Mental Health and Social Media with Situation President & Founder Damian Bazadona and Director of Social Media Frankie Cropper

In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, Situation’s Founder Damian Bazadona, and Director of Social Media Frankie Cropper sat down to chat about the unique mental pressures that come with working in digital marketing.

Damian Bazadona: It’s hard to believe, but social media has only been with us for about two decades if I’m remembering my history correctly. Not only has it dramatically changed our personal lives, but it’s revolutionized the way we advertise. Social platforms may very well now be the media channels with the highest consumer touch points. Thankfully we have amazing people like you helping us manage and navigate connecting with consumers through these channels. 

While social media is very important for the work we do, we also know it runs the risk of having a profound impact on our mental health–particularly those who work on the front lines of managing social media. To start, as someone who's been in this space for a while, how has your personal relationship with social media evolved over your professional career? 

Frankie Cropper: I'm dating myself here, but I joined social media in high school with MySpace, and I was one of the first people to be on Facebook in 2005. I have a hard time even remembering life before social media. 

But now that I’m working in socials all day if I find myself using social media to unwind at the end of the day–watching comedy bits or cute videos, whatever it might be–it can be a lot! I sometimes get jealous of my friends who can take hiatuses from social media. What's that like? 

But because you can't really step away from social media working in this industry, it’s so important to protect your boundaries and guardrails. I'm getting more and more picky about how I spend my time on social media. One of the biggest things that I've learned over my time as a social media professional is–and this is very Marie Kondo of me–if you're not inspired by it and if it's not creating meaningful connections for you, it’s time to take a step back. 

For example, if you're going through your Instagram feed and you see a post that doesn’t make you feel good, go ahead and hide it, and tell Instagram why you hid it! These algorithms are so smart, and if you take a minute to give them feedback, they can really work for you. You don't have to be a passive audience member in your own social media. Being proactive in your own social media use can ultimately help at the end of the day. 

Damian Bazadona: That’s great. Now, take me into the life of your social media engagement team. In their off hours, they can hide content that doesn’t make them feel inspired or connected. But in a professional setting, their job is to be immersed in it! What are some of the key mental health challenges at work? 

Frankie Cropper: I was trying to come up with an example of another job that requires you to put your work out for the entire world to see and the entire world to comment on, and then the entire world can see those comments on your work. I can’t think of one! 

For example, when actors get on a stage, they put their hearts out there for the audience who is there to see the show. They might be inspired, or they might pass judgment. But once the show is over, the audience leaves. They leave and they go and write a review or they tell their friends about it. They don't stand up at the end of that show and shout, “You suck at your job, you should be fired!” And even then, the world isn’t in that theatre hearing everything they’re hypothetically shouting. With the work we do, we have to be willing to be vulnerable to that kind of instant feedback. It's just part of the job. 

And we live for the great moments when the audience is engaged and the fans are loving everything that they see. But with that comes the bullying and the abuse that our social media managers also have to face on a daily basis, unfortunately. My job is to protect and support my team, but also to have conversations like this where the public can see the whole breadth of what a social media manager has to face in this job. It's so much more than just creating something good and throwing it out into the world. Social media managers can be at their best when they have a team that is surrounding and supporting them, no matter what happens. I want my team to be able to do their best work and flourish in the ways that I know they can, and so I'm here to help create those guardrails to protect them. 

Damian Bazadona: But that's challenging, right? I'm sure there are times when we need to take a step back for a minute, but we don't think we can. 

Frankie Cropper: Yeah. One of the biggest things that I can make sure my team knows is, above all else, that if they can't read one more comment and they really feel completely tapped out, they need to tap out. We've had a few circumstances where the comments on particular clients have been really hard to read, whether it's about the social media team or about the client themselves. And it's hard to train somebody to know when their boundary has been hit. So it’s my job to create processes where, if something starts to go awry, my team is empowered, and they come to me and we handle it together. 

Damian Bazadona: On the flip side, what's the best part of the job? What makes a good day a great day? 

Frankie Cropper: There is nothing better than when you put out a piece of content that you've been working on and the fans just lose their minds over it. That's what we do it for. I get so excited when I know something's about to be published, especially because we're all also such big fans of our clients. That's why we have these jobs! 

