It's true, the world has suddenly been nudged toward moving its conversation and activity to just virtual spaces. Before the Covid-19 quarantine pushed more of us towards social media, there were already 3.8 billion social media regulars across multiple networks - that's more than half the world’s population. And this number is not going down anytime soon. People have taken their lives online and many of them now, have taken their work along with it.
Transitioning quickly to remote-work from an office environment will be a challenge and may be a tough lifestyle to adapt to. This is especially true if you're a marketing team that collaborates a lot amongst each other and are in the practice of having frequent meetings and discussions to work on ideas.
Let's face it, it's not just water-cooler conversations that we may be missing out right now. It's also those unexpected creative ideas that flow from many of these discussions and the drawing board that sometimes gives birth to ingenious ideas when collaborating together in person.
We were there a month ago when we decided to go remote. But we quickly discovered how to adapt to this new work-style, as we learnt to build ideas around virtual meeting-points and develop marketing strategies from wherever we were. After all, we still had to meet the demands of this new work routine. There were still projects to plan for, blogs to write, and strategies to build. So we thought we would share a few of our lessons here today. Here are a few tips from us on how your social media strategies and brand marketing, can reorient itself to meet the demands of the current scenario.
Setup new work structures: It's important to organize your team and have a strategy after analyzing possible roadblocks for your social media marketing in the upcoming months. But before you dive into any of that, understand that any transition takes time to adjust, so it's better to not set lofty goals. If your team is not used to working remotely, productivity will be a challenge and it's important for everyone to take time and settle into the new flow. Get a routine first, then scour for tools that can make life work and collaboration easier for your team, and then you're ready begin your process.
Observe the landscape: The social media landscape is dynamic, but right now it's even more volatile than usual. So being up-to-date with what's happening and keeping an eye out is crucial. Are your audience in-tune with what's happening? Do they need more support? Are they facing obstacles in managing their business? Take a step back and assess how to prioritize your social media tasks after taking into account what all is happening to your core audience.
Use a social media tool that helps you monitor multiple feeds.
After all, your social strategy exists for your core audience and that makes it important for you to factor in their contexts, while planning for all the unpredictable changes that come with the crisis. Start small, observe what's happening and set achievable social media goals based on that.
Stay in touch as much as you can: Have regular meetings and calls with your team to talk about social media trends, content ideas, and strategies to help your customers utilizing your social platforms right now. You can set particular days of the week for: for example, on Mondays and Wednesdays, your team can catch up on calls for work-updates, meanwhile on Fridays, you can have informal conversations and catch up on life and routine.
For bigger teams, video conferences are better. Document your work and ideas for different networks and collaborate on a shared platform to get approvals done seamlessly. Also ensure to use a writing tool that lets you review your work in real time without compromising on your team's online security.
Check your content pipeline: This brings us to an important point, you must review your content pipeline not only for keeping an active social media calendar, but also if it's relevant and sensitive to the current climate. You don't want an ill-timed tweet to offend the online user base. Check all your scheduled content and ads to see if there's content that needs to be weeded out, or tweaked to read right and stay relevant to the needs of the audience right now.
Take your events online: If marketing events are canceled, check the viability of attending or conducting online events for branding/lead generation with your team. There are also a variety of tools available that let you host online presentations and webinars if events are out of your budget. You can not only promote these widely on social media, you can also use it as a platform to host events like Q&A sessions, Instagram lives, and Twitter chats to interact and stay in touch with your community during this challenging time. Have a regular schedule for your online sessions that complement with your content schedule.
Personal social media outreach pays: Even if you don't have the bandwidth to send mass campaigns over emails, reach out to your social media following and check up on them. Whether they are loyal customers or long-time followers, drop them a note checking up on them, extending help. 
Find your top fans and reach out to them!
Offering personalized support, or give a special concession in this crisis can go a long way for them to earn faith in your brand and sticking around. While it may not be the most profitable strategy there is, it is important to acknowledge the current situation and adapt for it, rather than going about work as usual.
Let us know in the comments if you have anything to add to this list.
Stay indoor, but stay social!
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