Should You Be Running Social Media Ads Right Now?
If social media advertising is a large part of your company’s advertising budget, you might be wondering what to do during the Coronavirus crisis. Should you keep going with ad strategy or hold off for a while? Let’s weigh both options.
Pausing Your Social Media Ads
As you might imagine, there’s not a lot of interest in your big “Buy One Get One Free Widget Sale” right now. To continue to run these types of promotions on social media not only shows that you are out of touch with your customers but is simply a waste of money. If those are the type of ads you run, pausing for a while is probably a good idea.
Running Social Ads
If you have a helpful or useful product, now is a good time to consider running social media advertising. People are at home and on social media all day so you have the opportunity to reach a huge audience. And as usage grows, the cost per exposure may actually decrease. Here are some of the products that people at home are probably purchasing right now:
- Household supplies
- Health Products
- Streaming Services
- Educational resources for parents who are now homeschooling their children
- Food delivery
- Alcohol
- Timely news and information
If you’re strictly in the business of selling that don’t fit into these categories, make sure you consider the content of your organic posts. This is not the time to attempt to be funny or ironic. In most cases, you’ll only come off sounded insensitive to people’s feelings in this stressful environment.
Instead, share content that cheers on our healthcare workers and first responders, recognizes organizations in the community who are going above and beyond to help others, or content that helps them look forward to better days to come. The way your customers view your business in the future will largely depend on the way you communicate on social media during this crisis. So make sure you listen to feedback, study analytics and change what isn’t working.
