The world is getting astonishingly quicker and smaller as the phenomenon of the Internet has changed how we do business. Now with Social Media added to your business arsenal, you have yet another thing to do. Be honest, sometimes you don’t have time for it or maybe sometimes you just don’t feel like it. That’s OK. It’s allowed honest! And it’s completely human to want to step back once in awhile, if you feel you’ve had enough.
As you’re not Oscar Wilde, it’s hard to be eloquent all the time and it takes time and effort to dazzle on the Internet. With the incessant demands of life at 24/7, even poor Mr. Wilde would have felt his dagger sharp repartee dull every now and then. If you don’t have teams of people to help, sometimes you need to step back and recharge your batteries.
Unless Social Media is your full time job, make sure you keep it in it’s place as a useful and versatile tool for engaging your customers.
A few tips for keeping yourself dazzling:
1. Take a break from posting longer more involved articles or campaigns. Stop saying quite so much and possibly start sending out a few photos with short captions or share some sites (real or virtual) that you just quite like. Big plus side, it shows your audience that you are well-rounded, more human, more personable, more accessible i.e. more like them.
2. If you’ve been online a while its OK to cheat and bring back a post or an entry from a few months ago. Your new fans won’t have seen it and maybe your old fans need a refresher (the worse prospect is they’ll just won’t bother reading it again).
3. Let people know you’re having a offline vacation and let people know when you’ll be back. No six month cruises though! People will only “watch this” space so long. I feel it’s fine to tell your audience that you’re having a break. Make sure you don’t go onto deep hibernation for weeks, or months because you will be forgotten. Ensure you send out tidbits every now and then so they don’t forget who you are.
4. Maybe you’re tired because you’re throwing yourself around a bit too much. Did you dive into the Social Media arena without really thinking and tried giving it ALL a go? Periodically have a rethink and overhaul your marketing and communications strategy if necessary.
You might need to scale down your online activities and concentrate on creating better quality content on fewer platforms. Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean you have to. You’re not a lemming. Mindless following is not required. Be discerning and use the tools that work best for you.
5. Get help. Stop doing everything yourself, especially if you are really fed up and feel very unlikely to step up again. Delegate the responsibilities of Social Media to someone else (within your rules of course), spread it around a team or even outsource.
So stop beating yourself up for not being “on” and “with it” all the time. Just because the Internet is going round and round incessantly, doesn’t mean you have to try and keep up. Nor should you. You can, and should get off the insanity making online treadmill every now and then. You need a reality break and it’s great and necessary for getting some perspective.
I hope these bits of advice are helpful and that you get the timeout you need.
Why do I do this? Well as the inimitable Mr Wilde said:
Later
J