The year 2020 is breaking down our normal way of life.
With total lockdowns in the first half of the year and the following limitations to daily life as we knew it, social media platforms had experienced a great rise in activity online.
As the real-life engagement is now slowed down, the digital form of interaction is playing at high stakes.
The platforms are evolving and revising their interfaces, functions, and rules so it is possible to fulfill the needs of a modern user in real-life communication.
The result that the automatic Instagram likes monthly are now able to deliver for your account growth can be astonishing. That is due to the increase of interest in influencers and virtual communication in general.
This article is discovering the most significant factors that affected engagement on social media in spite of COVID-19.
The Posting Time
One of the most significant changes in social media during the lockdowns was the change of posting time on the major platforms.
Because many people have begun to work from home, the schedule of most social media networks has evolved to fit their timing.
For example, Facebook content was usually posted and actively engaged with after 5 p.m. on workdays, as the employees returned home from work. On weekends that activity was traditionally higher.
Now, the curve has flattened, and the most relevant time for posting on Facebook has turned to the period around 10-11 a.m. on working days:
- Monday
- Wednesday
- Friday
On Instagram, the schedule of posting has expanded to the overall working hours on workdays, although before it was concentrated on the morning hours.
Now many users turn to this platform to unload their minds, so this growth is quite logical. On weekends, the activity on Instagram remained at the same level – between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
And on Twitter, the posting schedule, similar to Instagram, has remained the same in general, with the peak of usage on Friday mornings.
Less Anxiety
As the lockdown has caused hysteria and anxiety, when the first panicking calmed down, creativity woke up. Different DIY and entertaining video-content has burst into great popularity.
Being stuck at home, people compensate for their usual daily routine with online fun. One of the known funny happenings was the Pillow dress challenge.
The point of the challenge was to wear pillows, sheets, or blankets as a piece of haute couture items. This one and many other entertaining contents had a positive impact on the level of comfort before the face of danger.
It is well-known that making a good joke and having fun decreases anxiety and paranoid mood, so in this case, witty challenges and other stuff had helped people to relax and feel comforted for at least a while.
Healthcare
Social media have come in a big help to the system o healthcare worldwide. Through memes, songs, and hashtags, the general information about the pandemic and ways to avoid the virus was spread in light and entertaining form.
Contacting with the audiences through social media has increased the level of trust in the authorities because now the information is easy to reach and it is not represented in directive form.
Another positive aspect of this was the fact that people were spreading important information further without additional effort from the authorities.
Doing reposts is easy and this way people were showing their care for friends and loved ones – one point in authorities’ favor!
t the same time, the accounts that cover fitness, sport, nutrition, and dietology, along with brands that represent healthy food and sport inventory have to experience the rise of interest, as well as personal accounts of trainers.
Taking care of your health is a primary concern now, so no wonder that this industry is now on the top.
Time For User-Generated Content
As the majority of bloggers and brands inevitably had to cut down their marketing budgets, they have started pushing the organic kind of promotion that can be provided by users.
So the most universal tips for nonprofits and businesses to use for better growth:
- Explore what kind of content is preferred by your audience and create a similar one to encourage reposting and likes
- Provide a sense of close friendly community, so your subscribers feel comfortable to share experience and talk to you
- Have fun together – through giveaways, polls, online games, and activities
- Go live – this is the closest type of online activity that can replace gatherings in real life, and it creates a bond with the audience.
- Support your followers and pay attention to their posts and stories. Show your true interest in them and improve the connection.
Encouraging user-generated content is a proven method to expand the influence on any platform that you occupy.
Videos Continue Their Way To Dominance
The social media monitors were predicting that the video content will be prevalent on the internet by the late ’20s, but nobody expected that the pandemic would come.
This factor speeded up this tendency multiple times.
That is why TikTok has gained an enormous boost in its rating – the amount of new entrepreneurs who concentrated their work on creating entertaining or educational videos on this platform has grown exponentially.
For some point, TikTok has to be grateful to the pandemic, or else it would never manage to beat the rates of Instagram stories.
Now, the sudden competition with TikTok encouraged Instagram to launch their newest feature called Reels, which is supposed to take back the focus of massive audiences.
Better Awareness
When the first news of coronavirus’s lethal consequences and contagiousness was revealed but the danger was not too clear yet, it had caused massive panicking among people.
The lockdowns were sudden and fast, and the eruption of fake news and unprofessional opinions started messing up the situation.
Frightened people were consuming too much information from lots of sources, including social media. This will later be called the Infodemic because of its unprecedented influence.
So one of the most important practices on social media has become the training to analyze any information that was appearing, and general competence in searching for proofs.
The governments have done their best to prevent the further growth of infodemic, along with celebrities and influencers.
And people who had speculated on the fear and misunderstanding, are eventually punished by losing their audiences. Carma works on social platforms too.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 pandemic has really changed the flow of social media development. The disease has given the new potential to it.
Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and other networks have saved us from total loneliness and lessened our anxiety during the lockdowns in spring, and also helped many local businesses to keep up on track.
