How to avoid social media burnout  

Social media is one of those things that you either love or loathe.  There is no getting away from the fact that social media is a powerful tool for marketing your business and if you want to make it part of your marketing strategy then how do you do it without it becoming all consuming. 

If you love social media, you’re probably on it a lot, you’ve grown up with it and feel comfortable using it.  But you may be someone who doesn’t really like it, you get stuck when knowing what to post or find it all a bit overwhelming.  

Even for the best of us, social media can become a bit much.  We want to put our phones down; we want to stop mindless hours of scrolling and also set an example of our kids.  I mean if we’re always on social media, how can we tell them to get off their screens!  

It often feels like you have to be on top form and put everything into social media to make it work.  So how can you get a balance of bring online, doing social media marketing for your business, but not letting it take over your life.  

Take a break 

The first thing I would suggest is taking a break and stepping right back from social media.  If you take a few days out, a few weeks or even a couple of months your audience is still going to be there when you get back.  If you feel like you’ve been putting everything into your socials and it’s not working, or you’ve lost your way, or it just feels too much then stop.   

I recently took a break and posted a bare minimum to keep a presence, and everyone was still there when I came back.  The break did me good and I came back raring to go with fresh ideas and enthusiasm.  We all need a holidays from work every now and then and it’s the same with socials, so give it a go.  Why not share that honesty too and tell your audience – people will resonate with that and probably respect you for it too.     

Set limits times/boundaries 

Working in marketing I am on social media A LOT.  However, probably not as much as you think!  That’s because I set boundaries and limits with my usage.  I check in the morning; I check at lunch and I check in the afternoon.  I often have a scroll in the evening (but that’s more about my addiction to online shopping than work!!)    

I also set limits in my phone and once I reach that limit my phone tells me to stop.  By doing this I know that when I am online I need to be efficient and get on with the job – otherwise I’m going to run out of time! 

I also set boundaries of when I will reply to messages (not after 5pm, when I’m with my kids or on a weekend) any messages that come through during those times can wait.  If always think if people can’t wait then I don’t want to work with them anyway (unless it is something really important and of course this will depend what industry you work in!) 

Do what you enjoy 

The other thing to bare in mind is that you need to enjoy what you do.  If you have a twitter account for example and you don’t enjoy posting on it, find it hard work and can’t think of content then don’t do it. 

I’m a big believer that you have to enjoy what you do, so find what works for you on social media, find the platform you like and stick with that.  It will be so much more effective sharing on one social media platform really well, than spreading yourself too thin and not doing a very good job – that’s when the overwhelm will kick in.  Don’t listen to fads (not everyone has to be on TikTok) or what your teenager says you should be doing, or fellow business person tells you what’s worked for them/  Think about what you enjoy and what is going to be best for your business. 

Someone also recently asked about how much you should be posting.  Again, find what works for you as it will be different for everyone.  If you can manage 2 cracking posts a week and make them awesome do just that.  You will find it works much better than writing seven rubbish, half hearted posts each week because you think you should. 

If you do all or just one of these things I am sure it will make a huge difference to your social media marketing and help you avoid the burnout that so many business owners face.