Advice For Small Business Owners Wanting To Beat Social Media Fatigue

Social media fatigue is a big problem for business owners. When you are in charge of running a small business, you are required to do the marketing and at times it can be exhausting.

However, if your customers are on social media it is super important for you to be active on at least a couple of social media platforms. What is more important is for you to be quick to respond to client or customer requests and consistent in posting to make sure you are actually connecting with and capturing the attention of the people who you want to connect with.

Here are some valuable tips to help manage your use of social media in a way that prevents fatigue and benefits the success of your business.

Set Up Some Designated “Social Media Office Hours”

Social media fatigue can be best defined as “a user’s tendency to back away from social media participation when s/he becomes overwhelmed with information.” A brilliant way to combat these feelings of fatigue whilst in charge of running a business is to strategically organise your schedule to use social media at specific times of the day to get all your required social media tasks completed within your allocated timeframe. It would be wise to designate 1 hour a day to complete your social media tasks.

The key to making this strategy work is looking at all your social media platforms and make sure that you can build them into your office hours or your daily social media hour every day. This could mean focusing on just one platform each day to avoid getting overwhelmed. For example, your social media office hours schedule might look like this:

To make sure you don’t burnout or go overtime you could consider setting a timer so that once your daily hour of social media has finished you will know that it is time to log off. If your timeframe is one hour, set the timer for one hour and when it buzzes, you’re done. By putting clear boundaries in place you can better manage the anxiety and burnout. 

Scroll With A Clear Intention In Mind

It is important to make sure that you avoid mindlessly scrolling. Unless you have a specific purpose for example; I.E., market or competitor research, brainstorming new hashtags, engaging with potential clients, or checking in with personal friends. It is important that you are not getting into a habit of scrolling just for the sake of scrolling.

Scrolling for many social media users is an unhealthy addition. The purpose of a social media newsfeed is for it constantly refresh and update itself with new information so that its users can keep scrolling for long periods of time.

Behind every screen on your phone, there are thousands of engineers who have worked on developing a social media newsfeed that is as addictive as possible. If you are just bored, distracted, or feeding your addiction remember that mindless scrolling drains your creative resources and increases your social media fatigue.

This means that when you do need to be on social media, establish a purpose and ideal time frame. Even if you’ve scheduled social office hours for the task, remind yourself why you’re there and what you want to accomplish. 

For example, you might say to yourself: 

Use these intentions to stop going down the social media rabbit hole. Those sneaky five-minute scrolls here and there are a significant contributor to social media fatigue. 

Schedule Screen-Free Breaks

Notice how this tip isn’t “take screen-free breaks” but schedule them. You need to be intentional about screen-free time, or it won’t happen. You say you’ll take breaks, but then you get wrapped up in a project or go down a social media rabbit hole and hours pass. It is important for your wellbeing to avoid this from happening.

This is especially important to do at night, as you are trying to relax and unwind after a busy day. Scientific research illustrates that light-emitting electronics before bed “prolongs the time it takes to fall asleep, delays the circadian clock, suppresses levels of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, reduces the amount and delays the timing of REM sleep, and reduces alertness the following morning.” 

Just like your social office hours, it is recommended that you schedule screen-free time throughout the day and at night. You can even set a curfew for yourself so you keep it consistent each day. Don’t forget to schedule screen-free time into your day too for example; from 10am to 11am and 2pm to 3pm. These short breaks will leave you much more refreshed and less burnt out on social feeds.

Here are some ways to create that screen free time:

Refine Your Social Strategy

On top of taking breaks and dropping your scrolling habit, you can also optimize your process so that you don’t burnout. First and foremost, this starts with remembering that you don’t have to be on every platform you just need to be on the social media platforms where your clients and customers are most active. 

It is much better to strive for quality over quantity. It’s better to have a strong social presence on a few relevant channels than a mediocre following on several. Be selective of where you invest your energy and put your presence.

It is a good idea to analyse metrics on past performance to see where you get the most engagement and ROI, then reinforce your efforts there. Also make peace with the fact that you might have to walk away from some channels. 

For example, if TikTok is taking a lot of time but you see little to no engagement and minimal potential client interactions, refocus that time on a platform where you know you’re able to connect with your ideal client.

Automate Your Social Media Posts When It Is Possible

A simple way to beat social media fatigue is to automate your processes as much as possible. While it might not seem like it, batch creating content and scheduling your evergreen posts will save you time each and every day that you can put toward other important activities like engaging with your community.

Acknowledge Your Exhaustion

Always listen to your intuition. If you’re drained and don’t feel like engaging or posting that day, don’t do it. When you’re inspired and creative, that will shine through in your content but if you’re just checking the boxes to get it done, that too will be obvious to your audience.

Don’t wait until your health takes a hit, follow the advice listed in this article so that you can set yourself up for success by setting boundaries, listening to your intuition, and creating a healthy and positive relationship with social media. 

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