15 Ways To Keep From Getting Stressed Out About Social Media

As you quickly learn with social media, it can be REALLY easy to get overwhelmed with social media - and the internet in general. This is especially true when you're trying to get out there and promote yourself to build a community. You gotta comment on this, get involved in that, go watch some webinar, connect with that network, chat with them peeps - it's never ending!!

Getting overwhelmed can also lead to quitting social media before you get to the good stuff and we certainly don't want that!

So how are you supposed to build a community online WHILE you continue to run your business WHILE you try to have a personal life?

It IS possible, I promise.

And here are 15 surefire ways you can get involved with social media WITHOUT getting overwhelmed:

1. Don't get involved in every single social media platform right away. Choose 1 or 2 to begin with, get familiar with it and move on once you feel real comfortable with it and have a good schedule.

2. Know your schedule, as in, know when you'll actually have time to commit to social media and stick to it.

3. Only commit about 30-60 minutes a day at first and increase it as you feel more comfortable.

4. Make sure during that time period you've scheduled EXACTLY what you want to accomplish during that time; such as finding new followers on Twitter and engaging with them, or writing and submitting a blog post or commenting on other blogs and so on.

5. Find your top 3 websites for news and stick to those, as the rest will just be repeat news and will just overwhelm you.

6. Don't feel obligated to write a big long research paper when you write your blog posts - get straight to the point, 300 words is just fine and dandy.

7. Use tools such as Buffer to schedule tweets and FB status messages so that you don't have to be around ALL the time to post those things. HOWEVER, Buffer is not a substitute for engagement.

8. If you have a smartphone, download the Twitter & Facebook & whatever else app and check your accounts every so often to see if you have any replies to your tweets or status messages. It only takes a minute to check and reply.

9. Choose ONE new activity a month to get involved in. Such as, if you haven't gotten involved in a Twitter Chat yet, decide to get involved with it. Or, if you'd like to start getting involved in forums, start getting involved in those, etc.

10. Chat with ONE new individual a week. You could find them through Twitter, Facebook, a blog post, a forum or whatever. That way you're getting to know new people, but you're not feeling obligated to talk to new people every single day, which can get overwhelming.

11. Be yourself! Some people get stressed out when they get online because they feel they have to be this different person so that they "fit in" with other people, but it's just not true. Let the personality of your brand shine! If someone doesn't like it, then they are not your target audience.

12. Don't worry about trying to connect with the influencers right away. The influencers are NOT your target market. Yes, they may be able to give you a slight boost in numbers, but you don't want to focus all your attention on the "big guys" while your target audience and the "little guys" go unnoticed, when they, in fact, will help you grow a lot faster than the "big guys".

13. There are a lot of shiny new platforms that pop up every single day asking you to join because it's the hot new thing. DON'T DO IT. Contrary to popular belief you DO NOT want to be everywhere. You want to be easily accessible in a few places so that you don't overwhelm yourself for managing so many places and so you don't overwhelm your audience for having to find you so many places.

14. You don't have to read every single tweet or status messages that goes through your stream. Read your Twitter and Facebook stream when you can, but don't feel stressed out if you miss a day or something. Do the best you can!

15. RELAX. Your peeps will come in time, but it's up to YOU to be committed and trust in the power of social media and how it can connect you to your target audience; the ones who will be your absolute fans forever and ever!

What other suggestions would you have for not getting overwhelmed?

By the way, within the week, I'll be revamping this ENTIRE site! With new content, new training materials, social media evaluations, a new video series and SO MUCH MORE! I'm way excited.

Morgan

With 11+ years of internet marketing experience, Morgan started Sociable Boost to help small businesses create social, engaging & actionable strategies! Morgan is passionate about what she does and hopes to instill that same passion into YOU!