Madalyn Sklar

Achieving Work-Life Balance as a Social Media Manager

Tweet
Share3
Share
Pin1
Buffer
4 Shares

Achieving work-life balance as a social media marketer - #TwitterSmarter chat with Jake Zachariah - January 7, 2021

We’ve all heard it: work-life balance is essential for a happy and fulfilling life. However, most of us spend our days, and even nights, focussed only on work and how it’s not giving us enough returns. Other times, we force ourselves to avoid thinking about work, causing additional stress to ourselves. So how do we find the perfect balance? We invited marketing manager Jake Zachariah to discuss why social media marketers should take time off before they burnout and how to do so.

Here’s a summary of our chat.

Guest: Jake ZachariahTopic: Achieving work-life balance as a social media managerFormat: Eight questions directed at the guest. Everyone’s welcome to share.

Q1: What does work-life balance look like when you’re constantly on Twitter?

Work life balance is about having time for yourself, away from social media. A good way to make sure you prioritize your personal space and time is to allocate specific times for your social media activities.

Use tools like do not disturb and screen time restrictions to remind you that you need a break.

Our friend from Wholesome Media gave us an example of how you can block time off. For instance, they check in on social media for about 5-10 minutes every hour. This restriction helps them use that time effectively and avoid falling into the trap of endless scrolling.

Q2: Why is it important to disconnect from social media at times?

Social media is essential to connect with people and improve your online relationships. However, we’re all humans and we need down time too. That’s why you should always focus on taking time off social media. As our guest pointed out, when you switch off your need to always be active, you allow your brain to rest. That rest time is fuel to help you come up with new ideas.

Besides, as Cindy mentioned, being online all the time and scrolling through social media every day can affect other work as well. The nature of social media is to captivate you and keep you engaged, which can also become distracting if you’re not careful.

Q3: What kind of content can you share when you’re trying to get more work-life balance?

The most important thing about taking time off is informing your audience. Not only is it good etiquette, but it may also inspire them to look at their social media practices and consider taking a break.

What’s more, when you tell your audience that you’re going away for a couple of weeks, that also resets their expectations of you, and they’ll understand if you don’t reply to a message or acknowledge a tag right away.

Dakota gave us some insight about what you can share when you’re trying to focus on getting some work-life balance. Take time off from business stories to talk about your personal life. Share about your pets, your family if you’re comfortable with it, and about any personal improvement projects you’re working on like a new recipe you tried or a new restaurant you went to.

You can also choose to take a complete break from posting, and schedule some quotes and pictures, instead. Whatever you do, the purpose is to emulate your life’s lightheartedness into your profile, and give you some time to focus on something other than your social media life.

Q4: What’s the role of work-life balance in your personal brand?

Having a healthy work-life balance is essential to maintaining good quality content. As Jake pointed out, if you’re overwhelmed, stressed out, or over worked, the quality of your content will suffer, which will send a negative message to your audience. To avoid that, make sure you put your well-being ahead of everything else.

Justin beautifully explained the value of personal life balance. If you’re sacrificing family time for the sake of social media, then you’re harming your personal lifestyle.

Q5: What tools can help mindfully reduce the time spent on social media?

Being mindful is the key to achieving work-life balance. Understand that social media is addictive. To avoid falling into that sinkhole, use tools designed to limit your exposure. Jake spoke about screen time restriction and scheduling platforms like Hootsuite and Buffer. When you schedule posts in advance, you don’t have to worry about constantly creating content every day. Word of caution, though, if you’re scheduling posts in advance, always remember what type of content you’ve scheduled and pause or alter it according to changing situations in real life.

Jim shared another great tip. Though most of us use the do not disturb functionality at night to get a good night’s sleep, you can also use it during the day. Turn notifications off so that you’re not constantly “called” by social media. It’s a great way to be in the moment when you’re spending time with friends and family.

Q6: How do you set boundaries on Twitter to promote work-life balance?

Habits don’t happen overnight. Don’t try and make a major change right away and expect to stick to it. Our minds don’t work that way. Instead, start small. Make small changes in your everyday life and observe how you feel. Based on how comfortable you are at setting restrictions for yourself, you can alter and increase your limits gradually.

For example, on your first week, allow yourself two hours for social media. On the second, limit that to 1.5 hours and make sure you get all work done within that time period. This way, you’ll naturally learn to use every minute of your allotted time effectively so that you’re not wasting your time. Who’s to say, a few weeks later, you might realize you only need 30 minutes a day to schedule posts and respond to notifications. You can then break that 30 minutes into two 15-minute slots for the morning and evening.

Amanda shared how she restricts her time. She dedicates the weekends entirely for her personal life, catching up with friends and spending time on her hobbies. Most of us would still check social media because we’re afraid of missing out. And as Amanda said, it takes time to learn to be ok with it.

Q7: Can social media networking help improve work-life balance?

Absolutely. When you’re networking on social media, find people who value their work-life balance. Not only will this help you develop a healthy balance, but you’ll also feel better about taking breaks from social media. If your friends do it, you’re more likely to do it, too.

As Marianne also said, when you have friends from various industries who have various interests, even when you’re not taking a complete break, you can still have after-work conversations about topics you care about.

Q8: Share some tips for avoiding a Twitter burnout.

Let’s be real: we check social media as soon as we wake up. And for many of us, it’s the last thing we see before we sleep. This practice can often harm our mental and physical well-being. As our guest suggested, take care of yourself first. Set time aside for your family, meals, and exercise. That way, you can set healthy time limits for your social media use and be more effective during that time.

Aside from those, Smita shared a bunch of other great tips too, including taking long walks everyday to be in nature, reading books to give your brain a break, cooking a wholesome meal for you and your family, and playing a sport to develop your team skills and physical fitness.

Well, folks. That’s all from me this week. Thanks for reading through, and for more insights from our chat with Jake, have a look at this Twitter Moment that Joana put together. If you have some time to spare on Thursday, join us for the next #TwitterSmarter chat at 1pm ET. Hope to see you there!

About me, Narmadhaa:

I write all the things—technical and marketing copy to fill the pocket; haiku and short stories to fill the soul. A social media enthusiast, I’m a member of the #TwitterSmarter chat crew, and always happy to take on writing gigs.

Say hello: Personal blog | LinkedIn | Twitter

Tweet
Share3
Share
Pin1
Buffer
4 Shares
Previous Post 6 Twitter Features to Make Sure You’re Using This Year Next Post How to Limit Who Replies to Your Tweets and When You Should Use This Feature