7 tips for avoiding burnout as a Social Media Marketer

The growth of social media and the impact it has on our daily lives is undeniable, especially in the digital marketing space. Social media marketing entails more than just a few occasional tweets and posts on Facebook. It often requires around the clock monitoring (as social media marketers have convinced themselves to believe).

From Facebook to LinkedIn to Twitter to Instagram, the responsibilities required from each platform are endless. A social media marketer’s worst fear is a scandal or mishap that occurs on social and not being able to rectify it before all chaos breaks loose. This creates tremendous pressures on social media marketers, often causing them to experience burnout.

While the world of social media opens up great opportunities for brands, it can cause burnout for the marketers in charge of it. Burnout is the physical or mental exhaustion caused by overwork and stress and has become far too familiar in the workplace, especially for social media marketers. The growing list of responsibilities under the marketing umbrella creates immense stress and pressures for social media marketers.

David Ballard, the head of the American Psychological Association’s workplace program states that “a lot of burnout really has to do with experiencing chronic stress. In those situations, the demands being placed on you exceed the resources you have available to deal with the stressors.”

Constant burnout can have a severe impact on an individual, affecting not only their work but their personal life as well. According to the Mayo Clinic, significant burnout consequences include depression, insomnia, anxiety, and even substance/alcohol abuse.

A few less severe implications of burnout include:

• Physical/mental exhaustion
• Lower work quality
• Poor work-life balance
• Unhappiness and frustration
• Chronic stress

But rest assured, we’re here to make sure you avoid any possible burnout as a social media marketer and help you alleviate any immediate symptoms if you find yourself catching a case of it.

Here are a few tips you can do to combat the burnout if your social media marketing job is starting to wear you out:

1. Take Breaks

Sitting in an office from 9-5 five days out of the week, staring at a computer screen can be draining. You probably spend hours thinking of creative strategies to boost your company’s social presence all while monitoring it to ensure nothing goes wrong.

And let’s face it, sometimes people can get a little mean on social media. That constant torrent of intense emotions, often negative, can be exhausting to sift through.

Your brain and mind, especially, deserve a break. Taking small breaks in between can significantly relieve the strain you put on yourself, allowing you to be more productive and creative.

Continuous hours of glaring at a computer, tablet, or phone screen, monitoring social can take a wear on your physical and mental state. Give your eyes and brain a break from the strenuous tension of staring at a screen all day.

Simply going outside and taking a walk for a few minutes can serve you immense relief. If you find yourself getting restless, get up, stretch your legs and get some fresh air! Little breaks in between nonstop hours of working can improve your performance in the long run.

2. Unplug Yourself

The heavy burden placed on social media marketers cause them to feel the need to take work home and essentially have no time off. This is understandable seeing that while marketers may be physically clocked out, the social media world is still going on and thriving. But in reality, you don’t need to be monitoring social media 24/7.

The demanding pressures of social media marketing create a disillusioned perception that there’s no degree of separation between one’s work and personal life. The constant urge to check up on your company’s social accounts relentlessly will soon have a destructive impact on you and most likely lead to burnout.

Logging off of all company social media accounts during off hours allows you to reset and clear your mind. When the work day is over, take it as that. It’s over. Leave your work phone and devices alone when you’re off the clock and set a healthy boundary between your work and home life.

Take advantage of automation systems like Hubspot to automate postings so you don’t have to constantly worry about them. Planning strategically ahead will lift an immense amount of stress off your shoulders.

Enjoy your time off the clock to unplug and reboot. This will help clear your mind and allow you to perform better.

3. Build a Rich Personal Life

This is an extension of the previous tip of enjoying your time off. Maintaining an active life outside of work is crucial in avoiding burnout.

Find something outside of your work life to look forward to. This can be a hobby or activity you’re passionate about. Enjoy playing golf? Look into getting a membership at a local golf club. Love cooking? Sign up for a cooking class with your friends.

It has almost become second nature for marketers to constantly check social media to make sure everything is running smoothly.

Recognizing that there is more to life than work is essential in your mental health. Don’t get so wrapped up in your job that you forget about your hobbies, friends or family. These vital elements of your personal life are what keep you sane. They can significantly relieve stress, in turn allowing you to be the best social media expert you can be.

4. Focus on Meaning

If you feel that what you’re doing in the workplace doesn’t matter anymore or that it’s starting to lose value, it’s going to have an effect on your motivation and performance.

If you’ve lost your love in social media, you need to regain it back and make sure you enjoy it. It’s difficult to put forth all of your effort into something you’re not passionate about because it’s hard to see the point in it.

From doing this, you’ll find yourself mentally clocking out and being okay with doing just enough to make sure you’re not completely failing at your job. Not only is this affecting your company’s performance but also wasting your time.

Once you find a true meaning behind all of your hard work, you will feel so much more enthusiastic about your job and the value you’re creating. Sit back and evaluate what you’re doing and how it’s producing outcomes. Using analytics and metrics to gauge your performance in numbers can help you visually see all that you’re doing.

5. Share the Workload

Collaborate with others on your team to alleviate some of the workload. If you take on all of the responsibilities of managing all social media accounts, you are certainly going to burn out quickly.

This emphasizes the need for organizations to build and encourage strong internal communication between their employees. When working with others, communication is key in setting goals and having an understood vision.

Having a team to support you can be a great relief. Consider prioritizing your attention on one channel and you may see a significant improvement in its performance. Don’t take on the weight of the world in your hands – all marketers need a little help from time to time.

6. Sleep Is Not for the Weak

I can’t stress how important it is to get enough sleep for every marketing professional. It’s crucial for your body to recharge to remain productive in the workplace.

Getting less than 6 hours of sleep a night may increase the risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other serious health issues. Not to mention it can lead to fatigue and other issues, seriously hindering your performance at work. It can be a serious detriment to someone who loves their job, nonetheless someone who’s lost interest in it.

If you start feeling the symptoms of a burnout, you don’t want to cloud the negative effects and make them worse by not allowing your body to rest. Getting adequate rest is crucial in driving optimal work performance and being productive. So, make sure to put the social media and e-mails away when it’s time to go to bed and get some proper rest to recharge for the next day.

7. Learn to Walk Away

At some point, when all that can be done is done, you need to figure out when it’s time to walk away from your position and move onto something else.

If you’ve talked to your managers about your problems and have attempted to create a better environment and it still hasn’t gotten any better, you know you’ve done all you can.

It can be difficult figuring out when enough is enough, but if you see yourself not going much further or on the verge of losing it, you know it’s time to leave. There are many points in life where you have to recognize it’s not healthy to continue things that are toxic. This is when it’s time for you to walk away and move on to something else.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that social media has taken over both our personal and work lives. Marketers who find themselves drowning in the pressures of it will most likely encounter stress, anxiety, and burnout.

However, these tips should be taken into consideration to alleviate the pains and reduce the impact of a burnout.

What do you do in order to avoid a burnout as a social media marketer? How do you clear your mind of hashtags? Let us know!