Hard to H@ndle

Credit: Yana Nikulina, Unsplash

Hard to H@ndle

Tips to Keep Your Mental Health in Check When Your Job Revolves Around Social Media

Ces Heredia | Contributing Writer

Social media has gone from a cool way to share photos and music with friends, to a critical aspect of society and productivity within a relatively short timespan. While there are countless positives to these platforms - community building, connectivity, expansion of education, innovation in business, etc. - social media can also be incredibly exhausting and toxic. So how do you find balance when your job revolves around social media?

Keeping up appearances and constantly trying to put our best face forward can be exhausting and lead to burnout. Yes, social media burnout is a real thing. It is a form of occupational burnout recognized by the World Health Organization. WHO defines Social Media Burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” While burnout can (and will) occur in every line of work if we don’t take the appropriate steps to avoid it, it occurs at a higher rate for those who have made social media their full-time jobs, since unplugging and finding time for offline self-care can be a bit more difficult.

Social media management can be downright exhausting. It feels like you have to be everywhere at once and available 24/7 — creating content, responding to and interacting with others, getting new followers, and planning for next week’s posts. The work is quite literally never done, but finding balance is possible.

Marnely Murray and Angela Prout are the co-founders of Shored Up Digital, a small digital agency in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. They have been working in the social media industry for eight years, and now manage around 30 client accounts. They both say that the pros of social media far outweigh the cons, but they also agree that setting boundaries is fundamental.

Marnely Murray and Angela Prout are the co-founders of Shored Up Digital, a small digital agency in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Jeremy Driese

Prout was very clear on her stance about social media management and boundaries. She says that social media management “is a job, and no job should get in the way of your mental health, your friends, your family, and the things that are genuinely important in life. It is important to set boundaries from the beginning: with yourself and with your superiors, if applicable.”

Murray agrees, and says, “it can be overwhelming to be consuming so much content at all times and always trying to catch up to trends and features.”

She even shared her personal time-management strategy for dealing with social media burnout and the boundaries she has set for herself:

Jessica Starks is the founder of J.D. Scribes, a content marketing agency that provides clients with digital marketing, social media and writing services, and more.

Jessica Starks, Founder of J.D. Scribes content marketing agency

Jessica Starks

“I try my hardest to set boundaries, and my favorite is to work really hard two to four days out of the week, so I have three days that I am not doing any work at all.”

Jessica Starks is another social media manager, and the founder of J.D. Scribes. She’s been working in this industry for about seven years now. She manages accounts for clients in different industries: insurance, restaurants, nonprofit organizations, and retail stores. She says, “I genuinely enjoy what I do, but social media as a whole can be a lot. It can be overwhelming when you‘re constantly working and soaking in information.”

She agrees with Murray and Prout that it’s important to have off-line days, when she allows herself to completely step away from social media. Another thing Starks recommends is using social media scheduling tools, or relying on other people in your team, “so you won‘t have to worry about missing work while you care for yourself.”

Marnely Murray and Angela Prout are the co-founders of Shored Up Digital, a small digital agency in Martha’s Vineyard. They specialize in digital marketing and social media management.

Murray, Prout, and Starks are not alone in their feelings about social media. According to a study by West Virginia University, the need to be always “on,” as well as the fact that so many social media managers are underpaid, are two of main stressors that contribute to social media burnout. If you’re starting to feel like your workload is unmanageable, you have little to no support from your leadership, feel you have no work-life balance, have unclear job expectations, or feel that the stigma associated with “spending too much time on social media” is getting to you, it might be time to take a step back and ask for help.