What Changes for the Digital Strategy during Coronavirus?
Whatever your industry or sector, the coronavirus is changing all of us dramatically and impacting almost every aspect of our lives. Companies all over the world have to adjust their business model and management style to respond to this global crisis. Although there are so many changes that we need to accommodate right now, there still are some unexpected opportunities for digital marketers. This global pandemic offers challenges as well as opportunities.
Significant increase in the use of mobile devices and social media.
From the report of my own iPhone, my average screen time has almost increased four hours per day since two months ago. According to the GSMA Intelligence report, there are almost two-thirds of the world’s total population uses a mobile phone today and active social media users increase 304 million people from last year. The report indicates that social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and so on all have more users during this pandemic. Advertising on social media can reach more people at this time. I believe that companies pay more attention to social media marketing may get some tangible return.
How to manage the brand image is important during the pandemic.
The target audience may know more about a brand during a special time. It’s a crucial period for a company to show their social responsibility and their attitude toward the crisis. The content they deliver needs to be appropriate. The company can use social media during the social distancing to show their empathy and compassion and let people know what they can do for society. It’s an excellent way to build a good brand image in people’s minds.
Companies may need a new platform to communicate with consumers.
The communication with the target audience is still significant even during the social distancing. Although in-person communication is decreasing between people during coronavirus, the use of video calls may make the conversation easier and make customers feel more involved. It’s a new platform to solve the challenges we are facing right now. According to the data, teleconferencing service Zoom had as many as 200 million daily active users in recent weeks — 20 times more than pre-pandemic levels. People may get used to this and may love using this new app even after the pandemic.
People don’t expect brands to stop advertising
Although people are facing the coronavirus outbreak, according to the research from GlobalWebIndex, more than half of internet users (51%) approve of brands continuing to advertise as normal. However, people are relatively sensitive at this time, brands need to be careful about how they approach advertising during the crisis.
Games are a top choice for a world on lockdown
AT&T reports that gaming-related traffic in April 2020 was 50% higher than pre-lockdown levels. The weekly downloads of mobile games in March 2020 increased by 30% compared to weekly averages for the final quarter of 2019. That means people around the world downloading more than a billion games each week. It’s really a huge amount. Co-branded cooperation between video games and other brands may be a good strategy now.
