Social media serves as a pivotal tool for charities, amplifying their reach and fostering community engagement – though the professionals managing these platforms often face unique challenges that can impact their wellbeing.
Through our years working with charity partners on moderation, we’ve observed and directly experienced several similar themes and trends, most notably the negative impact that working with social media can have on people’s wellbeing.
It’s one of the reasons we wanted to conduct an in-depth report on the wellbeing of social media professionals in the third sector – to shed light on their evolving roles and how they feel about their work.
We also wanted to identify commonalities and establish if any particular causes or social media roles were more negatively impacted than others so that charities can better safeguard their comms colleagues.
Focusing on the experience of 102 charity professionals – many of whom are CharityComms members – our report shares the good, the bad and the ugly, of social media moderation.
The most alarming findings and what they mean
Our report uncovered a lot of concerning statistics and experiences about working with social media.
91% of social media professionals surveyed work beyond their contracted hours
Regularly working over your contracted hours suggests there is either a resourcing issue or an expectation issue, which, either way you look at it, results in too much work for too few people.
If organisations want the output to remain at the same level, it could be short-sighted and unfair of management to expect the team to continually work over and above their hours to complete their given tasks. This suggests that you either need to change the tasks or grow your team.
100% of social media professionals surveyed have been exposed to online hateful or abusive content
We expected this figure to be high when we asked about exposure to harmful content, but we didn’t expect for everyone surveyed to have been subject to problematic posts. It’s vital to remember that being exposed to hateful or abusive content can take its toll on even the most seasoned social media manager and moderators. This can be even more concerning when people with lived experience have the potential to be triggered through their work.
This figure is a strong indicator that charities need to ensure social media professionals have the tools and resources in place to manage their exposure to harmful content online.
40% of social media professionals surveyed have considered leaving their role due to poor social media management practices
This was an interesting figure that became even more so the further we delved into the data. There are several contributing factors, such as connections between training (or lack thereof), frequently working overtime, struggling to switch off, and a lack of organisational understanding.
We have published the full report for free, with the hope it will start a conversation in the sector and show social media professionals they are not alone.
What you’ll discover in the full report
- How social media roles have evolved – and why many professionals are struggling
- The mental health impact of constant moderation and online hate
- The disconnect between leadership expectations and reality
- What makes moderators happy at work – and how organisations can contribute
- The changes that need to happen now to better support social media teams
- Practical strategies for protecting wellbeing and creating a sustainable digital workplace
In summary, the report provides actionable insights for both social media managers and charity comms leaders that will inspire real change for social media professionals. As we all know, it’s often easy to spot that there is an issue, but it’s not always clear what the course of action might be.
A mantra we often use at Social AF is to focus on what you can control. The unfortunate reality is that we cannot control social media platforms or what people choose to comment. Ultimately, we hope that when people read this report, they choose to focus on the things they can control, prioritise their wellbeing and support their colleagues to do the same.
“Having worked on the report from our own survey exploring salaries, organisational culture and wellbeing, the ‘The State of Social: Wellbeing Insights from Social Media Professionals’ report comes at a welcome time for us to try to better understand what’s happening for charity communicators. Social media is an area of the comms mix that has become increasingly complicated and volatile, and our conversations with members have shown us that protecting wellbeing and addressing platform changes and challenges remain top concerns. This report provides additional context around the work life of social media professionals in the sector and we can see many parallels with our own insights, such as the value of continuous learning, the importance of wellbeing, and the need to realistically review capacity and resources to ensure charity communicators are truly happy and healthy in their roles.”
Sarah Clarke, Head of Membership and Insight at CharityComms
This report isn’t just data — it’s a call to action. The wellbeing of social media professionals in the charity sector is too important not to be a focus.
Download the ‘The State of Social Media: Wellbeing Insights from Social Media Professionals’ report and join the movement for better support, smarter strategies, and a healthier future for charity social media professionals.
