According to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Research Center:

  • Currently, 76% of small businesses are negatively impacted by the outbreak of the coronavirus,
  • About 5% are positively impacted experiencing stronger sales due to a sharp rise in demand for certain products, goods, and services.
  • Of those businesses negatively impacted, 23% are experiencing supply chain disruptions, 54% slower sales, and 9% sick employees.

However, in our digital world, there are plenty of ways to stay connected to your customers through this pandemic and keep your business going through it:

  1. Let customers know what you’re doing to prevent the spread of COVID-19
  2. Update your online channels
  3. Offer online deals & community building content
  4. Be responsive with proactive community management

In this episode we talk through some strategies and examples for your business to keep in mind as you navigate the COVID-19 world right now.


Shownotes


Episode Transcript

Missy 0:00
Welcome to The Social Feed Podcast. I’m your host missy. Thank you for listening. In this episode, we chat with Jayna Wilcox, our senior digital sales strategist here at Hubbard. She really works with all of our other markets and has learned so many valuable things when it comes to, you know, connecting with customers around the coronavirus and things that are happening in the country. And then we also have with us Adriana Velez who works with clients on a daily basis really focusing on community management. And so she has some really great tips and tricks that she provides on putting together a plan to respond to all those comments that are coming in with everything going on. So with the digital world changing and a lot more people spending time at home and on social media, we wanted to put together a list of some different things that you as a business owner should be aware of, and that you can do to make sure that your customers have the most information they can get throughout this outbreak. So let’s get in This week’s episode number 102, Staying Connected with Customers Through the Coronavirus Outbreak.

Pat 1:05
And I just want to put a little disclaimer out there. We’re obviously practicing some social distancing at Hubbard as well. And so we’ve got Jayna and Missy and Adrianna on the phone. So the audio quality is not what we normally have, but right now, it’s all we got. So enjoy the episode.

Missy 1:22
According to the National Federation of Independent Business, they did a survey, this actually was updated as of yesterday. And they said currently 76% of small businesses are negatively being impacted by the outbreak of the Coronavirus, which totally makes sense. It’s gonna probably be 100% eventually, and about 5% of those businesses are positively impacted, which I thought was interesting. They’re really talking about like, you know, stronger sales to some businesses due to like the sharp rise in demand for products like toilet paper, which I was trying to find this weekend, things like that on that list. But really what I want to focus on with those stats in this episode today is how businesses can stay connected with customers through this outbreak. And by doing that, we’re going to kind of really focus on four different pillars and sections of this podcast, the first one being, you know, letting customers know what you’re doing to help prevent the spread as a business, how to update your online channels the way the most effective way to make sure your customers can still communicate with you. Offering online deals and some community building content ideas we’ll talk about and then the last one will be community management, so being responsive in this time of crisis. So the first one we’ll jump right into is letting customers know what you’re doing to prevent the spread of COVID-19. So one thing that I thought was really cool press releases are obviously I don’t say they’re old school marketing, but they’ve been around a very long time and at&t, released press release. That was they posted on their website and on their blog and everything like that. But it was, I’m just gonna read it because it was just like a really great way to showcase like what they’re doing to help their customers during this time. And it says we’re committed to helping our customers and our communities get through this crisis. That’s why today we’ve also announced an addition to our keep Americans connected pledge. For the next 60 days, we will waive domestic wireless plan coverage charges for data voice or text for residential or small business wireless customers during this pandemic, we’re here with you and keeping you connected. So just thought that was a really great way for a company to you know, take that initiative and help people during this crisis and using their their business for good in that sense.

And then, have you guys seen other businesses doing some cool stuff like that, too?

Jayna 3:54
Yeah, I think that it’s it’s really cool how just from what i’ve Seen or even talking to all of our clients or prospects or talking to or, you know, they’re wondering how they can be a part of this conversation or what they can do. And it’s really just talking about what product or service Do they have that can maybe help in what’s going on or How can they align with COVID-19? Do they have a community partner? Is there something that makes them unique? I know, like, with distilleries, and things like that, with the hand sanitizers, no, they’re just looking at their businesses in a different way that maybe they’d never would have looked at it that way. Or it’s just something new or you just have to go spend time thinking more creatively. So I think the distillery one is definitely a really good example of that with the hand sanitizers.

