Over the past few weeks, I have been writing about some of the less-discussed social media challenges that exist for companies and marketers today.
In part 1, the focus was on the changing habits of social media users, ad blindness, and how these factors ultimately impact on and require proper consideration when it comes to social media ads.
Part 2 shifted the focus to organic content and how the reach of such content is limited in different ways by each social network’s respective algorithms. However, these limitations do not mean that solid organic reach is impossible – you just need to adapt.
If you missed either of these parts, you can view part 1 here and part 2 here.
For the third and final part, let’s talk about you – the social media marketer, business owner, or individual who handles the company’s social media accounts. More specifically, this discussion will focus on:
• Accounting for exhaustion and creative block;
• Clearing your mind; and
• The importance of a social media sabbatical
Accounting for Your Own Exhaustion
What else can impact on the effectiveness of your social media marketing? You can.
No matter how much you love your job or how creative you typically are, you will have moments when you hit a wall.
This creative block can result from many factors, but key among them is exhaustion – be it mental, physical, or purely a situation where your creativity has reached its absolute limits.
The problem lies in the fact that most people still try to push through these barriers as quickly as possible; and sometimes, admittedly, that can work.
Other times you may find yourself wasting precious minutes (even hours) forcing yourself to come up with something when your mind simply is not there.
Clear Your Mind
Instead of brute-forcing your way out of creative block, the better solution is to try and clear your mind or at least stimulate it in a different way.
There are a few ways in which you can do this, including going for a short walk outside, a mere change of scenery (if you have a laptop can work in a different space – a nearby park, café, etc.), or just finding somewhere to sit down and relax for a good 10 to 20 minutes.
Depending on the severity or the frequency of your creative block, the above approaches may not be a perfect solution.
In fact, if you find yourself suffering from regular episodes of creative block to the point where they’re actively hurting your work achievements, then it might be worth considering a social media sabbatical.
The Social Media Sabbatical
The idea that a social media marketer should take time off social in order to produce more content for said social media can strike some as immediately counter-intuitive, but it isn’t.
While social media is an important marketing channel for businesses to be on, for the individual it can become noisy, distracting, and even monotonous. As they say, too much of any one thing can be bad for you.
There’s also the fact that the more time you spend on social media, the more your mind normalizes it. You get used to the rules, the expectations, the do’s and don’ts; and before you know it, your content becomes normal and expected.
It can be hard to think outside the box, to consider other perspective, and to try new things when you’re immersed inside the box. A social media sabbatical – whether it’s for a few days, a week, or more – lends you time for your mind to refresh and return with a rejuvenated perspective.
An article penned by Paul Jarvis back in 2015 for The Next Web (TNW) hit on the importance of how removing yourself from social media can offer you a quiet space of reprieve that allows for creative thoughts to form with greater ease.
Keep in the mind that a social media sabbatical isn’t just beneficial for your work-related creativity, either. It can also benefit your personal creative endeavors, as well as just your personal life.
Of course, pulling off a week-long sabbatical isn’t something you’ll just be able to do whenever you feel like. Instead, try and work it into any current vacation plans or upcoming long weekends. Even a good 48 hours off could help your mind refocus.
Ideally, though, you should aim for at least a few days – especially if you’ve been struggling with your social media efforts as of late. Disconnecting will allow you to return to your job with a fresh set of eyes and ideas.
Get in Touch
Thanks for reading through this series, whether you read this part, the first, the second, or every single one of them.
Ultimately, my hope is that what you’ve read here has provided you with valuable insight into the challenges and pitfalls of social media that are not touched on as often as they should be.
Social media is ever-changing, as is the way we all engage with it. It’s not just a matter of competitors, the best times to post, and how much you should spend on an ad – social media, and the users that drive it, are far more complex than that.
Again, if you would like to learn more about what we do at Odenza and how our travel incentive solutions can be – and have been – leveraged in the social media space, be sure to contact us via the form at the bottom of this page.
