Those of us working in social media recognise the equally rewarding and challenging nature of what we do. While social media can help build engaged communities, raise awareness of our cause and spread the word about our services, it can also unfortunately harbour negativity. The fast-paced nature of social media often makes communication teams feel the need to be always ‘on’ and respond quickly, potentially leading to overwhelm and burnout.
As the social media lead here at CharityComms, I couldn’t help but notice that ‘burnout’ was one of the most searched terms on our website in Autumn 2023. This got me thinking about how teams can safeguard themselves as the social media landscape gets tougher.
It’s crucial for social media teams to establish boundaries and manage expectations to protect their wellbeing. To find out more about what this means in practice, we reached out to our amazing network and asked communicators working on social media for their top tips to help others.
Tips from our network
- Take time to connect. Sometimes you can spend all day working with digital communities without any in-person connection. To counter this, people have suggested offloading challenges and sharing what you’ve seen that day with colleagues to discuss. Talking about what you experience on social media platforms can help ground you and make you feel less alone as well as helping to put things in perspective.
- Share the load. Ensure it’s not just one person doing all the work involved with online community management.
- Have a process for offensive messages and hate speech, and know when to delete or block users and their comments. Determine how you will handle difficult issues that may arise for your charity. By anticipating the different types of comments you might receive, and having key messaging already prepared, you take the pressure off deciding on a response in the moment and ensure your team members feel protected by an action plan that helps them navigate negativity. This may mean you need to invest time in building the key skills you and your colleagues need to support your community and yourself.
“At Good Finance we established a process for any negativity we receive, which makes it easy to determine whether it’s a genuine challenge that we need to pick up and act upon or whether it’s a form of ‘trolling’.”
Annie Constable
- Set clear boundaries and keep it to your work hours. Consider whose responsibility it is to respond to messages and how much time you want to allocate being online. Where necessary, also consider the process for social media engagement outside of regular working hours. It’s important to manage expectations around appropriate time-frames.
If you work flexible hours, it’s helpful to include your working hours in your email signature. Also, don’t log in to work accounts on your phone. It sounds like a no-brainer, but if you’re at a work event then sometimes you need to log in on your phone for ease. Ensure you log back out when it’s back to business as usual, otherwise it’s easy to check your work accounts during your free time, when you should be 100% switched off from work. - Lead by example. Think about what you would say to your colleagues. Would you tell them to log off and take a break? It’s not the end of the world if your post doesn’t go out at the exact day and time you’d planned – even though you or others might feel like it is!
- Remember that not everything needs a response immediately. It can be tricky to get through your to-do list at the best of times, but even harder when you drop everything to respond to a question or comment via your platforms. Liaise with your team on what feels like an acceptable timeframe to pick up queries.
- Protect time to rest, reflect and recharge. Add windows for self-care – this can be anything that makes you feel happy or relaxed. Here are some ideas of self-care strategies.
- Take breaks where possible – even if it’s just for five minutes to make a cuppa, it helps!
- Prioritise regular check-ins to discuss workload. Be open and honest with your team and, in turn, listen to them. Spread and agree responsibilities across the team. Be clear with your team on how you like to be communicated with (e.g via email or Teams) or create your own Manual of Me.
Team debriefs to discuss the positives and negatives can be useful and helps as a reassurance that others are going through the same thing.
“At Dementia UK we aim to have a sufficient number of moderators engaged to avoid overreliance on one person, thinking about the time of day that moderating works best for an individual. Where possible we use a list of stock responses to emotional messages that can be edited simply and quickly as this can help us stop becoming too emotionally invested – whilst it’s good to make sure our responses are personalised, it’s also good to keep that professional distance to protect yourself and your own wellbeing.”
Laura Mason
- Realise and reiterate in your team that people often post and comment on social media as a way to be heard. It’s good to keep in mind that it’s not possible to solve everything, but what is feasible is to help people by pointing them towards further support.
- Signpost or explore the professional support available. If your organisation has an employee assistance programme, then ensure that all team members are aware of this or consider using it yourself if you need it.
Top reflections
Burnout is a significant concern for the sector and beyond, with 91% of adults in the UK telling Mental Health UK that they experienced high or extreme levels of pressure or stress at some point in the past year.
After speaking to fellow professionals in our network it’s evident that social media teams can thrive when there is both structure and support, with protected times for rest and reflection.
My top takeaways are the importance of embracing what’s achievable and realistic within work hours, while proactively setting boundaries around the work. Furthermore, I’ve learned about the significant impact of nurturing a strong sense of camaraderie within a team. Having others to talk to can lessen feelings of isolation and provide vital support.
Further reading
- A wellbeing guide for comms professionals
- Top tips for staying mentally healthy at work
- How can charities protect against social media burnout?
- Battling burnout as a social media manager
- How the Manual of Me can help build stronger teams
- How to work in social media and stay sane
- The art of setting priorities
- Guide to best practice in ethical digital marketing and comms practices from Charities Against Hate
Thank you to Lightful‘s Jasmine Warren, Good Finance‘s Annie Constable, Good Community’s Serena Snoad, and Dementia UK‘s Laura Mason for their input for this blog.
Do you have additional tips to share? We’d love to hear them.
Banner Image: Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash