Don’t Let Digital Burnout Sabotage Your Marketing Efforts

When trying to promote a business, product, or brand, many individuals seem to throw themselves head first into the world of web marketing and social media. Trying to reach as many people as possible, they tweet this, blog that and backlink EVERYTHING as often as they can. While, for the most part, this is all well and good and helps keep you ahead of the competition, it is also important to remember to pace yourself to prevent digital burnout.

Defined by Merriam-Webster’s as “exhaustion of physical or emotional strength usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration,” burnout is not a new concept for humans, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibilities that excessive digital media and technology use can cause its own form of exhaustion. However, given the immediacy and accessibility of the web, it’s easy to put that risk on the backburner for fear of falling behind or losing your edge.

However, updating, networking and linking to the point of exhaustion is not only harmful to your mental clarity, it can also affect the quality of your overall marketing efforts. Below are some things to keep in mind if you embark on your own internet marketing excursion.

Unplug for a Day

Although it’s easy to get caught up in the swing of things, it’s important to try to allow yourself one day when you don’t sit in front of a screen for hours on end—or if you do, at least have it be for personal reasons, not work. But, even then screen time is screen time and too much of it can wear you out. Our bodies are still adapting to these new devices, so it’s important to give your mind, eyes, hands, and body a break from the dormancy and strain that comes with working online.

Being able to disconnect from everything allows you the opportunity to recharge your personal batteries and come back to work refreshed, ready to take on a new round of challenges. It’s impossible for anyone to productively work around the clock—unless they are some sort of superhero—so giving yourself a break is not only a good idea, it’s human nature! Sure, the web is constantly on, meaning you might miss something, but foregoing one day of exhaustive, forced work is worth more than you might realize.

Schedule Times to Update

To help you feel better about giving yourself a day off, it’s important to stick to a regular schedule when you are “on the clock.” From updates on Twitter and Facebook, to blog posts and SEO strategy, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with all that goes into properly promoting yourself on the web. However, making a schedule of what should be updated when and actually STICKING to it can help it seem manageable.

Obviously, there will be instances when you should deter from that if a post or update just can’t wait, but for the most part, try to maintain the regular schedule. Not only will it help ensure you get everything done, it will help with quality control. For instance, if the schedule calls for one Twitter update today and you have already done it, you’ll know to move onto a different tool, rather than updating that again. This will help you better reach your audience as a whole and will keep you on track with your goals and milestones.

And schedules, by no means, are set in stone. Try to look for patterns and trends in when your posts and updates seem to make the most impact and then work around that. It’s a way of working smarter not harder.

Tackle One Task at a Time…

…Rather than starting several and bouncing back and forth between them. Although numerous people will argue that we are a society meant to multitask, science begs to differ. According to the Harvard Medical School “Multitasking increases the chances of making mistakes and missing important information and cues.”

So, when it comes to maintaining your arsenal of web marketing tools and media, it’s best to completely finish one task then move onto the next. Not only will this help ensure better quality, it can also be conducive to better productivity, as seeing your to-do list diminish one-by-one instills faith in your abilities to get the job done. So rather than trying to tackle all of your social media or SEO goals at once, do one all the way through, then move on.

Although a lot of this advice may seem to be common sense or even counterintuitive to your business’s success, but it might actually help in the long run. Your approach will have direction and purpose, rather than unnecessary distraction and stress—allowing you to perform better and more efficiently than before.

It’s especially important for current college students, recent grads and younger generations to be especially mindful of all of this, as their entire lives will revolve around technology and processes baby boomers have only had to deal with as of late—meaning they will be subjected to potential digital burnout for longer periods of time.

Katheryn Rivas is a higher education writer and blogger. When she’s not digging and reporting about the latest online universities news, she can be found playing with her two Saint Bernard’s Chica and Chico.  She can be reached at katherynrivas87@gmail.com.