Even Facebook Thinks You Use It Too Much

With social media usage being at an all time high, it seems that Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook) recognize that users may be spending entirely too much time on them.

“It’s our responsibility to talk openly about how time online impacts people — and we take that responsibility seriously. These new tools are an important first step, and we are committed to continuing our work to foster safe, kind and supportive communities for everyone,” writes Facebook’s director of research, David Ginsberg, and Instagram’s product management director, Ameet Ranadive, on Facebook’s news blog.

According to Inc.com, 61% of Facebook users check in alt least once a day. If you own an iPhone, there's a 28 percent chance that you check Twitter before getting out of bed in the morning.

Even if those statistics don't apply to you, it's guaranteed that you know someone who it does apply to. If you're a business owner, this could be multiple employees. It would be naive to think that these same people stop checking social media during work hours. 

Productivity killers aside, numerous studies have revealed that just by checking certain social media sites can make a person feel less happy. You might have unhappy employees as well as less productive ones.

As a business owner, you're well aware of the importance of social media marketing. When social media monitoring is the job description, then the pull of using it to distract from work decreases.

You could hire an employee to fill the role of a social media manager, however, you would still be micromanaging the employees social media activity in order to make sure you weren't paying them to watch funny cat videos and check their personal twitter feed.  For small businesses, it may make more sense to hire outside help on social media. By allowing a third party to monitor activity and schedule post for your business, it could eliminate the distraction of constantly checking your businesses social media pages at a fraction of the cost that hiring in-house would cost. 

At the end of the day, regardless of how you chose to handle social media use, communication with your employees is the most important tool. It's no secret that we all have fallen victim to using social media to distract ourselves and kill time online. In order to combat this, we must be open and talk about it. Be willing to have uncomfortable conversations with your employees about this topic. 

However, if all else fails, AptoFX will always be here to help out.