How To Take Time-Off as a Social Media Manager

Are you currently like this:

But want to be like this?

Social media managers and agency owners need spring breaks, too! While you might LOVE what you do and to work in general, the workaholic lifestyle is not sustainable. Burnout is real and can negatively affect not just your personal life and mindset, but also your business and work, too. Taking time off and coming back refreshed is exactly what we all need from time to time!

But, what about your clients, accounts, tasks, and team? The last thing we want is to be bugged on our vacation by clients and have a crazy workload to come back to.

Let's go over tips to manage everything while you are OOO ⤸⁠

Plan ahead

Duh, right! Think about all the tasks that you do weekly and map out whether they can be done ahead or they can wait for you until you get back. Revamp your schedule week leading up and after your time-off to incorporate these tasks in.

Boundaries & Expectations

Vacation boundaries are different ✨ Set boundaries for your clients AND yourself. Boundaries will look different for every single person. Do you want/need to be completely off or do you want to still keep a communication line open for clients and do a few small daily tasks? If you're completely off, snooze your notifications, set your OOO email, and let your audience and clients know you'll be out. If you choose to stay on for limited availability, set a timer for X minutes per day to catch up on questions, DMs, emails, and comments, manually post items. Then log off and enjoy your vacation time! Remember, whichever boundaries fit best for you, always inform your clients so you don't end up with angry clients when you get back because they felt misinformed.

Posting

Auto-publish anything and everything you can! We know that apps don't always make that the easiest for us, especially when it comes to things like stories, Instagram Reels, and TikToks. Put all the content for the week, plus a spreadsheet/notes app with captions/hashtags/links/etc., in a folder or saved to your phone or drafts. Have anything that needs to be manually posted all cued up and ready to be posted with minimal effort from you!

Utilize your systems, process, tools, and your team

That's exactly what they are there for!⁠ Make sure you are fully utilizing all the processes you put in place and tools to ensure you have more time in your schedule. As social media managers and entrepreneurs, the most valuable thing you have is your time, so make sure you are finding effective ways to be more efficient and effective whether you are out of the office or not.

Trust us, the work can wait. Book your trip, rn!