Have you lost your job during the coronavirus pandemic? Has it ever occurred to you that you can work remotely?
In this piece, we’re going to discuss the pros and cons of working remotely, especially amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
Financial recession & coronavirus crisis
The coronavirus has, fortunately, a relatively low death toll. However, an unbelievable financial recession is happening along with the outbreak of this virus. This is probably the worst and the longest economic crisis after World War II.
On the one hand, governments have to impose lockdowns to prevent the virus from spreading and save people’s lives. On the other hand, a massive number of layoffs are being reported every day.
Only in the USA, more than 17 million workers have filed for jobless aid. Experts and officials are predicting even a worse situation of 32% unemployment.
Shops, restaurants, luxury products, transportations, and generally jobs with a high probability of physical contact have suffered the most.
Physical presence & traditional workplaces
Traditional workplaces are one of the most common means of spreading the coronavirus. The incubation period of the coronavirus disease in our body can take up to 14 days long.
This has caused a global health and economic issue. The longer our factories are closed and streets are banned, the higher rates of unemployment we will face.
Almost all advanced countries have applied strict limitations for traditional workplaces with the exception of health and military sectors.
What do you think? Is there any solution to the unemployment crisis? Many experts believe that remote working is the only way by which brands can maintain their names alive and offset their losses.
Internet & working from home
Despite the previous big pandemic in history, we have a big solution: the internet. The number of online jobs had already skyrocketed.
So, during the crisis, we can make the most of it and reduce the financial losses of our businesses.
Fortunately, a considerable number of jobs can be done remotely and the result can be easily reported by the internet.
Designers, software developers, analyzers, teachers, consultants, accountants, translators, and many others are among those who can easily work remotely.
Of course, many managers are still insisting on the physical presence of the employees. Maybe the current crisis coerces them into accepting remote employees.
Social media & marketing amid the COVID-19 pandemic
Social media is the most recent internet-based tool of communication. As it comes from the name, social media is meant to be used as a social communication tool.
However, it’s not limited to socializing only. Nowadays, marketing and advertising are among the most important applications of social media.
Almost every small and big business is trying to reach out to a portion of more than 3 billion active users on social media.
Building a social media marketing strategy, gaining organic followers, and finally increasing sales can’t be easily handled. This is why social media marketing agencies have risen.
There are a lot of job advertisements related to social media marketing on sites such as Freelancer, Indeed, UpWork, LinkedIn, and FreeUp.
The COVID-19 pandemic can be one of the most important points in the growth of social media platforms and the number of jobs on them.
When people are forced to #Stay_Home, they will definitely use social media more than ever. This is the perfect opportunity to reach out to them and encourage them to be your customers.
Of course, you need to do some adjustments to your social media marketing strategy and perhaps on your SEO techniques.
Here are several tips in this regard:
- Invite your followers to be patient
- Define SMART goals related to the corona crisis
- Try to create informative content related to COVID-19
- Explain the effect of COVID-19 on your industry
- Try to sympathize with harmed people
- Show them you’re home just like them and are working for them
- Try to deduce your extra expenses such as luxury influencer marketing
- Work with organic influencers
- Create viral hashtags combining branded and COVID-related keywords
- Share user-generated content more than the past
- Review your SEO techniques and try to revise them according to COVID-19
- Try to offer different online packages
- Don’t forget discounts—they work miracles these days
Using these tips and a little hard work, you can achieve significant success in social media marketing form home.
Fortunately, almost all steps of social media marketing can be done remotely if you can coordinate your team well.
Remote working & supervision issue
One of the most critical issues of remote work is to know if your employees are doing their job well. When you assign certain tasks to your employees to work remotely, you have less information over them.
This can cause misunderstandings and other problems. But no worries. With good management and social media communication, you can overcome this issue.
First, you need to define what exactly the task is and what its desired results are. This can remove the majority of misunderstandings.
Second, you need to gain the trust of your employees so that they know you will respect their good job.
Also, you should use social media as the most sought after means of communication. You can easily be informed of the status of the task using a live video.
Try to design a schedule for communications to avoid bothering your employees. You can offer them flexible working hours so that they can balance their work and family life.
In case you have a lot of remote employees, you need a more accurate project management strategy. Try to build different levels of groups and channels on suitable social media for coordination, assignments, and education.
Assign the management of each level to your best colleagues and ask them to report to you. This can significantly save you time and energy.
The above article was just a summary of how important remote working is and how you can perform it during the pandemic. Of course, the financial loss of the corona outbreak can’t be easily offset. But you can reduce the detrimental effects of it and maintain your brand identity using good social media management.
