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Social Media is contributing to the downspiral of my mental health – and I’m a social media manager as my job….
Anyone have any advice on how to cope with the pressure of feeling you always need to be scrolling so you can find inspiration for your job, while your job is also social media? I am the youngest person on my content team by about 9 years and even then we are the two “babies” as everyone else is 40+ so there’s a lot of pressure to always be online so I can stay up to date on all the trends and activities. However I really hate being on social media as a regular person as I feel like it makes me depressed and the “doom scroll” nowadays does not help…
Does anyone have any recommendations on how you balance social media use as your job, and also in your spare time? I really want to delete my Twitter and Instagram – but then – I’m worried my job will suffer…..
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1 Reply
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You may want to consider opening a new account and follow only those accounts that help you stay up to date with what’s happening without any personal connections.
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You need to find things to do outside of work that will help you reset the day. Do you have any hobbies?
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It’s probably easier said than done and I still struggle with this as well.
I would say give yourself blocks of times where you can freely consume any form of social media. If you have free time during work, that can be one of your moments.
I know you’ll get the feeling of falling behind, missing out on a trend, missing some crucial pop culture reference but at the end of the day you also have to evaluate how well these things will actually transfer over to your work. Also, if a trend sticks around you’ll have plenty of time to see it and work it into your job somehow. Don’t stress out too much over it affecting your job.
That aside, I can say from my own experience Twitter has caused me the most stress. If I don’t need to go on it outside of work, I stay as far away as possible. The comment sections of any platform comes in 2nd, so I usually avoid those as well (when I’m not working). When consuming social media during your free time (outside of work related tasks), I would try and look for content that aligns with your hobbies/interests. Probably also turn those notifications off.
Again, easier said than done but I’m sure you’ll figure out the perfect way to balance everything :). I’m sure we’ve all suffered through this at some point… or still currently haha.
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Follow and subscribe to blogs and newsletters that curate the trends, latest best practices and feature releases for you.
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Social media today is the best for updates. I often see things there before I see them in my own app. Will help you reduce your time on it. Having a work provided phone helps separate it. Another thing I did was put my socials only on my iPad so I can test things for work instead of having it on my phone. Ultimately I quit my job because it was too much time online, and got a different SMM job that was more strategy-focused so I don’t have to do direct posting/worry about that.
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Good news Elon is trying to reduce your work load. Just hang in a few more months
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Get an account for work where you follow only relevant accounts and get your work out of your personal feed.
Also take total digital breaks. A weekend here or there can be great if you can’t swing more than that.
Also find some non-social media activities to focus on after your work day is done. You don’t need to keep up with trends when you’re not at work.
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Yesssss
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Stop being trend follower. Read magazines relative to advertising and tech. Focus on music lyrics for word play and caption inspo. Read books for languages and grammar structure. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Take risks with your content ideas. Not all will be home runs but you will be happier in the curation process. Might even have a light bulb moment or two.
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Outsource the brainstorming. Im in the same position. It sucks big time because my mindset is anti overconsumption.
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I might be able to offer some advice/perspective here. I’ve worked in social media… pretty much since there were social media jobs (so…what… 2007/8-ish?). I’m in my 40s, and have worked for lots of businesses in lots of sectors over the years (for the record, I’m higher up the career ladder now than then, but yep, still have to spend time on various social platforms, keep up to date with trends and functionality and so on).
A couple of people have mentioned starting new accounts. This is definitely key. You can cross the streams a bit depending on which type of business you work for (the targeted ads I get are completely mental now because of industry changes over the years, IG doesn’t know what to make of me), but keep a pro and a ‘home’ profile. I have several accounts on different platforms, mainly so I can try out new things without looking like a weirdo on my usual account).
If you don’t want to interact with social content outside of work, then don’t. Get info by reading trends reports and blog posts, the advertising press etc. or going to conferences.
While always being on social can occasionally help you spot trends or memes early, as you progress in your career, it’s far more useful to be able to think about those trends strategically. Look for movements in the way people communicate, and where, rather than what they actually say day-to-day. If trends are key, then get Google alerts or a social listening tool set up and have it send you emails about unusual phrase volume rather than hunting it out yourself.
When I started out, I would spend HOURS each day on social (mainly Twitter back then), wake up in the middle of the night and check my phone and so on. Even then, you will ALWAYS have blind spots – there’s just too much happening in the world to see it all. It’s not like I know what’s happening on VALO or VKontakt right now, and I don’t need to, if you were set up on a platform like that for work you’d need local people to help run it/create messaging/respond.
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You can be better at your job by monitoring work-related streams during work hours, seeing how your customers and prospects speak, and using that as a basis for your activity.
There’s a good quote from Stephen Covey I like to remember at work: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”. You aren’t paid to be on TikTok 24/7. You’re paid to be a content expert with technical expertise in certain platforms. That will actually help with business – a lot of companies fall into the trap of thinking they have to be relentlessly posting stuff, but honestly, most of them really, really don’t. Social media can be a black hole, so it’s fine to make sure you don’t fall in.
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You should consider the possibility that you need to find a job that isn’t focused on social media. “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.” Jobs are important, but one that is putting you in a downward spiral is taking away something more important than what it gives back.
Otherwise, you should analyze what exactly makes you unhappy when you’re on social media. A lot of people feel inadequate next to their peers’ apparently perfect lives. That’s a feeling that you could address. Ask yourself, Is there something in your history that makes you extra vulnerable to that? If so, it needs to be dealt with even if you left social forever. And you can address the issue almost everyone has with social which is that we know intellectually that what we see is not representative of our friends’ lives (generally speaking) but on an emotional level we accept the facebook stream as a truth we then measure ourselves against. Try training yourself into awareness of this on a level that will allow you to stop that from happening,
Third option: stop doing a the job your bosses want you to do and focus instead on making your bosses believe you are doing what they want you to do. The pressure is on you because they are too old to see what the trends are? Then they lack the information to know the difference between a real trend you suss out from reviewing a million posts, versus one you make up while taking a bubble bath. Most of what is written about trends is total bullshit, most trends are idiotic: what’s the real difference in value for the client between that, and you picking a post you like and declaring it trend? Unless they’re using scientifically-collected data and rigorous statistical analysis (which no-one does), no one can prove that any of these declared trends actually exist. The majority of them probably do not, or their reality (if it were known) is significantly different from how they are characterized. Why not develop a system where you work on developing good marketing ideas largely ignoring social media, and then use limited time on the platforms to cherry-pick examples to show that what you propose to do is a “trend”. I guarantee you, you would not be the first person to take this approach. You could drastically cut your social media time and your bosses won’t know the difference.
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I’ve struggled with this as well (as I mindlessly scroll through Reddit). Two things have helped me.
1. Block dedicated time in you day (I’ve tried 30 minutes, but pick an amount of time that suits your needs) to spend time on the various apps. When the time is up put the phone down.
2. Use app timers to ensure you’re spending a reasonable amount of time on FB, IG, TikTok, etc.
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Anyone ever recommend so change in your life such as different work. Work that you enjoy doing.
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I bought a second phone. It has FB and IG on it, and it’s wifi only. This phone only has Reddit. That separation works wonders. When I leave the house I leave the social media phone behind. Or leave it in the other room when I go to bed.
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