The supervening situation due to COVID-19 pandemic caused us to change social habits, constrained, yes, but in the constraint everyone found a way out of isolation.
Among the ways to entertain oneself was to use social media, during March-June 2020 there was a 43% increase in the use of social media to reach 51% of the world's population for the first time (compared to those who do not use it), touching 4 billion people in July 2020.
How did companies respond?
Early efforts were put into organizing remote work, providing the tools to employees, and giving cloud access to enable work from home.
So many difficulties: slow connection, different habits, children at home to manage with online schooling, new spaces to share.
There has been a lot of talk about smart working, a complex concept that encompasses an agreement between employer and employee to carry out their assignments without time, space, and goal or phased organization, a change in work management that allows for a better work-life balance.
So many have deployed remote working, some smart working: with video calls we could give ourselves goals and check on work progress steps. For example, Zoom in March said it had reached peaks of 200 million participants each day, up from an average of 10 million recorded in the run-up to the health emergency. The spread of video calls made sure that Facebook integrated "rooms" by May, just stemming from the platform mentioned earlier, let's not forget that one of the purposes of Zuckerberg's social is to keep the audience in the social media.
Facebook and Instagram
Live feeds on Facebook and Instagram have been a way to entertain and educate people from a distance, doubling views.
Global advertising spending fell $50 billion, down 8.1 percent, mainly the travel and tourism(-31.2 percent), entertainment and recreation(28.7 percent), financial services (-18.2 percent), retail sales (-15.2 percent) finally the automotive sector (-11.4 percent).
Consistent with the general reductions in Facebook and Google Ads investments, we have an increase in organic content results, and better results being obtained with lower advertising investments.
At the beginning of March, companies closed their locations; those who had e-commerce had different reactions depending on the area of interest:
large retail, food delivery and neighborhood stores grew 16%, Pharma and publishing, grew. Also of note were +32% sports and Wellness, +39% coffee machines, +81%gardening +240%sex-related goods.
Some of the new user traffic comes from social media (24%), but where are the companies?
Italian companies' favorite social networks are Facebook (53%), Instagram (40%), which with the ability to purchase products was preferred in some cases to Facebook, a balance that may be changing since Facebook introduced SHOPS, the product showcase for purchasing, in May. This is followed by Youtube, Linkedin and Whatsapp.
For a proper strategy, the balance between the various media is crucial; analyzing the performance of the various tools allows for good budget management and the flexibility to follow the market.
For some the challenge will be to maintain the positive trends recorded, for others to subvert the negative trend, one thing is certain, Digital marketing is an ace to play in every game!
If you want to be up-to-date, attend DIDAYS2020 on October 29 and 30, 2020. Until 31/8 you can purchase your discounted ticket for only 79.00€!
Sara Brugnoni
Brand Ambassador Digital Innovation Days | Communication Manager Raja Italy
Sources: Wearesocial Digital 2020 in Italy - WARC Global Advertising Trends - facebook.com/business - CA E-commerce in Italy 2020.