Damian Bazadona: What are the ways in which you encourage your team to check in with their mental health throughout the day?  

Frankie Cropper: It’s not easy to feel like you can completely turn off with a job like this. Social media is 24/7. 

One of the first things that I did when I got this job was create an on-call schedule on the weekends. So the person who is on call knows that if something happens, they have a certain amount of time to respond, but everyone else gets to completely unplug. They do not have to worry about a thing. You really have to train yourself on how to turn off. 

But in the day-to-day, you just need to find 5 minutes. It's okay to take that 5 minutes to breathe, to pause, to slow down, to find your center and find your grounding, because otherwise we're all going to burn out. And also, eat lunch! As silly as it sounds, use your 30 minutes to sit down with your food and do nothing else but listen to a podcast and eat lunch. Use your breaks intentionally. 

Damian Bazadona: Two-part question: what is the one thing you wish people better understood about the job of social media management, both from an agency perspective and then from a client perspective? Let’s start by looking at the agency first.

Frankie Cropper: There's a certain level of urgency that we all feel across the agency in general. But the thing that I want to impress upon our company is that our social media team is only as healthy as the entire ecosystem. And so for me, yes, I want to protect my team, but we're only as good as the account team and as the creative directors. We have to create an entire healthy ecosystem for our team to work the best that they can. 

Damian Bazadona: Yeah, every department in the agency in some way, shape, or form is in the thick of it with these clients and we all might have a different opinion. But it’s crucial that we remember to respect the craft of the work that we're in. 

Now onto part two of the question: what do you wish our clients better understood about the role? 

Frankie Cropper: I mean, there's a reason they hired us, right? Clients definitely understand that we're great at what we do and that we're passionate about what they do. Beyond that, there is a level of trust that we are always aspiring to with our clients, to trust that we know that we're going to deliver what’s best for the audience. It's really been interesting to see how one client can say they don't need to see anything before we publish it, and other clients need to have certain levels of approval for lots of different reasons. No matter the process, trust is key.

Another thing I wish everyone knew is that when you're commenting on a social media post, there's somebody that has to read that comment. It is their job to read that comment. And I know that a lot of times a commenter might just be frustrated because they couldn't get through to customer service, but it's not helping anyone to be cruel. At the end of the day, being kind to someone is just going to go so much farther and it's just going to be better for everyone in the long run than attacking folks in the comments. It's just kindness, that's all.

Damian Bazadona: I’m so happy you said that. That's just such a great answer. It’s easy to forget that there's a human being on the other side of the post. 

Frankie Cropper: Exactly! And everyone thinks they're an expert in social media because everyone has a social media channel. That makes it even harder–everyone thinks they can do your job. But there's a reason that we've hired the people that we have: we know the platforms best, we know the fans the best, and we know the brands best.

Damian Bazadona: I have such great admiration for our social team and for people who work in the field. It takes creativity, communication, patience, nimbleness, and innovation. You could take five different jobs at our company, slice out their different skill sets, and I would imagine social media talent in our agency needs to embody most if not all of them. You all have one of the widest skill sets. 

Frankie Cropper: 100%. 

Damian Bazadona: It's extraordinarily hard, but it's extremely impressive. And the job never stays the same. You have a platform that's constantly changing, and everyone thinks that they could do the job, but very few can. The work that our team does is so impressive. So kudos to you and the team. Anything you want to leave us with?

Frankie Cropper: Just one last thought! A few weeks ago, as a part of Mental Health Awareness Month, L.L. Bean announced on their social media that they are taking a break for the entire month of May on all social media platforms. 

Damian Bazadona: Wow. 

Frankie Cropper: I cannot tell you how impressive that was. I've been thinking about it all morning! For a company to say mental health is so important that we are letting our social media team take a break for an entire month, we're taking an entire vertical out of our marketing strategy? That just tells you everything. 

Damian Bazadona: That’s incredibly powerful.

Frankie Cropper: it just shows you how important and how challenging this job can be. 

Damian Bazadona: Thank you for taking the time to chat with me today, Frankie! This is such an enormously important topic and you lead an incredible team.