Social Media Anxiety

Does social media have you by the throat? Do you feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to hit the galaxy of social sites, post enough information, and maintain your social media mojo?

You’re hardly alone. As you sit there quivering in shock, millions on the other side of the screen are experiencing the same distress.

It’s so unnecessary.

It’s different now
I’ve been a professional writer for more than a dozen years. I was at Microsoft for many of those years and I’m used to the demands of unyielding deadlines to deliver massive amounts of content.

But most of that content was focused into a product. It didn’t require daily delivery and it felt like there was something different riding on the outcome. I only needed to please my customer.

When you’re using social media to drive business to your blog or web site, there is a perception of an insistent demand to capture and keep an audience. As if your corporeal existence depended on eyeballs on the other side of this screen.

In my head
“I have to post today. I have to comment on other blogs. I have to keep up with Twitter so I don’t miss that all-important Tweet with a link that will change my life. I have to answer a question on LinkedIn. I can either bore my Facebook friends or neglect my HubPages fans!”

And I have to do some work that actually produces an income. Oh yeah.

There are days when it seems I’m busy from the time I wake up until midnight doing things that bring no cah-ching. I really enjoy some of them. I’d even say I’m enjoying most of what I do these days. I’m mostly enjoying the things that are related to social media and SEO.

But I do have days when it nags at me.

The way out
Here’s why it doesn’t matter. That distress as you brush your teeth at the end of a non-blogging day is internal. It’s not real pressure from other people who read your blog. It’s pressure from you.

All of my favorite bloggers post no more than once a week. A couple of them could get away with every other week, maybe longer, because I look forward to their writing and wouldn’t unsubscribe just because they haven’t posted.

Ok, if they didn’t post in a year, maybe.

I wish some of the people I follow would Tweet less. I’ve dropped at least one person because she posted so often during the day but always with links to static information on her own web site. I can’t remember once when she sent a link to really relevant SEO information.

I’ve dropped others who just didn’t post anything of interest. But even the ones I continue following sometimes just add noise to Twitter.

I wonder if this will shallow out at some point as the medium matures. Some of my Tweeters post consistently useful information. Many are just posting for the link juice, I think.

All this to say…don’t sweat the social media anxiety. Find what’s useful to read and post what is useful to others. It truly is not about volume. It’s about quality. If you consistently provide information that others find useful, they’re not going anywhere.

Tagged as: blogging, copywriting, social media, writing