A new report finds that 60% of surveyed B2B businesses are currently focusing on social media advertising due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As the world recovers from COVID-19, everything looks and feels very different. The way you do business will be different for the foreseeable future.

Incorporating socially distanced influencers into ad campaigns that reflect our new way of life may seem challenging. After all, you want your influencers to strike the right messaging tone as we proceed out of the worst of the crisis, but you also want their contributions to be engaging and informative and to be seen by the right audience for your products or services.

So how can you create successful digital campaigns that incorporate influencers in our new environment in a positive and timely manner? Follow these guidelines and you'll strike the right tone and messaging balance.

Encourage your influencers to emphasize health and safety, first and foremost.

Being a responsible marketer means you must prioritize your customers' welfare before profit. Put out a simple yet powerfully effective "stay safe" slogan, then have your influencers endorse and echo it.

PR Week reports that Nike has done this very successfully with its "play inside, play for the world" PSA. The line, "If you ever dreamed of playing for millions around the world, now is your chance," which was endorsed by Nike brand ambassadors LeBron James, Michael Jordan and Cristiano Ronaldo, is a great example of safer-at-home messaging.

Choose the right environments to feature your socially distanced influencers on.

"Quarantine crews" are ubiquitous right now on TikTok and Instagram. As long as your influencers' messaging is responsible and demonstrates safety measures, it is feasible for them to host livestream events on those platforms. This kind of casual forum offers a nice sense of immediacy, but your influencers should stress safety rather than hard selling of services and products.

Another way to use environment to your best advantage: you want to tailor the presence of your influencers to your audiences' preferred platforms and let them show your demographic their current worlds. For instance, what they're doing with their time at home. Or, maybe they could take your customers on a safe virtual hike...the possibilities are endless.

Use your influencers to demonstrate any new service modes.

Show your customers the safe way to do a supply run at a grocery store or receive a contactless delivery. You can clearly spotlight the various ways you're offering services to your brick-and mortar customers at the moment, taking any stress or guesswork out of the potential experience.

Incorporate community into an influencers' message.

A new survey from Clutch found that one of the advantages people like about working from home is more time to spend with family, roommates and pets. Let your influencers make their own family members part of your campaigns, and customers will likely relate and enjoy the "just-like-me" message.

You can do the same thing with your vendors, too. Pull your vendors in to deliver video messages from their homes or businesses is a great way to boost interest in their unsold stock. They can emphasize the hard work of their employees by featuring their teams Zoom-style, too. Again, you don't want to be opportunistic or hard selling: you want to address needs, for both your customers and your vendors. This kind of strategy is a powerful win-win all around.

Follow up in an engaging way.

Have your influencers "send" customized emails, or tweet or post Instagram pics that recap a video or customer outreach experience. This is the time to message clearly, then re-message for emphasis in a sensitive way.

Re-message only once, though. Again, aggressive approaches are not appropriate at this time. But reiterating a positive, engaging message to your audience about a product they may want and find useful can put them on the purchasing journey! When your influencers use a light touch and display genuine consideration of your customers' needs, they'll make sales happen for your brand.