Missy 4:53
Yeah, if anyone’s been to like Tattersall from Minnesota or Norseman, which has amazing cocktails. What they’re what’s cool, they’re like basically Using their alcohol to make sanitizer because it’s running out, obviously. And Norseman even took it a step further because they’re obviously trying to help help their business continue to grow. And so if you buy a cocktail kit from Norsemen during this time, part of those proceeds will go to help fund sanitizer to give to health care workers on the front lines of the outbreak, which, you know, it’s what do you think about it? Like how can a distillery help but there’s just so many opportunities that these brands are tapping into, to help in whatever way they can?

Adriana 5:32
Yes, that’s such a good idea. I recently saw on Instagram that Allbirds will send a pair of their shoes, to healthcare workers. So if you just like send them this Instagram post, they can email Allbirds and Allbirds will just send them a pair of shoes to wear while they’re working or not working. So I kind of thought that’s kind of a good way to give back. So I’ve seen a lot of brands just kind of stepping up and You know, making it known that they want to give back to all of these, like frontline response workers during this time. So yeah, anything that’s creative like that, I think is just really impactful. And it shows people that that brand really cares about what’s going on.

Missy 6:14
I love that I would never even thought about like shoes for the healthcare workers, you know,

Adriana 6:19
yeah, ice, I sent it to my dad so that he can get himself a pair of shoes. And I was just like, I don’t know if you want them. But you know, here’s the option if you just want something for free.

Jayna 6:32
That’s super cool to see that and I saw something sort of similar. I follow Christian Siriano on Instagram. He’s a fashion designer. He started his career on Project Runway and I just love him. But he had posted something on Instagram too to say, you know, I know a lot of people are out of work right now but let us know if you need masks. We sew for a living like that’s what we do. We can start making masks like let’s Help out And I encourage people who do so Or you know, if that’s your expertise and people aren’t buying a bunch of clothes right now for themselves, given the economic circumstances and just we can’t be shopping in store and things like that. And, you know, let’s take our talents elsewhere and start sewing masks for people in the healthcare field, things like that. I think it’s just, it’s really great again, like I said, to look at a business and watch them just look at things from a different perspective. And it’s really quite amazing.

Missy 7:34
I love that. The other thing too, is just to let people know like when I went, I ran to Costco the other day because you know, low on supplies, and they’re the workers like once you get into the door, they have hand sanitizer, they have they’re like, dousing down the carts with paper towels and cleaner. So just making sure that if you know you have a business that a lot of people have to go to like grocery stores. gas stations, those necessities that you’re promoting on social media that, you know, if you if you do need something and you need supplies come in and but we are doing these specific precautions to make sure everyone is healthy and safe.

Jayna 8:13
Mm hmm. Definitely. And I think it gets into the conversation about just how to be prepared in the digital space as well. You know, you want to be prepared if somebody comes into your store. But if you don’t have that as an option for your store or your restaurant, you know, you’ve been seeing all these places close, temporarily. It’s really important now to consider having an e commerce website or being able to shop for a gift card online or through social media, or how can they still get your services or products for a later time or for now just do it in the digital or social space. I think it’s also prepping for that too. which we’ve all been super just involved in on our ends and having clients come to us and ask us the best approach to that

Missy 9:03
I’ve seen like a lot of because obviously like hair stylists and nail salons and the service industry is all really taken a hit right now. And so yeah, promoting those gift cards I think is huge. And I know some hair salon owners that I’ve seen the stylist posts on Instagram or even saying like if you buy a gift card during this time 50% of that will go straight to the stylist right now to help them during this time of need.

Jayna 9:29
So cool.

Missy 9:31
So we talked about so the first thing you want to do is obviously let customers know what you’re doing to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. But the second thing is updating your online channels to make sure it reflects things like if your hours of operation have changed. I think that’s one thing a lot of people don’t think about is you know, going to your Google My Business and updating all those things so that if someone does need something or they’re trying to contact you for a product or service, they are they know what to do. So I think the biggest thing is, you know, making sure that your hours are updated on, you know, Facebook, Instagram, if you have two hours listed in your bio, making sure those are all updated. I’m trying to think of other places that people might not normally think to update. A Google My Business is probably one of the biggest ones. Oh, Yelp be another one as well.

