See what large social media companies are doing to help smaller businesses be effective during COIVD-19.
The news is filled with ways small businesses are struggling right now. Many small businesses are upping their online presence as much as possible at this time, but creating content can be difficult when staff is confined to their houses or have been laid off.
See how a few companies are looking to make this a bit easier for small companies
Zoom
By now, most people know that Zoom has lifted the 40 minute limit for free accounts. Before COVID-19, Zoom was free, but at 40 minutes your conference would end, abruptly. Now for free accounts, you simply just get a little alert that tells you who are receiving unlimited time.
Shutterstock
Shutterstock is offering free images to small businesses through its new resource page. These images are COVID-19 related to help small businesses communicate with their customers. And its free business pack is filled with pictures businesses can use to create online content. These are business-centric pictures you can use for social media posts and website designs.
IG has officially launched gift card purchasing, online food ordering and fundraiser tools through Stories and profiles. Their hope is to provide shuttered businesses with another avenue for revenue. On their site, Instagram wrote: āSmall businesses are an important part of our community, and many are facing immense challenges during the COVIDā19 crisis. Today, weāre making it easier to discover gift cards, online food orders, and fundraisers on Instagram so you can support the businesses you love.ā
Instagram has also allowed Live Streams to be viewed on the web. This option comes with a new, less intrusive format, and URLs to cross-promote your streams.
After the 2016 election, Facebook was under a lot of scrutiny about how they permitted and then handled the Russian interference and misinformation attack. Possibly having learned from the backlash, Facebook has put in measures to help identify misinformation about COVID-19.
They have taken 2 new measures to help stop the spread of misinformation.
First, Facebook will start by trying to inform and educate users who spread misinformation. They will do this by connecting them with a link clarifying the misinformation.
Second, they have created a COVID-19 information center.
Separate from misinformation, but related to COVID-19, Facebook has launched a new emoji. It is the hug emoji! Their idea behind this new emoji is to help spread empathy and sympathy during this time when we all need it most. Also the heart love emoji will start coming in pulsing purple as well. These are referred to as Care reactions.
Twitter has released best practices guide for creating and posting video content. As we have written about before, video content performs the best across all contents, so during these difficult time, Twitter has compiled its data to share with us. Check out their data driven best practices
These guys have published their findings as well. Pinterest is helping pinners understand the rising trends amid COVID-19. They have published the 3 emerging trends they are seeing.
Pinterest has also expanded its Pinterest Partners program which according to Pinterest is āsophisticated technology solutions to help you scale on Pinterest. They span six focus areas, from content optimization to targeting and shopping tools.ā This is a collection of tools and providers that can help pinners maximize their businesses. The six areas are Advertising, Content Marketing, Shopping, Audiences, Measurement and Creative.
Big and small companies alike are trying to figure out how to survive during these difficult times as well as figure out if this is the new normal or what will the new normal be.
This freebies and services are helpful now and small businesses should take advantage of them if they can, but if COVID-19 changes our business practices for good, small business may need other resources to survive.
We hope to guide you through as much as we can.
Comments