COVID-19 Has Shut Down a Lot; But is Hasn't Shut Down Social Media

When you think of what is surging during this time of uncertainty you probably think of the surge in the numbers of cases of COVID-19 in the United States. But a positive surge during this pandemic is the surge of social networks and communication.

With little to no activities occurring during this pandemic, people have found an escape to interact with friends and have some fun through social media. Many of the social media sites that have surged that are more well-known are instagram, tik tok, and twitter. The usage of instagram stories have gone up 15% since the COVID-19 outbreak thanks to "challenges" that have been created where people put pictures up on their story and nominate their friends to take part in the challenge of finding pictures to post. Instagram users are also using instagram live to interact with followers and friends as well.

Instagram's "until tomorrow" challenge was a challenge where users put up an embarrassing photo of themselves on instagram that would only be up for followers to see for 24 hours. The photos were captioned "until tomorrow" as the embarrassing pictures were deleted the next day.

 As for tik tok, social media's new hit application, its users average 52 minutes a day browsing through creative content and making fun videos as well. The app was downloaded 2 million times between March 16th and March 22nd.

While instagram and tik tok are used for entertainment, twitter has been used differently. Over the years, twitter has become a primary resource for news. Usually, when news breaks it is first broken on twitter. So when people want the latest updates on the COVID-19 pandemic whether its Donald Trump's speeches or Dr. Fauci keeping the world updated, it is first heard on twitter.

With people being on social media so much, it has also positively affected people needed to market their businesses as they have turned to social media to promote. With stores closed, advertisements for online shops have increased as it is the only form of shopping that people can do.

COVID-19 has shut down a lot of meaningful things to people like small businesses, sports, and restaurants. But people have relied on social media to keep communicating while they practice social distancing during this pandemic.

Related links:

https://www.business2community.com/social-media/how-social-networks-are-surging-and-changing-during-the-covid-19-outbreak-02297720