Jayna 10:21
Mm hmm.

Yeah. Yeah, I would say you know, all the basics like that Google, my business, all your social channels, put it in your bio on Instagram, you know, make it as easy for your customers as possible to see it understand what’s going on with your business specifically, and then have that also just listed on your website. I know when we’ve done some takeout options for food just to support local businesses and restaurants. I’ve gone straight to the website and there typically is something right there on that first homepage.

Missy 11:00
The other thing so option three two is to offer online deals to keep engaging that community online, but then also building some really great content to keep those conversations going during this time. So a couple of things that have come up. These are just a couple brands that I follow that I thought of that have bee doing a really phenomenal job at this. Chipotle is always does a really good job in their marketing. But I don’t know if you guys have seen these but it’s always been hosting these series of daily Chipotle together sessions on zoom. And essentially, you can like you they tweeted out at Chipotle tweets.com they’ll tweet out a link and I think the last one that they had was with I don’t watch The Bachelor. I don’t know if you guys do but Colton Underwood. Do you know who that is?

Jayna 11:45
Um, is he a bachelor?

Missy 11:47
Some guy on the Bachelor.

Jayna 11:50
Okay. But I know like the two people on the planet

that don’t watch it.

Missy 11:56
I know I feel like I say this out loud.

But, uh, but yeah, he actually hosted one of their last Chipotle togethers and just you know, talked about just kind of kicked it off and had fans talking about different things. And it was, it was kind of a it’s a cool way to get people together and promote the social distancing. But Chipotle was obviously the one backing all of it and promoting it through their channels.

Do any of you guys follow alchemy? 365?

Adriana 12:28
I do.

And okay, there. Yeah, all of their classes are online now through YouTube. So it’s been really helpful for me to just like wake up in the morning and workout. And I know core power, I believe is doing online classes as well. So still promoting like social distancing, but getting active instead of just watching Netflix all day like I want to be doing but yeah.

Missy 12:54
Yeah, alchemy’s been doing a phenomenal job of just posting like inspirational quotes. Like do what you can with what you have where you are, and then directing people to go to like their YouTube channel. And one of their goals. They had posted about how they needed to grow their YouTube community to 1000 subscribers in order to be able to do the live videos. So they were encouraging their community to subscribe to YouTube. So it was not only helping grow their channel, but also once they were able to do that they were able to access different functions of YouTube to do the lives and things that they wanted to do. So that was just a cool way that they use social to grow that and then offer all those classes to everyone from home.

Jayna 13:36
I’ve also seen this happen with the music industry and concerts, just with again, the nature of all these events being canceled and not being able to gather at a concert. I don’t know if you girls have seen that but the celebrities that have gone on. john legend

who also has done it Oh, the Coldplay guy. What’s his name?

Pat 14:05
Chris Martin

Jayna 14:08
Pat I knew you’re gonna answer that.

Pat 14:11
The first time i’ve chimed in on this, this episode of it’s to tell you who Coldplay is.

Jayna 14:15
Yeah, well, Chris Martin did the same thing. And I just know, there’s been a lot of really positive response with that, too, because I think a big thing right now is and what I know for sure with, you know, reading about this so much, and we’re online, and this is our jobs, it’s really important for us to understand how to best approach this, I think, approaching it with empathy and having that empathetic tone is is really important because it is it’s difficult and people are confused and they’re anxious and it’s a really hard time so I love like, you know, Chris Martin and having a concert or john legend is just that small outlet of positivity. throughout that as well, so the music industry has definitely been doing that too.

Pat 15:04
Can I ask you guys how, how, how best to balance that tone like obviously this is people are anxious about this and worried about things happening. And so life is not very much not normal right now. But at the same time, we still need to go grocery shopping and we still need to go to, you know, restaurants that eat food, we still need to interact with certain businesses how, how does a business best balance that the societal cultural tone that we have right now and still promote their business without, you know, taking advantage of this?

