{"id":22198,"date":"2022-08-31T00:00:50","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T00:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=22198"},"modified":"2022-09-08T20:21:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T20:21:53","slug":"social-media-0822","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/social-media-0822\/","title":{"rendered":"Too Much Screen Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of us use social media personally and professionally. But how can we do it safely and effectively and not crash our work-life balance<\/a>? Here are three strategies for keeping your use of social media in a healthy balance on the job and at home.<\/p>\n

1. Be Aware<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Knowing how long you spend on social media is one of the first steps in better managing your time. Facebook, Instagram and TikTok allow you to check the time spent on their platforms and, in some cases, set a daily reminder of when you hit a predefined limit.<\/p>\n

For veterinary team members whose duties include managing their practices\u2019 social media accounts, the time required to post content and monitor online review platforms isn\u2019t tracked often. Generating content and making graphics or ads look \u201cjust so\u201d can take hours. So, start the stopwatch the next time you produce and schedule your practice\u2019s posts for the week or month and see how much time passes.<\/p>\n

A veterinary practice should have transparent policies regarding social media time and activity. The guidelines are essential for setting expectations. For instance, your policy might state that a team member isn\u2019t expected to monitor comments and messages on the weekend. Or it might note that the practice manager will respond to client reviews twice a week during a scheduled marketing time slot. When the team knows that someone dedicates an hour every Tuesday to work on posts, for example, they\u2019re more respectful of the person\u2019s time and will cause fewer (ideally no) distractions.<\/p>\n

Similarly, be aware of when and how social media grabs your attention. Push notifications are notorious for pulling you in when you might not need or want to be. For instance, you\u2019re focused on a patient, but the push notification dings your phone, and you quickly log in with one tap. Most push notifications relay a simple \u201clike\u201d or \u201cthumbs up\u201d on a post or image, yet they suck us back into the platform, causing us to lose precious time. I recommend checking the notifications you receive and from where (push, text or email) and disabling what you don\u2019t want.<\/p>\n

From the clinic perspective, I don\u2019t need to know every time someone likes a cute picture of a team member with a patient. But I want a notification when someone reviews the practice, tags us in a post or sends a message. Even better, the notifications can be set to arrive in a daily digest instead of as they happen.<\/p>\n

What might be best is to send notifications to the team\u2019s Slack channel or social media manager\u2019s email account for handling while on the clock. When notifications come to our phones, separating our work and personal life is difficult.<\/p>\n

The easy solution is to navigate to your practice pages\u2019 settings, evaluate the notifications and choose where they go and when.<\/p>\n

2. Define Your Goals<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Understanding the average time you spend on social media when away from work might be the wake-up call you need to impose a limit. Consider how much time you want to spend and how it might change depending on your daily or weekly goals and schedule. Maybe you\u2019re picking up an extra shift this week, so you\u2019ll have less time for social media, or perhaps an hour of TikTok videos is exactly the activity you need to decompress. There is no right or wrong answer, but consider setting goals.<\/p>\n

At the practice level, determine the appropriate amount of time based on the return on investment. I could spend hours creating the perfect infographic in Canva, but the payoff often isn\u2019t there when you use the artwork in a single post. Being cognizant of the time constraints and needs is critical.<\/p>\n

When it comes to marketing<\/a>, work with your practice\u2019s leaders to determine the primary goals. For example, how much are they willing to invest in marketing as far as labor, paid advertising and software?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a marketing team member, make sure your job description and social media time commitment are well-defined. Ideally, look at the who, what, when, where and why. For example:<\/p>\n