. 

Build your engagement

Regardless of whether you have something to sell right now, you need to build and maintain your engagement on social media to ensure you have an audience to promote to when you're ready.

Sales posts for your business are important but are not going to get you engagement. You are best combining these posts with posts that are going to garner comments, likes and shares. 

Post videos and memes with your best tips and advice.

Ask questions that encourage comments.

You can also use social media to expand on your brand during this time. Financial planners can disseminate information on how to survive financially. Gyms can take online followers through an exercise class.

Think about whether you have a skill you can share. This will help with your engagement and reach. Also, people will remember your generosity during this challenging time and will be more likely to recommend you in future.

Develop a strategy

If you don't already have one, start working on a strategy. 

Luck favours the prepared and if you have a marketing strategy ready to roll out, you’ll be much more likely to gain customers more quickly than those posting haphazardly. 

This is a particularly challenging and difficult time for business and it can be hard to find the spirit and time to maintain your social media presence with everything else you have to worry about. But as things evolve, it could be one of the best avenues to find and engage with customers. 

Embracing social media now means you are not only are you able to connect presently, but will be set up for when we can all get back to the business of running business again.Browse through our collection of digital resources to help promote your business.

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