Summer season is upon us and we’re making plans for our Social Media accounts so we thought we’d share what we do with you in the hope it’s useful.
Believe it or not we’re having some time off (24th July until the 11th August 2015) and when we say time off we mean time off. We inform our clients we’re having some down time and make plans so our decision doesn’t impact their service, we divert our phone and we keep our email checking during the time away to an absolute minimum. Social Media activity is something we need to consider during this time and, if you’re planning some down time, so do you!
Social Media accounts
For those of you that follow our accounts you’ll know we’re active on them, practising what we preach is important to us. You will see Tweets leaving our Twitter accountthroughout each day, and LinkedIn updates and Facebook updates throughout the week so if we suddenly stopped this activity without reason our followers may wonder where we’ve gone.
This happened to us back in 2013, my Grandma past away in the January so understandably I didn’t feel like updating my accounts as I was spending time with my family. I received messages on my accounts asking if I was okay, followers and business connections were used to seeing my updates and because I went from lots of updates to none they were concerned.
What I do
I let people know I’m having some down time. I’ve planned a post for Facebook & LinkedIn with my out of office dates on it and my email address, this will be sent to my connections and likers before I start my break and I won’t send anything else out at all on these accounts during this time.
On Twitter I regularly schedule and plan social media hints and tips that show users what I do, there’s normally about 6 or 7 a day along with real time tweets from me about what I’m up. Whilst I’m out of office I’ll reduce these to around 3 a day and I’ll make sure there’s an additional tweet each day explaining I’m not being rude if they’ve engaged with me and I haven’t replied but I’m having a break and I’ll reply when I’m back at work.
If you have someone in your office or team who manages your accounts and they’re having some down time think about what you want to happen. Can someone else take charge for the time whilst they’re away so there isn’t a break in the activity or can you plan it in before they go and someone else manage the engagement and interaction?
What I don’t say
I don’t say what I’m doing. You will notice throughout this post I have said “I’m having a break”, “I’m out of office”. You don’t need to tell everyone what your plans are just that there will be a change in your activity as you’re having a break. If you’re going on holiday I would advise against shouting about it on any social networking sites.
Why we’re so passionate about it
I wholehearted believe in being present in all you do, I am a committed business women, I am committed to Evolve Business Developments and my clients and to theBusiness Network South Humberside and the meetings and members of the group. But I am also committed as a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend and when I’m having some down time I want to commit to this downtime as much as I can.
Also we need it, my brain is ready for it – I’ve started doing that muddled word thing you do when there’s too much going on in your brain! Definitely time to shut down for a while.
Advanced warning
So take this blog as a way of letting you know we’re out of office from the 24th July to the 11th August 2015 and let me know if it’s been useful for you thinking about what you’re going to do if you’re having some down time.
We will check our emails but we won’t be responding unless it’s urgent. We definitely won’t be anywhere near our own Social accounts as I’m ready to say “see you soon” for a few weeks
