What’s up everyone! Life has been…busy recently. I’ve been meaning to get into your inboxes earlier in the week but things just keep coming up. Apologies, I’ll do better. I’m excited for today’s issue though.

In this issue, we will go over the following:

Let’s go! 💪

-Sam

I’ve been in a social media role where I worked 60-70 hour work weeks.

It was brutal.

And to be honest, it’s so easy to work a lot of hours as a social media professional. This field requires a lot of hours beyond the normal 9-5. We’re in meetings all day, crafting social media strategies all day, briefing content, designing content, managing countless projects, and so on. We wear a lot of hats.

You get it.

Then, the weekend comes and you have to deal with a troll in the comments, you have to get posts up, and maybe your manager sends you a slack message along the lines of “did you see this trend?”. And you just want to throw in the towel. I get it.

But to succeed in this field, you do not have to work more. You just have to work smarter.

Will you still have to deal with occasional fire drills and weekend mayhem? Sure.

But there is a lot you can do to prevent burn out and simply just…work smarter. And that’s what I am going to hit on today.

I am the most creative first thing in the morning and when I clock in for the day. Maybe my pre-workout is still in my system and maybe my morning workout helped a lot. But my best ideas come to me when I first log in for the day. I am locked in, highly motivated, and focused.

So one thing I have implemented is my own “creative office hours”. For the first two hours of the day, I block off my calendar completely and this is where I lock in. This is the time of the day where I fully focus fully on strategy, creative concepts, and writing post copy.

Then later in the day I focus on monotonous social tasks and projects that might not require as much creative output such as social reporting, listening, community management.

I make a lot of decks. Strategy decks, creative concepts, social reporting decks, and more. If there’s a deck out there that exists for a social media professional, I have made it. In my past, I would on average make 2-3 decks per week. Not exaggerating. I wasted so much time making so many net new decks. But that’s the problem.

What I learned this past year is that if you can make one - just one really good social strategy deck, you can make hundreds. Just templatize it. You can do the same with reporting decks, creative concepts, and reporting decks.

This tip alone saved me 5-10 hours of work a week and I highly recommend.

Let’s admit it. There’s a lot that is out of our control as social media professionals. Fire drills come out of nowhere, a trend will suddenly drop that you have to capitalize on, and you’ll have to deal with a troll occasionally in the DM’s. However, one thing you can control is being ahead on things. We need to plan our success.

For example, your social calendar should be built out as far as possible, 2-3 weeks minimum. You don’t have to have every post fully curated, but your calendar itself should be in a good spot to prevent anything last minute.

Plan for decks to be created as well. For example, I’m halfway through our Target launch campaign for Cadence, and my social reporting deck for the Target launch is almost done. I’m anticipating this ask from leadership and when it’s asked, I am ready. Yes, I made a template for this, like from point one in this newsletter.

If you can always be ahead, you will save countless hours and alleviate stress.

Before you go…here are a few quick hitters for you! We’ve got a new Instagram update and a few reminders.

‼️ Forward to a friend! If you do find Stronger Social helpful, be sure to forward to a friend.

✍️ Want to get featured? Have you scrolled across LinkedIn and really liked a a post about social media that deserves more hype and attention? You can submit it here for a chance to be featured in the next social pro shoutout.

📲 View the archive. Catch up on previous issues here and learn developing high-performing social strategies, social media lessons/insights, and social media career coaching tips.

🤔 Got a topic that you want to see addressed in a future issue?If so, respond to this email and let me know.

Thanks for reading and hope you have a great week!

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