When a major crisis impacts your operations, brands are forced to re-think their marketing strategies, and the ways in which they communicate with their audiences on social media.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, however, things are a little different. The coronavirus outbreak has impacted everybody, with every business across the world altered in some form as a result of the global lockdowns and mitigation measures to limit the virus’ spread. 

That’s forced all of us to re-assess what we’re sharing, when we’re sharing it, and how we stay connected with people via social platforms. 

To help with this, the team at Socialinsider have put together this overview of the evolution of the COVID-19 discussion across social media, which looks at what people are saying, where they’re saying it, and how some brands have responded.

Among the key points of note:

• Twitter is the most used platform on which brands choose to talk about this COVID-19 crisis. On Twitter, there’s also a clear divide between people interested in hearing about the virus and people interested in social distancing advice
• Instagram is the platform for social distancing posts. Brands are using this channel to advise people on the importance of social distancing
• Most discussions on Facebook focus on information about COVID-19
• Messages about social distancing surfaced much earlier, even before the virus was given a name

The full findings of the research from Socialinsider are in the infographic below, created via Easel.ly.