5 Social Media Trends to Note During Covid-19
We’re more than two months into the new normal due to COVID-19, and during that time, the social media landscape has experienced some noticeable changes. Here are five social media trends that have taken shape over the past several weeks than can help inform your content strategy moving forward:
1. Consumers are talking about life insurance now more than ever. Leveraging social listening from our partner Brandwatch, we analyzed over 731,000 mentions across digital channels and saw a 37% increase in conversations around life insurance since the beginning of March. This increase has been driven primarily by individuals rather than media publishers. As consumers are faced with their mortality, they’re turning to social media to ask questions and find answers about life insurance—especially as they return to work. The greatest spike in life insurance mentions was in late-April, as some states and businesses started re-opening. [Source: Brandwatch]
2. The best times to post have shifted. It might be time to reevaluate the timing you typically use for scheduling content. As routines have changed and people spend more time online working remotely, the optimal times for posting to social media channels have changed too. On Life Happens’ Twitter, for example, our peak audience times pre-pandemic were Monday through Thursday evenings and Sunday nights. Since COVID-19, our audience has shifted to being online on weekdays during the daytime, with peaks around 11 a.m. each day. [Source: Twitter Media Studio] This is a big difference and can help indicate when content might perform best—more followers online means more potential eyeballs on your posts.
3. User-generated content is your new best friend. A socially distanced world means that many of the ways companies formerly used to produce content are off the table now. How do you create a workaround if you can’t take photos or shoot videos in person? User-generated content has always been effective on social media because of its perceived authenticity, but it’s proving even more critical now. In Life Happens’ case, we’ve used Zoom meetings to direct and shoot Real Life Stories videos—check out our latest featuring Scott Rider. This was filmed by Scott himself in his own home and directed by Life Happens’ Video Producer and Editor via Zoom.
Here are some other great examples of user-generated (or employee-generated!) content from two of our company partners:
4. Philanthropic contributions bring engagement. In difficult circumstances, users want their social media feeds to bring them joy and positivity. This is made very apparent after digging into the data—the top two most impactful posts from our company partners between March 15 and May 26 are related to giving back. [Source: TrackMaven] Showcasing how companies are paying it forward to customers, employees, and frontline workers during this time is exactly the kind of content consumers want to see on social media right now.
5. Paid social is ripe for the picking. If it’s in the budget, it’s a good time to put some money behind paid social right now. Since many brands have paused or stopped their ad spends during COVID-19, there is less competition for ads and greater return on investment. Pair that with the increase in users across social media and paid social is a great opportunity if it’s in the cards. At Life Happens, we’ve seen a 45% decrease in CPM on Facebook when comparing April of this year to April 2019.
