6 Businesses That Are Getting Creative With Social Media During Coronavirus (COVID-19)

This New York City-based yoga studio offers free online yoga classes to help people relieve stress during COVID-19. After the studio closed its two locations in March, it leaned into its on-the-fly style and decided to stream classes on Instagram Live and share a schedule for upcoming classes the next day.

Offering yoga through Instagram Live expanded Modo Yoga NYC’s community, and instructors could still interact with students through comments and reactions. Some students have even sent donations and emails thanking the team for their classes. Since March, Modo Yoga NYC has been running a full schedule on their website in addition to their donation-based classes on Instagram.

Baby food-maker Fragola’s founder, Augustina Valenza, shared on Facebook that Fragola would give away free boxes of food. The next day she woke up to hundreds of thankful Facebook messages from moms in difficult situations with their little ones.

Customers also reached out asking how they could help, so Fragola started pairing those who wanted to donate with moms who needed help. People were soon donating as many as 10 boxes.

Ally Kirkpatrick, owner of Old Town Books in Alexandria, VA started offering virtual book clubs, a kids reading challenge and online writing classes on Facebook. The store inspired the community to set time aside for indoor creative pursuits. Ally created printable and sharable coloring sheets of her locally famous shop dog, Scout, and then reached more people by creating various artistic challenges and art projects on Facebook.

Online writing classes became donation based, or “pay-what-you-can,” to encourage people to join the store for creative time online. Old Town Books is using the donations they received to offer programming online through May with award-winning authors.

When COVID-19 caused sudden school closures and activity cancellations, Canvas Studio Art in Fair Haven, NJ, brainstormed ways to bring creativity, positivity and familiarity back into the daily routines of school students. They created the Canvas Art Challenge with Instagram and Facebook in mind so that every home-bound family had the ability to learn.

Promoting the challenge on Instagram and Facebook allowed the business to continue to connect with its community and offer a creative outlet empowering people to build resilience during a difficult time. They received a positive response from their community and saw many students and families complete the daily challenges together.

As the owner of JesMarried, an online shop for one-of-a-kind custom illustrated wedding invitations and cards, Jes McGinley was used to creating ‘Save the Date’ cards. But with COVID-19 disrupting wedding plans, she knew that many stressed couples would be forced to postpone their events and would need a fast and easy way to let guests know. Jes designed a free “Change the Date” PDF that couples could easily fill in with their own information.

The PDF has been shared across Instagram and Facebook and has encouraged the postponement of weddings rather than outright cancellations, helping both couples and vendors.