Jayna 15:41
So I read an interesting article this morning, actually on this topic, and, and we’ll, we’ll link this it was in social media today. And it was about it’s called beware of virtue, you wear a virtue signaling and brand communication about COVID-19 and It talks about avoiding virtue signaling, which is when your brand is expressing a value without actually taking an action towards that, in living those values. So right now, and even before this, the big trend on social media, specifically in online is authenticity. And that’s so key right now people crave that, and especially the younger, you know, Gen Z and millennials that everyone’s always trying to reach, they want to align with a brand that they feel, you know, is in line with their missions in life. So virtue signaling would be something like a business that maybe it’s in the mortgage world, and I think that that’s listed in the article starts to, you know, go full force into talking about COVID and all the actions they’re taking, when in reality, the consumer might actually just want an email from their mortgage company about You know how this might affect them financially as opposed to, no, I don’t care what precautions you’re taking at the company, I’ve never stepped a toe in there, I do all my payments automatically online. Instead inform me about how this is going to affect that. So I think it’s also just looking at the category in which you are in the vertical in which your business is in, in the case of fitness in music, yeah, that makes sense. And you know, core power going online absolutely makes sense and taking healthy precautions that way, because you’re actually going to the studio, but again, for my automatic car payments, and I want to know if my interest rates are being affected or what this means economically through this COVID crisis, as opposed to what they’re doing at wherever they’re processing my auto loan or something like that. So I think it’s just about thinking, you know, when it’s right to talk about something and align yourself with why you’re Audiences truly coming to you what your message should be. It they use this example of there was like this COVID denial at first and now there’s this COVID FOMO happening right now where people are just posting about it because they feel like now everybody is I think it’s just about being empathetic towards the fact that people still want to be educated. They want to know what to do when to do it. How because there’s a lot going on. A lot going on in general. So

Missy 18:29
that’s interesting. You bring up that part too, because I was doing a bit of research on like, because I’ve seen so many brands doing it like the right way and responding and helping, but then there has been a few brands that have done the wrong thing. One of them was and this wasn’t too I’ll say extreme but it’s just something to be aware of. Hershey, very large brands, they kind of learned the lesson the hard way they were sharing different social media images that had people you know, hugging and giving handshakes Which, as in normal society, that would be a totally fine image to use. But they got a little bit of backlash because people are so focused on social distancing right now. And they’re using that type of creative in their imagery. So they actually end up pulling those ads because they got so much flack for it. So something to just be conscious of when you are posting content and stuff like that. That might be something, you know, just something to think about. Also, Coors Light, had to stop a campaign that they had called the official beer of working remotely, because they thought that it was taking advantage of the situation and kind of the mandating work from home. So they thought it was taking a little bit too, too lightly. So they pulled that campaign as well.

Jayna 19:46
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I think those are two really good examples of kind of the, to go back to your question Pat just went in. When’s the right time? You know, what type of content are we putting out it’s it’s really just thinking strategically, like we always do. It’s just looking at it from a much different angle this time.

Missy 20:08
And the last thing I wanted to talk about on here was community management. Because as you’re putting out more content, and just in general, as things are happening, there’s going to be a lot more people spending time online, and therefore commenting and asking questions. So making sure that you’re being responsive at a time of crisis is really, really important. So, Adriana, I know that since you do a lot of time management for your clients, you’ve run into a lot of this recently, and you actually have an entire like PR plan for each of your clients on how to respond to those things. Can you tell us a bit more about you know how you did that and give some and some recommendations you give to other businesses that are experiencing that?

