How to avoid burnout as a social media marketer
It can be challenging and mentally exhausting to work on a number of intense projects with high expectations, so it’s no wonder that Social media marketers are known to be prone to burnout.
Burnout is so common that the World Health Organization now classifies it as a legitimate health condition. According to the WHO, burnout is a mental health “phenomenon” characterized by “feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and reduced professional efficacy.”
Before you learn how to avoid burnout, you need to identify it first.
People experiencing burnout may feel:
- Exhausted or fatigued
- Anxious
- Emotionally disengaged
- Constantly distracted or unable to focus
- Unable to find meaning or value in their work
Burnout is the last thing you want to experience whilst at work, as this can leave you feeling completely drained and hopeless and can also cause you to bring work stress into your daily life outside of work. So, how can you actually avoid burnout as a marketer?
Here are our top tips!
1. Take Time To Check-In
When you’re constantly striving to be the best team member you can be and put your all in to your work you’ll be used to pushing yourself and being hard on yourself. But this can lead to you overlooking all of the red flags of burnout until you’re completely empty.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Do you feel physically or emotionally exhausted?
- Is it difficult to keep up with your workload?
- Is your work-life balance suffering?
- Do you feel isolated, unsupported, or undervalued?
- Are you feeling unsatisfied, even by your successes?
- Have you lost your sense of purpose or value in your work?
- Learn even more signs of burnout (and tips to prevent it) from a neuroscientist.
If you feel as though you’re experiencing one or more of the warning signs above, don’t let it get worse. It’s time to get some help and take care of yourself.
Schedule a mental health day, talk to your manager about your workload, or make an appointment with a health professional for further help.
2. Schedule time for self-care
When it comes to burnout, it cant simply be fixed by balancing toxic workplace habits with good personal ones. But building on self-care can help you build up a stronger mindset to help you get through those harder moments at work.
Setting aside time to work on yourself can create huge change in your life and should be one of your main priorities.
Here are a few things that might help out:
- If you tend to work through your breaks, put them in your calendar and set alarms.
- Eat foods that make your body feel good, and drink plenty of water.
- Schedule reminders for stretching and screen breaks.
- Sign up to a gym or a class, that could be Yoga, Boxing, Spin Class or Pottery, just anything that you’ll enjoy and can focus your mind on.
3. Actually take time off
Many people find it hard to take time off out of fear of falling behind or just because they love working. But taking time off can be key to fully relaxing and resetting your mind, which can help boost your productivity and heighten your mood at work when you return.
When working in a career such as marketing, its not unheard of for people to find it hard to disconnect from work when the work day ends, checking in constantly to see how posts are performing and checking emails etc.
But when taking time off, you can learn to fully disconnect in the evenings and weekends and just focus on doing anything but WORK!
4. Take regular breaks throughout the day
Taking short breaks every 45 mins to an hour can be extremely beneficial. These breaks can be used as an opportunity to hydrate, stretch and rest your eyes away from the screen, they can also help your mind catch-up with the busyness of the day, helping you tackle your to-do list in a more manageable way.
5. Find your flow
Many people in a marketing or even office environment are often diverted from meaningful work and bombarded with social media notifications, emails and Slack messages from your coworkers. All of this can prevent you from fully getting into a flow and leave you feeling exhausted by the end of the day.
Here are a few things you could try to help you find your flow:
- Schedule in some uninterrupted time. Block out your calendar so you can focus on your most important tasks.
- Time-blocking for dealing with distracting tasks like notifications, messages and emails.
- Focus on one thing at a time. Ideally, start with the most challenging task, when your energy and focus is highest and work your way through.
- Shorten your meetings. Try setting your default meeting time to 30 minutes — or better yet, 25, so you always have a break between calls.
- Listen to the right music. listening to positive music with slow tempos could improve your performance. It won’t be wrong to say that listening to background music helps to improve focus, blocks out distractions, and even makes a tedious task more enjoyable.
No job is worth sacrificing your mental health. And no business goal is worth compromising the well-being of your employees. Preventing social media burnout, and addressing it when it happens, should be a priority for every company and individual!
Once you’ve mastered how to avoid and tackle burnout, why not learn about the importance of positive content!
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