5 Tips for Avoiding Social Media Burnout

I often hear from people that they have social media burnout. And it’s actually quite common.  In fact, it’s something I struggle with myself – not only because social media is my job – but because I also enjoy using it to keep up with friends. That makes it challenging to distance myself from social media to achieve work/life balance.

Despite these challenges, I have learned to conquer social media burnout and have shared these tips with my clients. Here are my top five tips for managing social media burnout.

1. Don’t try to be everywhere.  A common cause of social media burnout is the tendency to try to be on every social media channel, rather than focusing on the channels that will give a business the biggest bang for their buck.  The key to maximizing social media efforts is to determine which channels include your target audience and create an active, engaging presence on those channels.
2. Work smart. Monitoring and engaging on social media is most effective when you manage your time wisely.  This doesn’t mean you have to be connected 24/7. Rather, aim to spend an allocated amount of time (ex: 30 minutes) on your key channels each day.
3. Plan ahead. Strong content is a key element to making social media work for your business.  Create an editorial calendar and plan content to fit within these parameters. Choose the topics you want to cover and even plan and time your social media content ahead of time to avoid the last-minute posts that can leave you winded.
4. Play to your strengths. While targeting your audience is important, it’s equally important to focus on the channels that are a natural fit for your talents. For example, if you’re a strong speaker, YouTube may be an outlet that you can embrace without having to do much more work.  If you’re a strong writer, perhaps a blog would be well-suited for you. Are you great with one-liners? If so, then Twitter and its 140-character limit may be right up your alley.
5. Unplug when you can. Just like anything else, when you take the time to step away and disconnect, you feel more refreshed when it’s time to come back. Even if it’s just for a day – or even a few hours – try to unplug and re-boot.  This will help to recharge your batteries so that you’ll be fully engaged when it’s time to log on again.

I suggest selecting just one or two of these tips and putting a plan in place for effectively utilizing your time on social media.

Which of these tips resonate with you? What can you put into place today and maintain on a regular basis?