How Can Social Media Managers Survive 2020?
By: Christina Garnett
Tags: Stress, Mental Health, Social Media, Covid 19, Marketing

How Can Social Media Managers Survive 2020?

Welcome to the burnout zone.

Photo by Agê Barros on Unsplash

It has been the year of extras. The year of noise, boycotts, PR disasters and more. The year of Karens. The year of social media hate. The year of… I’m exhausted.

At the helm is the social media professional, reading vitriolic tantrums in 280-character bursts. The professional often regarded as a lowly intern, a volunteer, a teen with a smartphone, is stacked against a torrent of anger, frustration, and whatever announcement their comms team is ready to unleash, breaking the internet and signaling press reports with soundbites, quote cards, and the ubiquitous embedded image to make you, the reader, click.

The past few months have been more than just COVID. COVID was somehow the opening act. Crisis comms has become the major skill set for social media marketers, unable to unplug for fear that they will miss the next hack, the next boycott, the next news alert. The social media marketer has truly become the messenger for brands across the internet and the public has indeed shot the messenger. In addition to being the voice of the brand, they also act as the eyes and ears of it. They are using social listening to see what consumers and the general public are saying about their brand/industry/latest announcement. They are seeing the flood of negative sentiment. In a country divided, a brand’s stance immediately encourages love and hate. There is no escape from the comments and DMs shouting their disgust.

It feels like no industry or vertical is safe. These professionals are left — no, stuck, in an online environment that sees them as the embodiment of brand action while still being relegated to nothing more than a town crier. Though they are the audience facing arm, they are seldom given the opportunity to be a part of the messaging conversations. They are seen as a walking/talking social automaton, strapped to a smartphone that lets them distribute copy. Disposable and replaceable.

What are they really? Professionals who are strapped to their monitors doomscrolling, because they care. Because their work is attached to a brand and they see the success or failure of that work as a direct reflection of their efforts, even when that work is on a Saturday or Sunday (weekends are no longer real) or late at night when the latest hack puts their team on red alert. You have impassioned staff that continues to consume the neverending stream of negativity for the sake of preparing and saving a brand. They are burning out, consciously aware of what they are about to consume as soon as they wake up. They are burning out as they sit at their home desks for 12–15 hours at a time, constantly on alert. They are burning out as they have to keep their quality of work afloat as they move (flee) their current homes/apartments, worry that their own job may be cut at any time, while also seeing the world crumble around them, one TikTok video or tweet at a time.

For these professionals, they are paid to tap into these platforms. To read and understand how they work, even when we see them unraveling into streams of hatred. If social media is toxic, social media professionals are paid to be poisoned.