Social media marketing, when done right, is time consuming.
If you’re responsible for managing the social media presence for multiple entities, you know how much time (on a daily, weekly and monthly basis) goes into maintaining a variety of social profiles.
Enter: the social media saga.
It’s incredibly difficult to create a healthy balance between staying present both on and offline.
It’s something that I’m working on every single day, and it’s been at the forefront of my mind as I embark upon a two week adventure to South America with my family.
The situation:
When I’m online, I am either creating or consuming. I get sucked into the digital world, my creative juices start to flow, and I’m focused on creating value (in the form of content or engagement) for myself or my clients.
However, when I’m online, I’m not present.
Like I said, I get totally sucked in, and I don’t find that to be a bad thing.
I love creating content for my clients across their various social media channels that helps them attract their ideal audience, build awareness for their brand and develop meaningful connections with their customers.
In fact, I love that the passion I have for my work enables me to develop a laser-like focus and tune out the rest of the world.
On the other hand, it’s tough.
It’s hard because I’ve come to find that when I’m engaged on social, and interacting in that digital world, I don’t feel present.
I feel out of touch with reality; like I’m completely unaware as to what’s going on in the world around me – the world that I am physically operating in/out of.
As I prepare to embark on my trip to South America, I’ve been thinking about how I’m going to strike a balance between staying present both on and offline.
The struggle:
It’s difficult because social media is a living and breathing thing.
Problems and complaints can arise while I’m out of the country, and I take pride in providing my clients with exceptional quality service.
At the same time, I’m not traveling all the way to Peru to spend two weeks in front of my laptop.
It’s not easy for any of us to strike a healthy balance between staying present and engaged in the “real world,” and the world of social media.
I don’t think that this struggle is confined to social media managers; I think this is a universal challenge that we all face today.
We want to be able to post about our moments.
We want to show our friends, family and loved ones what we’re up to and give them that behind-the-scenes look into our lives.
After all, we are social people.
We crave and thrive off human connection and feedback, and social media provides us with a TON of that.
However, I bet that most of you are just like me — you want to be able to do that, while fully enjoying and immersing yourself in every moment of your present life.
I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think it’s possible to get the best of both worlds.
And for those of us who are Type-A’s, that’s really difficult. We want to be able to “win” at both.”
My solution:
When it comes down to it, I think it’s picking your priority.
That doesn’t mean you have to go ALL in on one side, but you do need to decide (each day, week or month,) whether your focus is to stay present ON or OFF line.
When I’m in Buffalo, my priority is staying present online. I, of course, ground myself through meditation and other activities – but I stay focused on the digital world, and am ready to jump in at a moment’s notice.
In the upcoming few weeks, as I travel around South America, my priority is shifting to stay present offline. I, of course, will check in and post on social media, but not nearly as often as I normally would.
At the end of the day, even us social media managers, need to switch our priority and take the time to unplug, unwind and immerse ourselves in our present surroundings.
What do you think? How do you strike a balance between staying present on and offline?
I would love to know your perspective, so comment below!
