By Cherie Clonan, the proud autistic CEO of The Digital Picnic. Clonan is fiercely motivated to create a neuro-inclusive workplace. You can reach out to her on Instagram.
In today’s hyper-connected digital world, brand management is a whirlwind of constant engagement and rapid responses. One moment, a brand is riding high on the wave of a celebrity endorsement, like the Kansas City Chiefs did thanks to Taylor Swift cheering at their sideline, and the next, it could be facing backlash from a statement reminiscent of a speech straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale.
In a world where the marketing and digital landscape is still recording a 26.1% employee turnover rate, how do we show up in the real world and have an actual social life, all while managing our clients and stakeholders and demonstrating our omnipresent digital understanding? After 10 years running my digital agency, The Digital Picnic, I’ve created clear boundaries to protect myself and my team from the very real risk of burnout.
80:20
When it comes to carefully crafted, edited, approved, polished and scheduled digital content and campaigns, we follow the 80/20 rule, ensuring we have hours and mental capacity to adapt strategy to ‘right now’ cultural moments.
This allows space for planning, while equally allowing hours and headspace to be responsive to trends.
Trust
One of the biggest determinants of a great client relationship and high performing outsourced digital brand management will always be about trust.
Trust is borne in excellent briefing and backgrounding of the digital agency, but equally it’s borne in the releasing of control, so that the creative and strategic thinking can be unleashed and implemented without rounds and rounds of edits and approvals.
This means, when viral moments kick off, the digital brand managers can move quickly and independently, without being slowed down by approvals.
Clear chain of command
Because of the time of day that content can go viral, or trolls can go wild on TikTok, it’s important to have a clear chain of command for outside of work hours, including who can respond and act. These hours of work should be clearly outlined in both your position description and time in lieu allocated if appropriate, or the fixed hours outside of standard office hours negotiated.
Equally, it’s important to have the confidence to hold firm boundaries with client and team communication including emergency contact mediums, and an option to tap out of client notifications during downtime.
Dedicated ‘late shift’ professionals
If you are offering community management for a client, this time must be budgeted for, and staffed properly instead of being an afterthought.
The majority of social media engagement happens throughout the peak period of 7–10pm (well after many nine-to-fivers have clocked off from their full work day) so an after-hours team should be considered. Brands and agencies need to factor into their budget after-hours communications professionals to manage the 24/7 nature of social media.
These highly skilled social media community managers should be fully briefed into client strategy and tone of voice, to confidently manage that after-hours social media engagement.
Avoid the distraction rabbit warren
I know I’m not alone in having a whopping screen time that surpasses anyone in my network. As marketers, we are constantly taking notes, saving to folders, trawling through comments to understand consumer sentiment, and generally, living a boundary-less digital existence.
We set strict time limits and alarms for research time spent on social media to avoid the rabbit warren of distractions.
It’s well known within our industry that you’ll open a platform like TikTok for “research”, and then resurface hours later with that aforementioned research in one hand… and a daily screen time of nine plus hours in the other.
Letting go of missed moments
It can be tempting to jump on every viral moment but without firm boundaries, this can turn into a relentless churn of content ideation, strategy and creation. It’s essential to give yourself permission to miss moments, even if they’re the perfect fit for your brand, in favour of work life balance.
Downtime
Balance the fast pace of short form content consumption and creation with long form activities offline, e.g. reading a book, crafting/sport/puzzles that give your brain space.
Additionally, plan out your calendar with clear blocks around when you’re socialising, and your team are covering emergency client communications to avoid needing to have your phone on hand.
The speed and intensity of online conversations demand that brand managers remain vigilant and adaptable. By setting up firm boundaries and budgeting accordingly, the exciting and incredibly rewarding role of digital brand management can be enjoyed, rather than feeling like you’re standing in front of a firehose of content and succumbing to burnout.
See also: Gen Z are increasingly seeking out therapy for mental health: Year13
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Top image: Cherie Clonan