The COVID-19 crisis is unlike anything we as a collective have ever dealt with before. What does it mean for your business? It means it’s time to put your creative hat on and figure out how best to adapt as so many have already done.

So far from a bad situation we’ve seen some incredible innovation, businesses are now changing their service offering, turning to online and doing what they can to stay afloat and support their customers.

Now is the time to attract the attention of what is essentially a captive audience. With people at home, isolating, it’s certain that more and more people will be turning to the internet and social media to fill the hours.

If you are trying to adapt your business, it’s never been more important to be online so people can find you and start engaging with your brand. To help you attract more business and be found by potential customers we’ve put together three tasks you can do:

1)      Get your website in order

If you don’t already have a website, now is the time to get one set up. There are plenty of ways to build a website without paying big bucks for a web developer. We are personally big fans of Squarespace. It’s easy to use and has plenty of customisations available.

If you are a retailer now is the time to invest in e-commerce, get your inventory online so people can still buy your products. If you’re starting from scratch you might consider setting up a Shopify to get yourself up and running without too much difficulty. If you need some help getting started, check out our friends at Kart Digital , they specialise in getting brick and mortar stores online. 

Most importantly, no matter what website platform you use make sure your website has clear communications about how you are operating over these difficult times and setting expectations for delays in response times or deliveries.

2)      Help people find you when they’re searching on Google

Whether you decide to invest in Google Ads or simply try out some free SEO optimisations, now is the time to do what you can to be found on Google.

If you would like to try your hand at some SEO and you have built your website using something like Squarespace, Wix or Wordpress, these tools all offer ways to improve SEO. A quick search for “improving SEO on my Squarespace site” should turn up some handy instructions to get you started. There are also wonderful SEO experts like Kate Toon from The Recipe For SEO Success who offer free checklists to help get you started.

In addition to a bit of an SEO spruce up, you might want to invest some money into Google Ads to make sure you are showing at the top of the search results page. While a DIY job won’t be as effective as hiring an expert (link to contact us page), it may be what you need to get the ball rolling. To get started you’ll need to think of some keywords (this is what people will type into the Google search bar). Break these into two groups; brand keywords and generic keywords. Try to get in the shoes of your customers and think about what words they would use when searching for your products and services. Once you’ve done this, you’ll need to write some ad copy and try to naturally incorporate your keywords in. If you’re running your own activity and are new to Google Ads we’d recommend starting with a small investment while you get the hang of it.

If you’ve got a bit more money to spend then it would be worth contacting an agency to run the activity for you as they will know what they’re doing and you can keep your focus on running the business.

3)      Be active on your social media pages

If you’ve already got a community on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn or any social platform for that matter, then you need to be posting regularly and actively engaging with them.

Use your social channels to share updates and make your customers and potential customers aware of what you’re doing to stay safe, how you’re adapting and how your products or services could benefit them in these tough times.

Not only will this help you keep your audience informed but being active on social media can also help more people find your business.

If you have some marketing budget available, then boosting some of your posts to a targeted audience will help you reach new potential customers. If you are running this yourself it’s important to select some targeting when you boost your post so that you aren’t wasting your budget. You should ideally select a location, age bracket and consider adding in some interest targeting to narrow your audience down to the right people. It’s also paramount that you are checking your posts and replying to comments and queries daily, if not multiple times a day.

Depending on your circumstances you may even consider hiring an agency to produce your posts, run your ads and do community management so you can focus your energies where they’re needed.

There has never been more reason to adapt your business and build an online presence. For many this is something that’s been neglected for years so take this opportunity to get your website and social channels up to date.

These three tasks may seem daunting but when this is all over not only will your business have survived, you’ll be ready to keep expanding online.

If you’d like to know how Promote Social | Media can help your business with your online advertising and content creation in these difficult times then schedule yourself in for a 30-minute chat.