It’s World Mental Health Day and let’s be honest, a few cupcakes around the kitchen table might be nice, but they don’t do much to support employee wellbeing. The health of your team equals the health of your business. While there is plenty of initiative shown by businesses to assist employees with serious issues, how can you reduce the stress of your team’s everyday workload? Trust a digital marketing agency to tell you this, but we say you can leverage technology to lower the load rather than add to it.
Fight social media fatigue
When you’re only as good as your last post, digital agencies have a duty to pump out high-quality social media content for clients. While we consume social feeds in mere seconds, the people behind these posts spend hours upon hours producing, curating and hashtagging. Not only are social teams constantly scrolling through content and trying to stay across the top trends on all platforms, but they also have their own personal feeds to catch up with when they are off the clock.
There are a couple of simple strategies you can put in place to help your team stay on top of socials without getting overwhelmed. Instead of worrying about what is going up every day or scrambling to post at the last minute, creating your content in batches that can be approved and pre-scheduled can reduce social stress. It also means you can set and forget your posts and get on with other tasks. Using a scheduling tool such as Later is ideal for managing multiple social media accounts in one place.
The miracle of a good CRM
While it may seem counterintuitive when it comes to reducing digital burnout, more technology is always the answer! Client and customer management can be streamlined with the use of an all-in-one CRM such as HubSpot. Properly embraced, this ultra-user-friendly app can quickly align your marketing, sales and customer service efforts. You can use it to track performance and communication, integrate it with existing e-commerce apps, manage social media, publish blogs, create content offers and view the activities of all your team members. HubSpot and other CRMs also offer an incredible level of support and education so it is easy for you and your team members to master the app in no time. While it may seem like a big time commitment to implement such a program, you’ll soon find managing content, tracking, analytics and reporting takes a fraction of the time it used to.
Less sending. More talking.
Do you really need to write that War & Peace email with twenty complicated dot points, or could you just pick up the phone and get everything clarified in the space of five minutes? You’ll also probably enjoy the chat much more than an email thread that lasts several days or beyond, not to mention the time it saves. Be sure to pass the same courtesy on to your colleagues. If there is a chance for human interaction – take it.
You may use a task management app such as Asana or Trello and while these are fantastic at keeping everyone on track and accountable, it’s easy to get lost in assigning, editing, commenting and updating tasks throughout the day.
Instead of writing a complicated brief in a short task description box and hoping your details are understood, consider a quick face-to-face briefing session – coffee optional – to make sure everyone knows what is expected. It will also save random questions down the track and give you a chance to take a break from your screens.
Stop staring
Looking at screens all day leaves everyone feeling a bit fried. Encourage your team to take screen breaks throughout the day. Try and go out for coffee together when you can and, now that we are in a post-pandemic world, try and have meetings in person rather than on zoom. Screen fatigue is yet another good reason to stop writing that 50th email and pick up the phone instead. Lastly, while our team members at Pixeld here are dutiful and incredible, we don’t want them to work outside of their work hours. A positive environment that respects your team’s need to switch off and find a balance is a lot healthier than stupid cupcakes.
