Social Media, it’s great! It helps us grow our brands, sell our products, launch our businesses and grow a community. It also keeps us entertained by providing an endless supply of memes that will never get boring. But, as business owners, how can we manage social media without the stress that comes with it?
Social Media is a series of global communities and sub-communities that never goes to sleep. It’s full of positive content, talented human beings and did I mention the memes? But it’s also an opportunity for spammers, trolls and bullies. Everyone has an opinion, right? That opinion is amplified when you’re behind a screen and inside an echo chamber, carefully curated to your exact tastes by an algorithm that no one fully understands.
When you’re growing your own presence on social media, it can be extremely overwhelming as you get support from followers all over the world. Refreshing your phone every 30 seconds to see 100 new notifications rushing in – it’s exhilarating, but stressful.
So, here are some tips to help take the stress out of social media management.
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Turn off all notifications on your phone
You need to take control of the time you spend on social media. That means checking your notifications, comments and messages at fixed times of the day. Otherwise, you’ll be endlessly distracted by the constant stream of activity.
Go to the app settings of all the social media apps that you regularly use and disable all push notifications, sounds, alerts and vibrations so you’re not tempted to be ‘always available’ on every platform.
Related: 14 Tips for better TikTok Content
Don’t reply to every comment – just reply to early responses
When you’re managing a growing social media accounts, you need to manage comments from your followers in order to build a community. Community building is one of the main business benefits of using social media. But, managing comments on a video that cost 100k views? No one can physically reply to every single comment!
So, set an unwritten rule where you only respond to the earliest commenters! Those who comment within the first hour or two of posting.
Create all your content in batches
Creating content for social media on a daily basis is a lot of pressure and hard work. Yet, we need to be consistently active on these platforms in order to grow, so how do we move forward? Daily content creation would lead to inevitable burnout, so create your content in batches instead!
Spent 3-4 hours taking photos, videos, writing captions, hashtags and entering your content into Social Media schedulers. Alternatively, save your posts as ‘drafts’ in your phone, ready to publish at the right time.
If you ever have a rough day and don’t feel like creating anything, you’ve got a bank of content ready to go that was made when you were feeling better!
Don’t look at your phone first thing in the morning or last thing at night
Try to resist temptation on this one. Keep your phone out of your bedroom. Avoid your phone for the first hour after you wake up and the final hour before you go to bed.
Need your phone for your alarm? Buy a £10 alarm clock and keep your phone in another room! Otherwise, it’s too tempting to unlock your phone and start scrolling. Then, you may see something that upsets you and prevents you from sleeping. It’s not worth it.
Your sleeping pattern is more important than social media engagement!
Delete rude comments
Most of the comments you receive online with be positive from people who are grateful for your content. But, there will always be a small minority of people who leave rude comments for no reason other than being rude.
There’s constructive criticism (which you’re also free to delete as you please) and then rudeness. Criticism should usually be given in private, if at all. You have the right to delete any comment that you don’t like on your own social media profile.
If you’re OK with the occasional rude comment – leave them there. Comments can help the algorithm, or you may consider responding to them, being firm but polite.
Block any consistent haters
As your brand grows on social media, as the old phrase goes – you can’t please everyone. There’s always going to be some people who don’t like your content and that’s fine.
The logical thing to do if you don’t like someone’s content is to scroll past it without saying anything. If you’re unfortunate enough to attract a few trolls, haters or keyboard warriors then don’t hesitate slamming that ‘block’ button.
Life is too short to get bothered by nameless, faceless strangers on the internet.
So those are my top tips for managing social media without the stress. Share this blog if you found it useful and don’t forget about the Digital Rebels Facebook Group where you can ask questions about anything website or marketing related.
