Ahh, COVID19 – fear, sadness & anxiety are at an all-time high (though I will admit that dialing down the caffeine would help my anxiety).
The era of coronavirus is ramping up and while it’s easy to get sucked into the what-if’s, I find it’s most helpful to focus on ways I can help and things I can control. So I thought I would share a list of things I am doing for my family and my business during this time.
My hope is that this blog post will serve to give you a bit of direction as you adjust to your new normal.
By the end of this post, you will walk away with actionable steps you can take and use to help you grow your business while still caring for your people during this delicate time.
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Family Advice during Quarantine
All this time at home has given us a chance for some great family bonding and game playing. But more time at home also means more chances for boredom so we have been assigning more chores & quiet times, too.
My kids are all teens so they don’t need the 24-hour attention as toddlers but I do worry about how this is affecting them. Kristina Robinson, Sacramento Wedding Photographer suggested her kids start writing a journal and I thought that was a fantastic idea. This way they can journal their thoughts & one day show to their kids or grandkids.
My husband & I have also discussed a few emergency plans that also include a few rules about food consumption. IMan, these teens can eat! It is like having a newborn all over again, starving and whining every 2 hours. Can you relate? Please tell me my kids aren’t the only ones!
I also love this advice from Tash who blogs about entrepreneurship, faith, and motherhood. She shares:
Schedule Quiet Time
Schedule time for your entire family to be alone, by themselves, to decompress, to think and to process. This can be a time of journaling. This can be a nap time. This can be a time for quiet play – schedule it in your day and it become a coveting time where there is no noise, but just a large exhale.
Check out her great blog post all about How to Survive Family Lockdown.
I have started a quiet time at home as it helps me just stay more focused. I live in an apartment so I have started this quiet time to help me decompress. After all, I can’t go to the business center or even cafes any more so quiet time is a must.
During quarantine, I’m also hoping to:
- Spring clean
- Clean all baseboards
- Declutter closet
- Learn a few new recipes
- Start painting
- Meditate
- Spend time together
- Tell stories
- Learn a new language
- Find ways to stay in shape
- Take lots of walks
Creative Business Tips during Covid19
Blog Detox and Updates While Staying At Home
As I have shared in my previous post, this is a great time to get back to blogging. But it’s not all about creating new content! Here are a few ways you can up your blogging game during this time:
- Do a blog detox and clean up your blogging categories. It is ideal to marge ones that are very similar and unless you’re a food/travel/fashion/beauty blogger you shouldn’t have more than 8 categories
- Clean up your plugins. Get read of old ones you don’t need and update your current ones
- Check up on your SSL certificate with your hosting company
- Sign up to Akismet and clean up spam comments
- Optimize previous blog posts for SEO by editing the Yoast settings for each one. Many of you are just installing the plugin and not actually manually optimizing each post
- Check FB groups for possible blogging ideas to help your ideal audience
- Look at Google Trends to help find new ideas for keywords
- Add subheadings to previous blog posts for maximizing SEO
- Create new Pinterest Graphics of previous posts and repin them
- Schedule out update blog posts on social media
- Create new blogging content as everyone and their mothers are online
- Update your blogging widgets and sidebar
- Interview fellow vendors in your niche
Get your audience involved
The fact is, this pandemic will affect the economy, probably for a while. There’s a chance that your audience is looking to save money right now, not spend it. But there are ways that you can be sensitive to your audience and still stay afloat. Here are a few free ways your audience can get involved (hint – pay it forward and do these things for your favorite small businesses, too!):
- Give you a Google Review
- Give you a Facebook recommendation
- Pin your blog posts
- Share your services or products on social media
- Tag you on their Ig stories
- Link to your website or blog if they have a website
Social Media Strategy During the Quarantine
Take this extra time to find ways to connect with your people on social media. Plan a few photoshoots and curate content ideas. Figure out the best ways you can show up, serve your people and help them find a solution to what they are trying to solve in life. Find the gap between normalcy and compassion and fill it.
Schedule, Schedule, and Schedule. I don’t know about you but my schedule has been turned upside down. I am sleeping at odd hours, being unproductive when I should be working and vice versa. So my goal is to schedule out as many social media posts as possible so I stay consistent.
Get Plugged In While Being Apart
We are all in this together so now is a great time to partner with like-minded creative businesses. Here are a few ideas you can do together.
- Do an IG follow exchange
- Run a contest
- Interview each other so you can get and give backlinks
- Create a weekly mastermind group so you can help
- Create your 1st FB group
- Offer something free for your community
- Create a list of fellow businesses who would love to barter during this time
- Reach out via DM and check out people, especially on the extroverts
- Reach out to someone who has majorly impacted you in the past and just say thanks
- Create a vendor referral list
- Feature a fellow vendor on your blog
- Give a fellow vendor a Google Review
Now is the time to dive deep on those things you’ve been meaning to do, prioritize connection overselling and try to stay sane in all the chaos (you’ve got this).
I want to know – what are the ways you are catching up, staying sane, and bringing a sense of normalcy to your life these days?
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These are amazing tips! I found this so useful. Thank you for sharing Fuse!!