10 Reasons Why Your Social Media Manager Is Burning Out

Many small businesses have a social media team of 1-5 people. Overworking and spreading them too thin over content creation, copywriting and social monitoring is a large part of why they are burning out, but they’re under more stress than people not in the trenches realize!

Social media professionals being burnt out is nothing new. According to a 2023 Sprout Social study, 42% of marketers plan to stop working in social media within the next two years. Meanwhile, 63% of social media professionals are either experiencing burnout or have experienced it within one to three months!

Here are ten of the common reasons that your social media team can be facing high-stress situations:

1. Burnout: The fast-paced, always-on nature of social media can lead to burnout. Social media managers may struggle to set boundaries between their work and personal life, leading to increased stress and exhaustion. If the individual is not experienced in all aspects of marketing, design, and customer service best practices, their distress can be tenfold.
2. Emotional Toll: Social media managers often deal with a high volume of negative and sometimes abusive comments and messages. This constant exposure to negativity can lead to emotional stress, anxiety, and even depression. Adding to it are that some social media managers are responsible for content moderation, which involves viewing disturbing and graphic content. This can result in trauma, known as “secondary traumatic stress,” as they repeatedly witness distressing images and comments
3. Crisis Management: Social media managers often handle public relations crises and have to respond to angry or upset customers or followers. These high-pressure situations can be emotionally taxing.
4. Pressure to Perform: Social media managers are under pressure to generate engagement, followers, and positive outcomes for their clients or organizations. This pressure to perform can create significant stress.
5. Isolation: Working on social media often involves long hours at a computer or with their face in their phone, which can lead to social isolation. Loneliness and lack of social interaction can negatively affect mental health.
6. Work-Life Balance: Maintaining a healthy work-life balance can be challenging in a profession where social media never sleeps. This imbalance can lead to stress and personal relationship difficulties.
7. Identity and Authenticity: Some social media managers may struggle with the disconnect between their professional online persona and their true self. This can cause identity issues and inner conflict.
8. Misunderstanding their Contributions: Social media is often seen as executional (creation of content, paid social campaigns, community management, metrics, etc) rather than strategic. This leads to undervaluing these employees and their contributions.
9. Constant Change: The social media landscape is continually evolving, requiring professionals to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and algorithms. This constant change can be stressful and may create a fear of falling behind.
10. Time Consumption: Managing social is far more than just scrolling Facebook or TikTok all day. There is an expectation of being engaged and active constantly, throughout the day and sometimes even after hours in case of a social media crisis. Add to that the time sinks involved in learning new platforms and the substantial amount of unseen work such as building a campaign around the new platforms while integrating them with an existing marketing plan and you have a recipe for exhaustion.

There are many ways to support your social media team (or person!) and one of those is offering therapy. We have an experienced therapist on our team that can help alleviate some of their stress reactions and teach ways to cope with stress management. Other ways to help support them are to check in frequently on what they need to improve their workflows, have someone help them craft brand-cognizant scripts to use for defusing a situation, and give them generous time off with the expectation that they will not be required to monitor channels or engage in social listening.

Other ways they can avoid burnout are to take time away from their devices and screens to relax, such as taking a walk in nature, meditating, or listening to music while decoupled from their devices.

A happy social media manager adds a buoyancy and careful creation to their messages and will improve the view of your brand.