September 24, 2020
We're obsessed with social media hashtags. Just see our posts on healthcare and holiday tags. And why not? Using hashtags with your social media posts has the potential to expand their reach dramatically. In the case of COVID-19, proper hashtag use signals that your brand has empathy and that you are good people. Use COVID hashtags on posts related to the pandemic. Like news about your company or practice that shows how you are coping, helping others, and adapting your operation to stay safe. Explain to customers how you're modifying products for and procedures to increase protection. And don't forget to add fun bits about how your employees are handling quarantine. Humor is in.
A word of caution: don't use COVID hashtags to popularize posts that aren't related to the virus. You'll risk being labeled an opportunistic cad and dragged through the streets of social media hell. We've seen it, and it's ugly.
Back to COVID hashtags and a few examples of the ones we think are most useful.
#COVID-19, #COVID19 – these are the go-to handles for anything pandemic related. A change of office hours, safe packaging, new procedures for patients, or your reopening status, slap COVID-19 on it.
Are you posting about the trials and tribulations of working from home, add encouragement with #StayatHome
#MyPandemicSurvivalPlan can be a lighthearted way for you and/or your staff to share the eats, drinks, stunts, and music that are keeping your heads screwed on tight. Feel free to add #QurantineandChill to that mix.
Of course, we all have our favorites. Ours is #Covidiots. Here's the definition provided by "TheLightKeeper on Tumbl' r:
Covididiot noun
- A stupid person who stubbornly ignores 'social distancing' protocols, thus helping to spread COVID-19. 'Are you seriously going to visit grandma? Dude, don't be such a covidiot.' A stupid person who hoards groceries needlessly spreading COVID-19 fears and depriving others of vital supplies. 'See that guy with the 200 rolls of toilet paper? What a covidiot.'
#FlattenTheCurve and #SocialDistancing are terms that will likely make it into the lexicon beyond the pandemic. #SocialDistancing may replace #Ghosting, and Weight Watchers will likely adopt "#FlattenTheCurve as its new tagline. Incorporating these tags and others, like #StayHomeSaveLives, can be a shorthand public service announcement from your brand.
Your brand has clout. So use it for the common good to show you have empathy for the struggles everyone is enduring.