How Social Influencers are Adapting to COVID-19 Pandemic

Social influencers have adapted to continue producing results during the coronavirus pandemic. But how?

The current global shutdown has forced businesses to cut their influencer marketing spend, and that’s not surprising. A vast number of these campaigns were supposed to promote future events that are no longer happening.

Moreover, the pandemic has overtly affected specific industries that depend on influencers. These include the travel and hospitality industry, among others. Meanwhile, brands are reluctant to invest in campaigns that they can’t always track to sales during this period of uncertainty.

Yet, it seems the global influencer community would still be one of the unlikely winners when the isolation is over.

According to Influence Central, influencers have become thriving sources on news, advice, and reassurance in the COVID-19 crisis.

Thirty-six percent of U.S. influencers are seeing a significant increase in impression and engagement withing their Instagram account. The figure is similar on Facebook too. What’s more, roughly 87 percent of influencer respondents are buying more online and discussing it with their communities every day.

So, how are these influencers adapting to changing consumer behavior?

4 Ways Social Influencers are Adapting to Coronavirus

Here are four reasons that influencer marketing is thriving during the current pandemic.

1. The Growing Popularity of Live-streaming

Lots of influencers depend on live streams to talk and interact in real-time. But global self-isolation may have raised the number even further.

The reason for this surge is simple. People in isolation are now looking to build and maintain connections with other people. This, in turn, led to a rise in live-streaming across various platforms.

For example, live streaming platform, Twitch reported a 10 percent increase in viewership during the weekend of March 14th.

In the coming weeks, we could see more of this type of content, a report suggests.

2. Brand Purpose Comes to the Forefront

Companies have always used to influencers to pass a specific message across to a broad group of audience. And that’s what they’re doing now.

In Finland, the government has enlisted influencers to help spread information about the pandemic. Similarly, the WHO has involved several global influencers in the Safe Hands Challenge — a campaign about getting people to wash their hands to fight coronavirus.

Moving forward, brands can get into these types of partnerships. They could use influencers to pass a positive message to the audience as well as generate funds for those in need.

3. Increase in TikTok Engagement

The overall use of social media is up during the current lockdown. But, specific platforms like TikTok see a more significant spike.

According to MBW, the social media app got up to 6.2 million downloads in the United States last month. That’s a 27 percent increase compared with February’s 4.9 million downloads.

Many users are using the short-form video as a form of escape. However, coronavirus-related content is also growing, with influencers starting or popularizing the trend.

Engagement on sponsored posts has increases as more people download TikTok and spend time scrolling. A study revealed a 27 percent increase in sponsored post engagement between February and March.

4. Social influencers Shift to Solution-Based Content

Some social influencers are shifting to solution-based content, such as instructional or tutorial-style guidance. At the same time, others are turning to more interactive and community building content.

For example, Influencer Intelligence reported that Influencers are using Instagram Stories and other interactive content. The report further suggested that this could be a way for brands to connect with customers in the coming weeks.