Social media usage during Covid-19 – archiving the curve

As Covid-19 related restrictions start to lift across Australia we all have our fingers and toes crossed that we can continue to hold off a second wave of infections.  Some of the behaviour changes introduced in March will continue for some time, either because they’ve been mandated by our government (in Victoria we are still working from home if we can) or because the new way of doing things has become our preferred way. In the vein of ‘Why didn’t we think of this before?’

One thing we’ll be watching carefully at Brolly is how much the spike we saw in social media usage at the beginning of lockdown will reduce. Will we go back to pre-Covid-19 levels of usage? At the beginning of 2020, Australia had 18 million social media users, which equates to 71% of the population using social media. In New Zealand, the figures were 3.6 million people using social media, or 75% of the population. Those figures were pre-Covid-19. With lockdown, social media activity increased markedly and suddenly as people turned to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram for information, and as an alternative way to stay connected with friends, family and colleagues.  We saw an increase in the numbers of posts, comments and messages as many types of conversations moved online.

People have taken to the convenience of receiving information from their local council, state government department, school, workplace, social venues and favourite stores. 

Along with an increase in the range and volume of conversations, organisations are realising the importance of their social media as records, with the compliance obligations that come with that. 

So whether you saw a temporary spike in usage, or this is a permanent change, millions of records generated since Covid-19 went global. Millions of conversations with customers, employees and community. 

Are you meeting your social media record keeping requirements?

Is it time to get your organisation’s connections covered with Brolly?