Does social media have a negative impact on your business

I really enjoyed watching this last video of Casey Neistat where he highlights a very important topic: social media addiction.

If you don't pay attention to the time you spend using social media, this will affect you in a bad way. There are many bad side effects of the use of social media that I won't cover here. I actually wrote an article about it a few years ago Are You Addicted To The Internet. Go check it out and let me know what you think.

But what I'd like to talk about is how to use social media from a business perspective and not be another victim of the digital distraction.

We live in the digital age and as businesses if you do not have an online presence, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. So how can you combine using social media while still being present in your life, other people's life and your business?

Two words: purpose and discipline

Purpose : as a business owner, you need to know the reason why you are using social media. What is your goal? What do you want to achieve?

There is no need to spend hours every day on social media. There are so many tools nowadays that allow you to schedule your content in advance. It is up to you to leverage them to organise your work and be able to focus your attention on other aspects of your business or your life that matter.

Discipline : this is a very tricky one because if you are like me, no one taught you how to use technology. You kinda learned on the go. And my usage of technology is different from yours and anybody else.

But it is important to be disciplined about your usage of social media to keep a good balance in your life. The older I get, the less time I spent scrolling endlessly social media feeds, unless I'm looking for inspiration or doing some market research.

Overall, as a business owner and a dad, my time is limited. I allocate time blocks to focus on work and during that time, try to avoid any distractions. It is only by being focused that you will get the results you need for your business.

So cut off all the noise that is not necessary in your life. Find your purpose and the reason why you need to use social media and be disciplined about it.

Obviously it will take some time to get used to it and it won't happen overnight. But There are many ways you can start cutting off the time spent on social media :

Turn off your app notifications
Allocate time blocks to use social media every day
Use applications that limit your daily usage time
Remove the apps from your phone and use them on desktop only like Casey Neistat
Keep your phone offline or do not top up your mobile data subscription so that you cannot use Internet

It will feel weird in the beginning but in the long run you will notice progress. Social media, despite being a great invention to connect with people all over the world, is not that necessary to live a good life or run a successful business. Your purpose as a business is to bring your customer off of social media anyway. So focus on what you want to achieve and the rest will follow.

What about you? Are you a social media addict? What is your poison? Instagram? Twitter? Youtube? Have you tried to limit your daily usage? Let us know your experience in the comments.

If you like this post, make sure to like it, it actually makes a difference. And if you know anyone that would benefit from reading it, do not hesitate to share it with them.