3 Social Media Trends During COVID-19 Crisis

December 21^st, 2019 was the first time COVID-19 came onto the world stage in China.
On March 4^th, 2020, the United Kingdom saw a massive increase in COVID-19, which marked its introduction of lockdown on March 20^th, 2020, changed the landscape for trends for Social Media and customer engagement, including:

1. Advertising- All about the money

The spending for digital advertising dropped by 5%; however, display advertising grew by 0.3% and video by 5.7% (Fig 2), which was accounted for by people staying at home during the lockdown. Most online businesses increased spend, Walt Disney in the UK , Spent more than £10.2m to promote Disney+ its video streaming platform

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Crisis in cutbacks

Approximately 86% of advertisers are looking to make cuts in media spending as the pandemic continuous, which is leading the way to a “Coronavirus recession” caused by COVID-19.

Not a laughing matter

In the current COVID-19 climate and the high use of social media video platforms such as YouTube, many still want to see advertising. They did not wish brands to use humor when promoting their products.
This is linked to the current severe climate, which should not be diluted with unnecessary humor. And humor to promote a brand and make money.

The downside

With the pandemic taking traditional bricks and mortar retailers advertising has fallen (Fig 3), which has led many dominant online social media sites such as Facebook and Google to predict to lose more than $44 billion in advertising revenue

Fig 3 ( (Li & Hall, 2020)

2. Therapeutic nature of COVID-19

Made Worse

COVID-19 has made mental health worse with people eating less healthy food, sleeping less, eating less regular meals, and talking less to friends and family.

Filling out time!

In the lockdown period, users were spending more time on social media channels than before lockdown; the main reasons were:

• News, which introduced a term called “doomscrolling”- where people read headline news, which shows negative pieces of information rather than the positive aspects, which is only right during periods of lockdown and uncertainty
• Find humorous content
• Fill uptime
• See what friends and family are up to.

All this helped individuals cope, where 57% of people said that social media helped them feel less isolated during the COVID-19 outbreak. Also, they felt more inclined to be who they are rather than be a different public version of themselves.

Quicker connections

A popular messaging app such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp saw their usage go up drastically, especially those countries which were in lockdown. Facebook messenger saw a 50% increase in use with engagement up in other social platforms, including Twitter, which saw a fourfold increase

Improved wellbeing

The mental health concerns, 23% of the public were worried that their mental health would worsen during the pandemic. Social media helps combat loneliness and anxiety, allowing more connections online than in person.
57% of people felt less lonely and 48% less anxious about social media use.
However, the long-term effects not be felt until a thorough analysis is carried out after the pandemic has stopped being a problem.

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3. Social media usage- How far will you go?

Comparison to the previous period

The number of people using social media has increased by 10.5%, compared to the previous period in 2019, with men spending longer 46% and women 41% using social media (Fig 5) during the COVID period

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User-generated content

This has led to increased usage and a marked increase in user-generated content creation, especially from platforms like Tik Tok, which was seen in April With 12 million US visitors and 2 billion downloads of their video content.
This accelerated growth in video content will increase in this era, as a wide range of audiences are “jumping on the bandwagon”, to grow in user participation, e.g., parents making videos to bond with their children.
This shows that consumers want more content and relevant, targeted content to avoid boredom.

Building trust – we will entertain you

Some 65% of consumers are looking more and more to Social Media channels for news on COVID-19 data such as infection rates, public announcements, e.g., wearing facemasks and keeping a two-meter safe distance between other people.
Also, 46% of consumers wanted “feel good” content to make the COVID-19 period more bearable.
Also, consumers will respond favorably to messaging that demonstrates value for money, reliability, and care

Brand engagement- making the most of the pandemic!

As with the increase in consumer usage, brands have also seen an increase in engagements, according to, with 44 engagements per day and 7.3 more engagements per post. The main target markets included consumer goods, health care, media, and entertainment.