COVID-19 and the business narrative: Can we talk about a ‘new normal’ yet?

Last week, Liz High, our VP of Strategy and Insight joined Paige O’Neill, the CMO of Sitecore to discuss what ‘a new normal’ might look like for our own clients and businesses like Sitecore in a post-COVID-19 world.

Paige regularly captures the views of leading marketers on key issues and posts them via LinkedIn. Inevitably her talk with Liz was colored by current events.

The insights Liz shared are derived from our live and rapidly expanding data set that isolates business and commercial conversations within the COVID-19 pandemic. To be clear, our focus here is defined by understanding the business narrative, rather than the much broader health or social implications.

Right now, the data set contains 415,884 conversations by 339,848 unique individuals around the globe and typically grows by over 6,000 conversations daily.  

Like everything to do with this pandemic, the business impact of COVID-19 is defined by an aggressive growth curve and a rapidly evolving narrative.

In just 73 days since the Metia Insight team started building our data set, we have seen quickly increasing volumes, rapidly shifting narrative and different verticals move in and out focus as they take their turn being drawn into, dealing with or helping us all to get through the crisis.

We have observed the business narrative move from a conceptual conversation about global trade in February to a story of mass disruption and global change in workstyle, workplace and technology requirements within just four weeks. Now we are seeing a tentative acceptance that it could be time to start contemplating exactly what a new, different and potentially better future might look like.

The Covid-19 Business Narrative overview:

This snapshot view doesn’t do justice to the detail and insights that can be identified within the different waves of conversational themes emerging. The Insight team is using this evolving data set to help inform client strategies both short term and long term.

To learn more about what the data means and how it stacks up against what both Sitecore itself and Metia’s own clients are experiencing in the real world, watch the first part of Liz and Paige’s discussion here.

If you want to know more about our data set and how we are helping businesses understand what the new normal means for your customers, employees or your brand, reach out directly to either myself, Liz or Misia Tramp via our Contact form.

Similarly, if you need to ask about the method and approach, just ask.