The Struggle is Real: Social Media Management and Mental Health
The Occupational Hazards of Being a Social Media Manager
2020 is already shaping up to be a rough year for all of us. Logging into social media every day our feeds are filled with new things to fill us with outrage, fear, and sadness. Throw a contentious election year on top of that and you’ve got a perfect storm of anger and negativity.
This is bad enough for the average person just reading the news of the day. But what if it’s your job to be on social media 24/7? What if logging off or deleting your account just isn’t an option for you?
For social media managers, this is a fact of life; an occupational hazard if you will.
So, let’s approach it like an occupational hazard. If your employees were going into an unsafe physical space, you’d make sure they were protected, right? Hard hats and brightly colored vests are required for construction workers working on highways. Hearing protection is required for those working around airplanes and other high noise areas.
So what about the hazards faced by those working on social media?
Every day social media managers are exposed to nasty comment threads and hateful direct messages to their brand accounts. The brands they work for are tagged in Tweets that have nothing to do with them, but still require monitoring. Replies to posts often hyper-critical of every detail, often reading “Fire your social media intern!” in response to an unpopular post. This anger doesn’t stop at demands to be fired, some social media managers have even received death threats because someone didn’t like posts made from a brand account.
The pressure on social media professionals runs high.
And heaven help you if you ever make a typo.
They are also the canary in the coal mine for crisis communications, acting as an early warning system to problems that might cause trouble for their brands. Social media managers must monitor conversations surrounding their brand, being constantly vigilant for complaints or negative conversations surrounding the brand they represent.
There are times when as a social media manager, you feel all this online anger is being directed at you. And while it’s vital that a social media manager separate themselves from that brand. (I daily repeat the mantra “I am not the brand I work for.”) This is no easy task when your computer and your phone constantly alert you to comments directed at “you.” “YOU suck,” “What are YOU going to do about this?” “YOU are bad at your job.”
As a social media manager, you know not to take it personally. You develop a thick skin. But it wears you down.
Now add this with the pressure to constantly be creating and sharing content and knowing that one wrong post or reply could get you fired.
And it’s not just conversation around their brands that require monitoring either. Social media managers live “extremely online.” In order to be effective, they have to be aware of the latest trends and conversations happening in the culture. They need to be aware of current events in pop culture, sports, politics, and world events. Not only so they can find opportunities to engage in real-time marketing but so they can alter their content so as not to make their brands seem callous and insensitive in the light of events that happen at a moment’s notice. Planter’s suspending their “Death of Mr. Peanut” campaign after the death of Kobe Bryant is an example of this.
This makes avoiding unpleasant and sometimes triggering social media conversations almost impossible for social media managers.
If you work running social media for a university as I do, the problems grow even further—especially during a presidential election year. During the 2016 election, I ran social media at Texas State University, a school targeted by white supremacists for recruitment more than any other university in the nation. We dealt with racist flyers being posted around campus, mass protests, and most tragically a student death by suicide in a public space.
We were alerted to many of these issues on social media and there they continued to play out, requiring monitoring, reporting and responding.
Did I mention that the pay for social media management jobs is usually very low?
Add all these factors up and you have a job that presents a daily danger to one’s mental health.
So what’s the solution? Is there one?
First, just trying to “shrug it off” or “ignore the trolls” is not a viable solution. This is useless at best and more often harmful. Also, telling people to log off after hours can also be damaging as for many social media managers, the communities where they find help and support exist online--usually on social media.
But there are steps you can take to minimize the damage. If you are a social media manager, you have to take care of yourself first.
Step away and take regular breaks.
Use mental health days when you need them.
Take your vacation time.
Communicate these issues to your supervisors.
Find a community of fellow social media managers and connect with them. They understand what you are going through better than anyone else.
Find a good therapist and see them regularly.
If you supervise or employee a social media manager, here are some ways you can provide a “virtual hard hat” for the occupational hazards they face every day:
Make taking vacation time mandatory.
Hire multiple people to oversee your social accounts so they can take shifts between monitoring comments and creating content.
Give them the security of knowing that they will not lose their job over a post that someone just happens to not like. (Even if that person is high up in the company.)
Provide a quiet and distraction-free work environment. No open office floor plans.
Give them time during the workday to meet with a therapist if they choose to do so.
Provide opportunities for them to connect with other social media professionals working for other brands. There are many conferences that will provide these opportunities as well as training that will make them even better at their jobs.
Just check-in and ask how they are doing and really listen to what they have to say.
Let them know they are doing a good job.