Is your social media addiction ruining your business?

Do you constantly check your Twitter account to see how many re-tweets you have? Are you constantly looking at Facebook to see how many likes that funny picture you posted has received?

Many of us have a social media addiction to a greater or lesser extent, but it’s important not to allow it to take over and have a negative impact on your business.

A social media addiction can affect your business

Here are ten ways in which a social media addiction may be having an impact on you and your business.

1. Do you receive an audible alert every time you receive a new message, email or notification on your phone? If you do and find yourself constantly checking your phone every time it “pings” the chances are that you will be permanently distracted and unable to give your full attention to the tasks in hand. In addition to this the temptation to respond to messages as and when they arrive may mean that the initial task is never completed. This is a very disjointed and non-productive way of working.
2. Introducing yourself as a “social media guru” may seem a clever thing to do but given that this is something which most people take for granted it is really a non-statement.
3. You introduce social media sites into sentences in the form of verbs e.g. “I need to Whets up that”. Apart from sounding quite childish, it should also be of concern that you are more interested in recording events in social media rather than experiencing them in real life.
4. When you tweet you disregard basic grammar and spelling rules by reducing vowels to a minimum in order to make the most of the 140 characters. Unfortunately these bad habits are no longer limited to your tweets but have now crept into your emails and blog posts.
5. If asked a question your typical response is to tell people to “read my blog”. This is not only unhelpful but also ignorant and will alienate people.
6. You are constantly checking social media scoring sites to see how high your level of influence is. Apart from being very egoistical, this time could be much better spent on producing useful content.
7. You spend the day “checking in” at all your locals i.e. the coffee shop, the gym or the local cafe. By the time you have done this the day is over and you have little energy left to focus on your business.
8. Rather than posting a constructive comment you push the “like” button. Making a personal comment would carry far more weight and have more meaning.
9. Regardless of where you are (and whether it’s appropriate or not) you turn on your phone every couple of minutes to check to see the latest status on your Instagram. Friends and colleagues find this intensely annoying and you are no longer number one or even number two on the list of people they wish to spend time with.
10. Your world ends if a social media site goes down. It is important to consider how much impact this will have on your life and if it should really cause so much stress and anxiety.