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How to protect your mental health while using social media

Now more than ever, our business and personal lives seem entwined with social media, from Twitter and Facebook to TikTok and Instagram. While these platforms can be a great way to keep in touch with family and friends across the globe and find new clients and customers, they’re also linked to poorer mental health.

If you’ve ever found yourself negatively comparing yourself to people online, whether regarding physical appearance, lifestyle, or achievements, you’ll know what we’re talking about. Of course, while it’s natural to want to fit in, social media represents a filtered form of reality that never shows a holistic view of someone’s life, leading us to buy into a warped version of reality.

Plenty of studies back up a lot of our intuitive feelings about social media, including the papers: Social Media Use and Its Connection to Mental Health: A Systematic Review and Social Media Use and Mental Health: A Global Analysis. To summarise, the more we use social media, the more depressed, anxious, and addicted we’ll likely get.

However, there are ways to protect ourselves while enjoying the sense of connectivity social media brings. For starters, actively using platforms to post content is less likely to cause mental harm than just scrolling or reading other users’ content (Nereim et al., 2020). Here are some other ideas that may help: 

• Reduce overall usage by setting daily app limits to break the scrolling habit. Or delete them from your phone or tablet so you only use them on your browser.
• Protect your space by switching off notifications and banning phones at certain times, such as while eating meals or watching television.
• Communicate face-to-face as often as possible with friends and family who live nearby – studies show that socialising in person actually protects our wellbeing.
• Avoid platforms that trigger you. For example, if your feed is flooded with images that lower your self-esteem rather than inspire, delete the app!
• Question what you see. Remind yourself that social content is often skewed to make the poster look good because they want approval. It’s also worth noting that we can feel envious about a lifestyle that wouldn’t suit our personalities anyway – in situations like this, a little self-knowledge can quell the green-eyed monster. 

Of course, if you’re prone to mental health issues, it makes sense to take a particularly cautious approach to the online world, perhaps limiting its usage while undergoing any form of treatment.

Unfortunately, potentially harmful content can also make its way onto these vast platforms, so we all need to play our part by reporting inappropriate images and posts that are especially dangerous to young or vulnerable users.

By using social media sensibility and responsibly, we can shield ourselves and others from its worst effects while using it as a tool to fuel our businesses and enrich our social lives.

How to leverage website traffic to grow your business

Most companies operate online to some extent. While social media offers ways for business owners to reach new clients or customers, they ultimately own the data you collect – leaving you vulnerable to changes that negatively affect your visibility.

On the other hand, websites are akin to private real estate, allowing you to interact with your audience on your terms. However, just like owning a shop on the high street, you’ll only make a sale if you can get people through the door.

Once the customers are inside, you need to make a good first impression – not by talking about yourself, but by instantly showing them you have what they desire. Your homepage’s headline is a great way to achieve this. Focus on reflecting your visitor’s core question, need, or concern in language they understand. Then show them the solution.

Of course, to get the best results, you need a healthy amount of ‘qualified traffic’. That is, your website should turn the heads of your target audience, not random people your product or service isn’t designed to serve.

Creating highly relevant content and robust SEO practises will ensure you’ll reach the right niche organically through search engines and word-of-mouth referrals as people begin to discuss and share your content.

Once your website is primed for conversion, you can boost your traffic with a mixture of paid marketing (think Facebook and Ad Words) and social media, as well as through the organic methods mentioned above.

But how much traffic do you actually need to reach your goals?

It depends – on your overall outgoings, the revenue you need to operate at a profit, how much each customer is worth on average, and how well your website converts visitors to leads and then customers.

Once you have this data in hand, you can reverse engineer the figures to calculate how many visitors you should aim for each month. The higher quality traffic your website attracts and the better it converts, the fewer visitors you’ll require.

Overall, multi-channel marketing can boost long-term traffic, conversion rates, and revenue by drawing in warm leads across various platforms. And, of course, you can always continue to nurture your relationship with your customers by incentivising them to join your email list – something you can do effectively from your website.

Should businesses use Customer Mail?

Did you know that 71% of consumers trust the marketing materials they receive through Customer Mail (CM) or that 85% of people open commercial mail, and 65% keep it for future reference?*

In today’s digital landscape, it’s easy to forget that there are other ways to build relationships with customers – often as effective as more ‘modern’ methods. It’s not an either-or choice; 43% of CM results in customers going online or beginning the buying journey, proving that you can use one method to complement another.

However, that doesn’t mean your business should resort to bog-standard templates, dry and uninspiring content, or generic offers just because you’re falling back on a traditional marketing method. Far from it!

Today, the average consumer is regularly bombarded with information from media, online platforms, inboxes and letterboxes. To get noticed, your marketing should focus on adding value to your customers in a way they’re happy and even excited to engage with.

For example, your marketing team could create materials written in your brand’s voice, even if the subject is rather dull, such as updated terms and conditions. When you’re using CM to boost customer engagement CM, you should also consider:

• Using quality, beautifully designed packing to build excitement during the ‘unboxing process’
• Showing customers how key information benefits them directly and why they should act on it now
• Personalising the experience using first names and data from purchasing habits (think bespoke vouchers for favourite products)
• Highlighting essential information with clear headlines and emboldening contact details
• Making your customers feel as valued and special as possible

Creating high-quality marketing campaigns that improve customer satisfaction enhances your company’s reputation and boosts your revenue; people are four times more likely to pay a higher price for a product or service if they expect a premium experience.** What would that mean for your business?

*Data based on a report by Marketreach and Accenture

** According to Forrester’s Customer Experience Index