Healthy Social Media Habits
Social media management has left numerous business owners feeling overwhelmed.
Social media marketing can be a marvelous tool for freelancers and businesses that produces long term success.
However…
Wearing all the hats to operate your business can push you into a state of burnout, utter exhaustion, loss of passion, or excessive stress — especially in regards to social media.
We are led to believe that constantly creating fresh content, pinning, posting, tweeting, hashtagging, scheduling, cross-posting to various platforms, responding to comments, and staying up to date on every social media holiday, will generate success for our business by default.
If we aren't making a profit now, we are led to believe that "someday it will pay off." This utopia might eventually come true, but when social media is approached without purpose and without a plan it is rare.
If you want to “alleviate, automate, and accelerate” your social strategy + maintain a healthy social media life, then I suggest using these tips:
Identify your social ethos, and set boundaries that reflect it.
Learn to prioritize profitable return over engagement.
Distinguish “hobby platforms” from “bread and butter platforms.”
Set up a solid automation strategy for social media marketing.
Identify your social ethos, and set boundaries that reflect it.
An ethos is described as “the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period” Dictionary.com.
The social ethos of your business could look something like these statements:
I value “this platform” because it aligns with my beliefs (describe here) that help me engage in the community in “these ways.”
I chose “this platform” because it allows my business to add value to “groups of people” by contributing ideas and inspiration to like (describe).
I prefer “this platform” because “its functions” allow me to quickly and successfully share my business with society in meaningful and profitable ways (describe here).
I decided to only use “these platforms” because they help me spend less time scrolling and more time creating content that matters to my business.
Standing up for your social ethos gives purpose to your social media marketing strategy. It also allows you to identify and maintain boundaries that help create a healthy work-life balance for your business.
Every social media company has community guidelines for using its platform. So why not set up guidelines for how your business uses social media platforms to reach your community?
Your clients and customers are your community. So be intentional with how your business reaches your community through social media.
Learn to prioritize profitable return over engagement.
If you have actively held a social media account for a year, but you still didn't receive a financially profitable return on "the investment" of your social media engagement, then you need to reconsider your social strategy.
That social platform or the strategy for that platform simply isn’t working for your business, and you have to acknowledge it even if you feel social pressure to be on that platform.
Here’s a strategy I developed to help coach businesses back into healthy social media routines.
Ask yourself these three questions:
“Am I making money on this social platform?
“Am I having fun on this social platform?”
“Can I streamline my social media more efficiently with better automation strategies?”
These three questions are perfect for evaluating your social reality, and they help remove distractions and promote inner peace. You may need to return to these questions often.
Distinguish “hobby platforms” from “bread and butter” platforms.
What platform has proved to be the best in generating profit for your business? That is your "bread and butter" platform, and this is where you need to invest your marketing energy constantly.
It's okay to have "hobby platforms," but it's not okay to live with an illusion that a hobby platform will be your next big break if you aren't generating profit.
Commit yourself to let go of “hobby platforms” if you aren’t having fun.
Here’s a brief personal story that I hope encourages you.
In 2020 I realized that I wasn't having fun on Instagram as a solopreneur. FOMO was one of the biggest reasons I kept visiting and posting to the platform. I felt so much social pressure just thinking about leaving Instagram, that it gave me anxiety.
My user experience was being generated by fear and compounded with toxic social and economic pressures highlighted by my feed. Algorithms made it challenging to stay up to date on the connections I truly cared about, and half of my feed became advertisements.
I promised myself that if I weren't making a profit of some kind, I would consider that social media platform just a "hobby platform." Hobbies should be fun, right?
I wasn’t making money on Instagram, but I still wanted to be socially connected and have fun.
So I started researching other alternatives, and I found fantastic alternatives that work for me. Also, limiting my urge to scroll social media helped me de-clutter my mind and focus on the things that matter most to me. In other words, skipping mainstream media helps me keep my priorities in check.
I get a lot of weird looks when I tell people I quit the Meta social media family, but guess what?
I am a whole lot happier, freer of distraction, and my business’s profit has increased simply because my ability to focus is more streamlined.
Instagram and Facebook can be amazing tools, and I completely appreciate and understand the power of social media.
However, I also coach business owners to ask themselves, “Why?” I challenge them to dig deep and ask themselves “why” about everything in their business.
So when I began asking myself, “Why am I on Instagram and Facebook?” I realized that they weren’t right for me so I decided not to use them for my business either.
Forcing myself to do something that wasn’t right for me only hurt my creativity, productivity, and mental health, which in turn hurt my business.
So if you feel social pressure to fit into the cookie-cutter mold of mainstream social media, I am here to tell you that you will feel so much better if you just let that pressure go and do what’s right for you.
Instagram or any other platform will still be there if you decide to jump back in. So don’t be scared to take a break or break up completely.
Set up a solid automation strategy for social media marketing.
Learn how to develop a stress-less social media approach in my blog, “Stress-Less Social Media.”
You’ll see my top social media hacks plus my top recommended platforms for social media management that provide superb automation and save time on content creation!
Overall, while social media has its benefits, it’s important to recognize that there are also positive advantages to not being on it.
