Should We Worry About People Who Run Social Media Accounts for Businesses?

According to this article, yes we should. And I tend to agree.

It takes seconds to tag a brand, send a mean Tweet and publicly shame them into responding to a complaint in front of millions.

But we often forget that there are still real people manning the phones, and hiding behind a screen doesn’t make the job any less mentally draining.

And it’s not just dealing with irate customers who feel as though they can be much ruder because of the online versus in person aspect of it. There’s also what we know about mental health and hours worked, yet social media managers are really expected to respond, and post, regardless. I know this first hand. My wife previously she did social media for an arm of a university and an alumni association. Now, luckily, those areas aren’t met with irate customers on the daily like an online retailer might be, but she is expected to monitor the social media channels for problems no matter where we are. She’s had to stay awake late into the night to tweet congratulations and results of college games on the West Coast while we were on vacation on the East Coast. We’ve gone walking on campus just to gather photos to use on Instagram later. We’ve spent numerous dinners discussing the pros and cons of the ways to respond to someone tagging them in a post, etc.

The bottom line is that we already know that all employees need time away from work. We already know that everyone, and I do mean everyone, needs time away from social media. We already know that people have a tendency to be cruel and vicious online when they are outraged about something. So how can we have one person responsible for doing all the social media for a brand?

This seems like a recipe for burnout, and bad mental health. We really don’t need any more of that, do we?

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