Adriana 20:47
Yeah, so especially the start of this week, everything kind of hit the fan is how I like to say it, where people are spending a ton of time online and at home, and a kind of Like, you know how we have those people that we assume are going to like yell at managers at the store when they’re unhappy. So I just like to phrase it as those people are coming out on Facebook now. So they’re kind of doing the same thing. But just like behind the screen instead of like at the checkout or like register. So right now, it’s like really important to be direct with your messaging and like taking the time to make sure that you have your plan and everything in place, because people are going to be asking questions. So a lot of the time I’m seeing, you know, if these local small businesses are closing their doors or their retail locations, a lot of people will ask, okay, well, how are you compensating your employees or your employees, you know, having to file for unemployment, they want that plan kind of laid out. So I saw a lot of the clients that I work with just not having a plan, but a lot of consumers asking what the plan was, so I kind of just developed these messages that are pretty generic and just saying, you know, like, we’re working on this internal plan of, you know, a time of action and everything is moving fast. So kind of, you’re putting out this message of like things that you’re doing. But if you don’t have those details laid out, people are kind of coming out and asking you for those details. So it’s just being timely and responsive and kind of giving them the information that you have and not giving them the full plan. So things like press releases, you know, I’ve had some clients release those, here, our stores are closing in, and you know, these employees aren’t working but this is what we’re doing to kind of help the employees that lost their job or, you know, whatever that might be. So I kind of went through for each of my clients, they range from, you know, a food brand that’s in a grocery store that right now their sales are going up as people are frantically buying food to kind of stock the fridge in case we go in a lockdown situation. To You know, services that now have to kind of pivot and instead of entering your home to get things from your apartment and service you they have to do curbside. So promoting those things differently. And then, of course, the local businesses that we work with that are closing their retail locations, we’ve changed their messaging into just how are they continuing to support other small Minnesota brands as well. So I think all of that is very important, but people are coming out asking those tough questions. So instead of being frantic, have that messaging laid out ahead of time, and kind of like slowly walk these consumers through what you’re doing and making that public people want that information? They’re going to kind of figure out if you’re, you know, putting out false information that you’re doing X, Y, and Z, but then someone that works there is coming out on comments as well and saying, actually, you guys aren’t doing any of this. So just be careful about the content that you’re putting out and making sure you actually have a plan of action to follow that content.

Missy 24:08
Well, and that totally goes back to Jay know, you had talked about, like being authentic when you’re communicating with with your clients and your customers.

Jayna 24:15
Mm hmm. Yeah. People just want to know the truth they want to be. And I think right now people, it’s, they feel uncertain. And people don’t know what’s next. So if they can know, you know, the information that they’re looking for in the moment, I think it’s just about making our customers feel comfortable and like they have the information they need.

Pat 24:40
I think right now is an interesting time to going back to kind of what Adriana said about, you know, it’s some of the people online are the people that you would characterize as yelling at a manager at a store, but even even the opposite is true right now. There’s so many people that are in the same boat, and everyone like it. Everyone feels extra for everyone right now. And we’re just worried about how other people are getting along. Like if if somebody loses their job there, all of a sudden they’re they’re obviously worried about their job, but they’re worried about other people who are in their same situation as well right now, because we’re all in this together right now, it’s not just an isolated incident where one company isn’t doing well or, you know, for economic reasons has or for low sales has to let people go. There are a lot of companies and a lot of workers and a lot of industries that are in the same boat and so people care about other people like them. And so it may not be I want to know this for me. I want to know this for other people who are in the same boat as us so that we all can get better and we all can get through this together. it’s it’s a it’s a cool interesting kind of feeling right now. I think.

Missy 25:54
I’m like sometimes Am I is a social experiment like

Jayna 25:59
it’s crazy.

I was having that same conversation with my dad. He’s in the hospitality industry. So of course they’ve gotten hit very hard with all of this and he had this weird though calm, just demeanor about him. And I’m like, how are you being so calm? You know, he’s losing clients or clients or pausing or canceling all the time right now, because the hotels are closing. And she said, You know, it’s just this weird. Yeah, of course, I’m stressed and whatnot, but people aren’t really. I’ve I’ve watched so many people step up and care for others and other small businesses. First more than they care about themselves. And he’s like, that is just such a, it’s it’s a really good feeling. And he said, I’ve had general managers on the phone with me cry, and just like, how can we help you or no, how can you help us and it’s a very interesting thing. So again, just going back to that authenticity, and how can people communicate that first and help others and I think We’re seeing a lot of that with the small businesses. It’s something that we see all the time at Hubbard, just with our local radio stations and the work we do on the digital side with local clients. And so to see it really just elevate has been just a it’s an interesting time. That’s all I can say.

Pat 27:17
What is the best messages that I have seen over the past couple weeks was from the CEO of Marriott Hotels. He put out a video on I saw it on LinkedIn. It was like a seven, eight minute long video where he detail a lot of what Marriott is doing around the world to deal with this. And it was it was a lesson in fantastic leadership and getting the right message out there. Everything from he’s not taking a salary for the rest of the year messages to we’ve got some corporate policies that we’re putting into place to help with people who are, you know, having to work less right now because nobody wants to stay in a hotel or go out. It was it was a very well done video announcement and just a lesson in leadership and the lesson going back to what Adrian was saying, just about letting people know what you’re doing to help other people or help your people as they’re affected by this.

