As a business, whatever your industry, we’re all currently in unchartered territory and with teams being furloughed you could be left with an overwhelming amount of work to deal with.
One of the more difficult aspects to pick up from other team members is your marketing. This can be especially so if there is a lack of brand guidelines, digital strategy or social media policies to give you some guidance.
So, what do you do when your marketing team are gone?
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Keep Your Audience Engaged
A good place to start is to continue to connect with customers and keep your business engaging with your audience. It’s also important to ensure you stick to your brand’s tone of voice
If there are no company brand guidelines or policy in place, then take a look at what the marketing team has been doing previously. You’ll quickly get the feel for the tone of voice that is used across your website and social media platforms. Is it neutral, friendly, excited, straight to the point etc?
Make a Plan
A strong content calendar and plan can save you a huge amount of time and help you plan your social media content out. This can be done weekly or for the month ahead and include current events, national days, industry news and so on. At present, you also need to be sensitive to what is happening, take a look at what competitors are posting and listen to your audience – what are their concerns and worries right now. If your time is limited, it’s also a good idea to focus on quality over quantity.
Our templates are a great way to plan your content for your social channels, that way you know exactly what is planned and when. This can also help to be more proactive in scheduling posts, this gives you more time to be reactive when things crop up during in the weeks ahead.
Social Branding Tools
Take some time to think about how you can brand posts up, again look at what the marketing team has done. If you don’t have any photo content, you can use a tool like Canva which not only has great stock photos and illustrations but is good for branding with brand kits, logos and colours easily accessible. You can also use colour picker and font identifier extensions for Chrome to ensure you stick to your current branding, simply take these cues from your website.
Get Creative
If you’re feeling brave, then why not get creative. The current situation has seen communities come together, so think about how you can utilise your audience for Q&A’s, polls and live videos. Ask your audience to send in content for you to feature on your page if relevant, it’s a great way to connect and engage with people right now.
Ask for help
While your marketing team may be absent, remember you can communicate with them. Furloughed staff means you can still talk to them so try and stay in contact for advice and pointers from your team. It can also help to speak to other key departments such as sales, product development or human resources.
A fantastic example we’ve seen is from The National Cowboy Museum which shows this can work and really resonate with your audience, even going viral! They put their head of security in charge of their Twitter recently, and though reluctant, he quickly adapted to his surroundings and started peppering in Dad jokes to the content, much to the joy of people around the world.
Whatever your situation, we’re here to support businesses through this. Our hub contains free webinars, videos, blogs and templates to help you continue your marketing. We can also help you create social media strategies for 6 to 12 months, alongside campaign strategies and writing up social media policies and branding documents. Why not get in touch today and see how we can assist you with your marketing.
