Reader Q&A #2 | Social media and work
How can you create the boundary between social media and work when the two are intertwined?
When I graduated from college, there was only one digital marketing course required to complete towards my marketing degree. During my first advertising internship, I remember the VP of the company asking me at the coffee machine, “Do you really think this Twitter thing will last long?” Over a decade later, Twitter outlasted that company, and despite what it’s evolved (or devolved) into, there’s no question that now social media is deeply intertwined into the marketing of most businesses and brands.
Even beyond marketing, social media has become a tool for artists whether they’re aiming to be discovered or merely want to share their portfolio of work with their fans.
To be in this intersection — striving to make changes with your relationship with and reliance on technology, while simultaneously relying on social media as a part of your career — is a complex challenge. I see this come up often in the comments, and today’s question asks just how to tackle this grey area — one foot in, one foot out.
If you’d like to submit a question to be answered in a future installment, message me or submit a question on the chat.
Q: Hello, I'm a UX Designer, and I see social media also as a tool to share my work, words, and thoughts to a number of people who are my followers — friends and family. But I only want instagram to be that — How substack is just reading, etc. How can I create that boundary?
I want to take a holistic approach to this tackling this question. Meaning — I want to answer this for anyone who’s career is intertwined with social media.
It’s not a position I envy. In fact, the only reason I felt that I could start Break Free is I knew it could live primarily on Substack. I don’t cross-promote on Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads, X, etc. Now could I grow faster if I did? Potentially. But going into this, I had to create that strict boundary or frankly, the whole project would unravel.
Uncoupling from social media marketing or as social media as your portfolio is not always so simple. For many small businesses, social media is the primary driver of sales. For many artists, it's the best way to be discovered. Unless something major changes in the market (it won’t, not any time soon), social media remains a tool for many marketers and artists.
The important word here is tool.
Here are my advice for reframing your social media use to a tool instead of an entertainment source:
Sit down and create schedules: When do you need to be online? Can you keep it strictly to working hours? Can it be less than that? Be honest with yourself. You do not need to be on Instagram for six hours a day to promote your business. Set attainable rules for yourself. Some ideas:
Block one hour of your day to tackle responses and reach out - replying to comments, DMS, etc.
Block 30 minutes of your day for posting and cross promoting.
Set days of the week where you’ll be completely offline. Ideally, this includes the weekend, but maybe for your use case, you have less engagement on Mondays and Tuesdays, so you block those days.
Create and follow boundaries: This part takes a lot of self-control, but it’s also the most important. You are using social media as a marketing tool. You do not need to be using it to scroll endlessly (or really, to scroll at all). Do not use inspiration as an excuse — you can find inspiration outside of social media, and I guarantee you will be creating better work for it.
Unfollow the fluff: Unfollow anyone who is irrelevant to your brand or company. Don’t let yourself be tempted into scrolling.
Use app-blocking apps: There are countless apps you can use to set up blocks based on the schedule you need. Take the time to set them up and adjust if they aren’t working.
Smaller tips:
Keep your social media business-only. Take the personal stuff offline.
Turn off notifications. You will get to the responses and comments during your set time-block.
Log out after every use. It might feel tedious, but this simple trick will help you hesitate from simply opening the app by habit.
Keep track of your progress. Write down your current stats - average engagement, sales, whatever your metrics are. Write down your current social media usage. Now check back in after a month of sticking to your boundaries and see if your engagement and sales remained steady. I have a feeling they will.
I know it can feeling challenging, even hopeless (it’s not) but you can shift your mindset. Social media is a tool. That is your mantra.
Take back the control and use social media, don’t let it use you any longer.