Missy 28:27
Oh, I’m totally gonna watch that. Now. That sounds amazing.

Jayna 28:30
It does.

Pat 28:31
It’s so inspiring.

Jayna 28:32
Im’ a Marriott member, So I definitely need to.

Missy 28:35
Yeah, well, we’ll definitely link in the show notes we find out. Mm hmm. Yeah. One other thing that I wanted to jump into because we’ll play a couple of the episode segments, whatever you want to call them after this podcast, we’ll insert them into here, but one thing out radio stations have been doing over the past couple weeks is a segment called Open for business. And Pat, you probably know more about this than I do. So have you had explain the concept to intro into that.

Pat 29:02
Yeah, it’s it’s basically I mean, as a as a media company as a set of radio stations, we rely on advertisers. And that relationship isn’t one sided. Those advertisers rely on us. And it extends to the listeners as well. And the listeners rely on us to get them information about certain advertisers and companies. And so this open for business idea across our three Minneapolis radio stations really came about because, like I said earlier, we’re all in this together trying to figure out what we can do to help each other out. And as radio stations, we have the platform to let people know what these businesses are doing. So obviously, these businesses are on their social media channels, and they’re updating their website and they’re doing all this stuff to let people know how they’re coping. But as a radio station as as people who have a relationship with these businesses, we can broadcast that relationship and let listeners know how Kris Lindahl real estate is dealing with this and helping their employees or little blind spot or, you know, all of these different local companies who small businesses who are, you know, hit pretty hard with with some of this stuff. It’s an opportunity for us to tell their stories and for them to get their message out in another platform, not a different message than they’re already putting out. But it just provides them a little bit more security in their relationship with us and it lets the listeners know what they’re doing and how they can continue to support these local businesses. Everything from you know the curbside pickup at these restaurants to however these different companies need the need the support right now and so myTalk 107.1, KS95, and SKOR North have all been talking and interviewing these business owners that they have a relationship with Putting them online through the PodMN platform. And so if you’re local here in Minneapolis and want to listen to some really good interviews with with DJs, from the radio stations talking to these business owners, you can find that information. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But it’s just a really well done. And it spans so many different industries and businesses too, and just provides just another connection point for these businesses and for us as a radio station with listeners who are wanting to help right now.

Announcer 31:33
I’m glad you’re still open, loving,

helping support our local businesses through the corona virus crisis. We are open for business this is open for business still open. Yeah,

yeah. On my talk 1071.

Julia 31:48
And we have David lozinski with us who is first equity mortgage and David has been a dear friend and partner of my talk. So we’re

just wanting what what is happening in the mortgage Timing

Lori 32:01
must be busy is what I’m thinking.

David 32:03
Nope, it’s really not. It’s really frantic right now. Okay. In in the last two weeks, we’ve seen 30 year interest rates as low as 3%. And as high as 5%. Wow. All in the last two weeks, again, with the same turmoil that we see in the market, as people don’t know what’s happening, then everyone panics. And what they’re doing is they’re selling everything and by taking cash, right. We do believe that that’s going to calm down, because it always does. Yeah. On the mortgage company, through the 911 crisis. We’ve owned the mortgage company through the 2008, Great Recession, okay. And we see this happen for a few weeks, it’s going to be very, lots of turmoil, okay. And then we’re going to create a new normal at some points. And when the new normal happens, one of the buyout things that the government And does it starts buying what we call mortgage backed securities, which will cause interest rates to settle back down to a really good low rate that a lot of people can refinance. Okay. Yeah. And just so in the end, I think they do that to help people because people are losing jobs and they’re losing income. Right. And so that becomes a way for people to be able to afford this. At that time,

Ryan 33:25
it’s ks

95. Today’s variety from two k two today with Chris co Dez. And Ryan, you know, through this crazy time through COVID-19. A lot of people are wondering what’s going on in the world what’s happening, especially right here at home, you watch the news, and you’re thinking, Man, so many things are closed. So many people are out of work. You know, it’s good to check in with people that are important to KS95 listeners and we’ve got one of those guys on the phone right now. Right? Dez,

Dez 33:48
yeah, we do. Somebody who’s a friend of mine, somebody who helped us out with a really nice donation during KS95 for kids and you’ve probably seen this face everywhere. Kris lindahl

Kris 33:59
What’s going on?

