Social media can become your full-time job. Before you know it your screen time has tripled in a week and you can’t remember the last time you went on a walk without your phone. Balancing life and social media may not seem like a big deal at the beginning, but once you start investing time in it, it can be very time-consuming.

The key to not getting overwhelmed and quitting halfway through is to find a balance that works with your lifestyle and personal limits. In part four of The Ultimate Creator Guide, we’ll talk about how we can find that perfect balance.

Finding The Perfect Balance

The perfect balance is not found in a specific formula. Balance can mean a different thing for each person. For some people, balance is about doing as many things in the day as possible. Being overproductive, although it will feel like you have everything under control, can create burnout faster than you think. It’s important, even though social media never sleeps, that you get to sleep. Neglecting your mental health is one of the main mistakes creators make at the beginning. Usually, what will happen is that you will have a lot of content but, the quality of that content is not the best.

The key is to establish priorities. Sometimes when you take your time and divide your tasks into levels of importance, you can have more quality content and peace of mind. First, list your tasks of the day and assign them an order of importance. The categories can be:

1. High priority: Needs to get done as soon as possible.
2. Needs to be done today: It can get done at some point of the day, but is not time sensitive.
3. Can wait for tomorrow: If it gets done, great. If it doesn’t, it wont be the end of the world.

Then, distribute your task throughout the day, and whatever is not absolutely necessary, leave it for the next day. Like so:

Your Schedule Should Cater Your Needs

Social media doesn’t have to be the sole purpose of your life. It’s important that you make time for everything that makes you live a happy life, whether that happiness comes from a hobby, being a parent, or having another job along with social media. It’s important to know that with the right organization, you can achieve all of your goals without burning yourself out. However, it’s also important to recognize that sometimes, you won’t be able to do it all, and that’s okay too. Part of finding the perfect balance is understanding that life will happen and you can only do your best to meet those goals.

For example:

You’re a mom, with a part-time job and you have a pretty hectic day already. Understandably, your schedule will surround those needs. Maybe, you work in the mornings while your kid is at school. When you finish, you pick up your kid from school, and with some help from a friend or a family member, you can take a few hours in the late afternoon to edit, shoot or post some content.

You may think, “that’s just a few hours a day,” and that’s not enough time to dedicate to social media. However, as long as your schedule works for your lifestyle, you can make it work. Maybe the results will take more time, but with consistency and effort you will soon see good results.

Content Batching: Pre-record and Plan Ahead

For all you busy bosses, content batching might be the best solution to your busy schedule. Content Batching is “a productivity technique where you create all of your captions or visual content during a set period of time“. Many social media influencers have, what we at Clapper call, a “Content Day”. This full day is dedicated to planning ahead, recording videos, planning captions, and brainstorming new ideas for your brand.

Essentially, you choose a not-so-busy day of the week, perhaps during the weekend, and dedicate yourself to massively batching and planning. Then, during the next few weeks, all you have to do is hit the post button and you’re done. You can have a content day once a month, every two weeks, or as often as needed.

Haters Gonna Hate: Taking Care of You Mental Health

Everyone talks about the good parts of being a creator. At the end of the day, social media can be such a positive space where you can express yourself and build a strong community. However, dealing with hate is a normal, sometimes inevitable, part of being a content creator. There will be people who will like you and some people that won’t. That’s true for every aspect of life. Most times, creators don’t talk about the mental toll that hate can bring to their life. It’s important to always take time to take care of yourself and find support when it’s needed.

What’s important to understand about “haters”, is that because the internet has offered anonymity for virtual confrontation, people that often hate on others think that there are no real consequences for their actions. Some people might tell you to just ignore it, but the reality is that we are all humans and our feelings can get the best of us. Others, might tell you to fight back, but sometimes fighting fire with fire is pointless when you’re giving the other party what they want: attention.

So, where do you draw the line?

It’s important to separate criticism from hate. Some people will not agree with you and you have to accept that. You can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Now, when it turns disrespectful and hateful, there is no reason for you to tolerate that. The best thing to do when being harrassed or heavily hated on is hit that block button, et voila: Bye-bye, hater. On Clapper, you can also file a report on their account and remember to attach the required evidence. These are the steps to file a report on Clapper.

If you need support don’t hesitate to reach out to your community or the people around you. We’re all in the same boat and we’re here to help.

Additional Tools For Success

For balancing and scheduling, we want to share a few virtual and physical resources that can help you out:

• Planner
• Daily to-do notepad
• Amazon social media calendar
• Virtual Google Calendar
• Editing Graphics
• Online therapy

Let us know how your strategy works out, and always make sure to stay authentic to your brand.