As thousands of businesses across the globe transition to remote working in the midst of COVID-19, many are questioning how they will be able to effectively engage with their audience.
Particularly for those businesses that regularly host events, meetings or presentations for their target audience and clients; marketing activity of this type has effectively ground to a halt.
Despite this, companies are adapting to new ways of engagement to keep those vital communication lines open with their audience throughout the pandemic. Social media is an obvious choice to keep in touch with your audience and update them about your business, but you can go much further than this. Below we will take a look at just some of the ways you can utilise the virtual world to engage with current and prospective customers.
Podcasts
A podcast is the perfect way to get your content out to a large audience in an engaging and evergreen format. Since its inception in 2004, the podcast has grown substantially in popularity.
In fact, the Podcast Trends Report 2019, revealed that 82% of people listen to podcasts for more than 7 hours every week. While 56% of listeners claimed to have purchased a product after hearing it advertised on a podcast, demonstrating the huge impact this channel can carry for business.
Whether it is informative guidance, interviews, or tips relating to your industry, podcasts can help you reach a wider audience far beyond your social following – allowing people to stream your content on-demand, from any device, anywhere, at any time.
Webinars
In lieu of hosting actual events, webinars are a powerful alternative to engaging with your audience. There are many different types of webinars that you could host, from workshops to seminars, question and answer sessions to demonstrations. The key is to choose the format that will provide value to your audience, whilst also highlighting your expertise in your industry.
Webinars enable you to connect with your audience in real-time, so they can interact with you and ask questions or share insights, in the same way they would at an event or during a presentation. And, as with podcasts, attendees can also catch up after the session has taken place and watch at a later date.
Take a look at our quick guide to setting up your first webinar.
Livestreams
Whilst it may be a daunting prospect, live streaming can provide your audience with a human insight into the day to day operations of your business (albeit your ‘new’ way of current operations for now). Social platforms such as Facebook and Instagram are ideal channels on which to do this.
Instagram will notify your followers when you do go live (setting dependent), helping to attract more attendees. Plus, should more than one of your team want to go live from their respective homes, Instagram Live has the extra bonus of adding another person to your live stream, or even getting audience members involved in the discussion, allowing you to host a truly interactive Q&A session.
Videos
The quality of phone cameras these days means that it is entirely possible to produce great video content from the comfort of your own home, to share with your audience.
This is a great opportunity to productively engage with social followers, encourage questions and answer them within your video. When used across a variety of platforms (Facebook, Instagram TV or YouTube) you will also reach an entirely new, yet relevant audience. Great videos will be liked, commented and shared across platforms, making them a fantastic way to encourage new leads and plenty of interaction.
Video conferencing
Great engagement with your target audience will ultimately mean an increase in leads for your business. But what do you do when neither party can meet face to face? A few decades ago and the telephone would have been your only option, but these days there are countless communication solutions available.
Video conferencing tools are an effective way to virtually meet with customers, prospective clients, and teammates to promote deeper discussion and better connectivity – much more effective than a simple email.
Just one of the tools we’ve currently been using for this is Microsoft Teams but there are an increasingly wide variety of digital tools to choose from to keep communications flowing while working remotely.
Do you have any tips of your own for working remotely? We’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences over on our Twitter or LinkedIn page.
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