Dez 34:00
How you doing?

Kris 34:01
We’re doing well. Thanks for having me. Obviously, we’re in interesting times right now.

Ryan 34:05
And how are you being safe yourself? Chris? Are you doing a self quarantine from home? Or what are you doing?

Kris 34:10
Obviously, that changes from day to day with the different CDC recommendations. We’ve just been as a company following all of their recommendations. One thing that we stopped implementing is open houses because of the recommendations. And and you know, I mean, it started at groups of 250 people, it went to 100, it went to 50 went to 25. Now it’s at 10. And that could change at a moment’s notice. And so we’re following that closely. We want everyone to be safe and healthy. The other thing we we did as well as we launched live stream showing.com because right now what we found is that there are a lot of people that are home but they’re still searching for real estate because we watch our analytics and our website traffic is up, because a lot of people are at home. They want to see homes, but they prefer not to go there physically. So they can go to live stream showing.com and they can schedule a virtual showing one of our agents will go to the property with our technology and they’ll To show them the property and if you know if they want to go look at the kitchen twice or whatever, you know, we go back with our phones and our cameras, and we show them those areas. And so it allows consumers to still take advantage of the historically low rates, but never having to leave the comfort of their own home.

Ryan 35:15
That is so cool. What an awesome way

of doing that. And I heard that every home you buy, you’re supplying them with a year supply of toilet paper, is that true?

Kris 35:26
Courtesy of KS95.

Missy 35:29
So all the ones we talked about today’s podcasts, we’ll make sure to include in the show notes. And, you know, as this continues, and each week, each day, something new comes up. We’ll continue to use this channel of the Social Feed podcass to update businesses on everything that’s going on and things that we learned and just really trying to make sure that everything we’re learning across the country that other people are doing to get get that information to you as quick as we can so that you can utilize that to help your business too.

Announcer 36:00
The social feed is a production of Hubbard Interactive with music provided by Minneapolis based artist john atwell


On This Episode

Missy Young

Social Media Services Manager

@miss_shredbetty Missy Young

As the Social Media Services Manager for Hubbard Interactive, Missy Young’s position entails working with clients and team members to drive social media strategy and lead initiatives to identify new technologies and digital best practices. She develops customized micro and macro campaigns that drive online interaction, promotes and creates content that enhances the customer experience and creates lead generation for medium to large-scale companies. She regularly speaks at local and national events on a variety of subjects including: social media, PR, analytics and content strategy.


Jayna Wilcox

Senior Digital Sales Strategist

@jaynaanderson_

Jayna Wilcox is the Senior Digital Sales Strategist at 2060 Digital. Along with a degree in Strategic Communication, she studied Fashion at the University of Minnesota, which makes her an avid trend seeker across a variety of industries. She is able to see the importance of digital media converting into sales and has an understanding of both a big and small brand standpoint, as she did social media for Mall of America, prior to joining the Hubbard Interactive team. Always interested in the latest and upcoming trends in social & digital media, fashion, and health, Jayna has a very futuristic mindset and is always seeking “what’s next” to improve her clients’ needs. Jayna is a Hubbard NextGen, a group that was selected within the company to come up with ideas for the future.


Adriana Velez

Social Media Coordinator

@sincerely_ami Adriana Velez

With a career path that has so far been more confusing than the plot line of a Telenovela, Adriana brings knowledge from multiple areas of digital marketing. She graduated from the University of St. Thomas with a degree in Business Law and was a cheerleader during her time there. As a Social Media Coordinator at Hubbard Interactive, she brings company voices to life through social media content. With multiple HubSpot certifications and knowledge in Inbound Marketing, she knows the importance of lead nurturing. With passion for all things email, she is able to take a hands-off approach to engaging with customers and nurturing leads as they go through the buyer’s journey. When she isn’t geeking out over digital marketing you can find her blogging about mental health, capturing her trendy life living in North Loop, and taking pictures of her dog and cat.


Pat Laeger

Digital Content Specialist

Pat Laeger

Pat has over 10 years of creative production experience and has produced radio shows, video campaigns, podcasts, and other digital content. Pat is an outgoing introvert, a spreadsheet lover, an Oxford comma advocate, and an avid Mountain Dew drinker.