WORK & BUSINESS >
ACTION ARTICLE 2
ESTABLISHING THE WORTH OF SOCIAL MEDIA & APPS FOR YOUR BUSINESS
“Is social media and all the apps we have at our disposal a plus point for our freelance, digital nomad and/or independent location business?”
The answer is not all that simple as each FDN business is different. Some heavily depend on social media since their personal and business brand closely intertwines with it, while others don’t.
Some business types benefit and find their online presence essential. Others say the return on investment (ROI) in time and money spent on it, has not been worth it. Over the past 11-years as an FDN, I have found an average of two in five businesses will benefit from social media; mostly if they have a big enough budget to spend on it.
Whether or not social media works for your business is to be determined by you, but personal social media and the overindulgence on apps in our personal life can become a destructive monster that slowly eats away at ours dreams, wealth and emotional wellbeing. If we are not careful, we can end up spending precious working hours scrolling from feed to feed, undercutting our productivity and income potential. FDN’s especially, need to guard their working hours with vigor and implement measures against using personal social media or apps during work hours.
TIME = OPPORTUNITY IN AN FDNs WORLD
Opportunities are available abundantly and everywhere to freelancers, digital nomads, remotes, and location independents (FDNs). But every opportunity has a time attachment to it. Furthermore, time is money, especially in the 21st century and where the world is heading towards in the 22nd century.
Updates, improvements, and innovations don’t take years to impact the lives of humans anymore. Instead, it’s now a daily occurrence.
With more and more FDNs entering into the gig-economy, competition is becoming fierce. The result is the narrow timeframe available to make use of a new opportunity. If we are not focused on landing this new opportunity, it will pass us by faster than we can say “Facebook!”
PERSONAL CALCULATION
How many working hours do you spend daily on personal social media or apps that are not related to your work?
FDN PERSONAL SOCIAL MEDIA – ACTION 1 (Download & Use the Action Kit to assist you with all calculations below.)
Fill in the blanks:
- I spend ____ hours daily on personal social media during the hours I should focus on my work.
- I spend ____ hours daily on personal apps during the hours I should focus on my work. (Includes gaming apps.)
TOTAL: ______ hours daily.
TOTAL: ______ hours weekly.
TOTAL: ______ hours yearly.
Shocking, isn’t it?
BUSINESS CALCULATION
How many working hours do you spend daily on social media or apps that are beneficial for your business?
FDN BUSINESS SOCIAL MEDIA – ACTION 2
Fill in the blanks:
- I spend ____ hours daily on social media for my business during work hours.
- I spend ____ hours daily on apps for my business during work hours.
TOTAL: ______ hours daily.
TOTAL: ______ hours weekly.
TOTAL: ______ hours yearly.
Interesting result?
PERSONAL VS. BUSINESS COMPARISON – ACTION 3
Was there a significant difference in the time you spend on social media for personal gain versus social media that would be worthwhile for your business and brand?
Did you spend a significantly higher amount of time during work hours on personal social media and apps? (Complete the comparison chart in the Action Kit to find out.)
TOP 2 STEPS TO IMPROVE YOUR PERSONAL AND FDN BUSINESS PRODUCTIVITY & EARN MORE
1 – CUT OUT PERSONAL SOCIAL MEDIA & WORTHLESS APP ACTIVITY DURING WORKING HOURS
When you are running a business – no matter if it is of the location independent or brick-and-mortar kind – keep personal social media engagements to a minimum during working hours.
- The rule applies to everyone, including yourself, your employees, managers, and staff members.
- Though it might sound farfetched, (and some might kick and scream against it), it might be wise to ban social media browsing and personal mobile phone usage during work hours if you realize the act becoming a major distraction that is resulting in significant financial losses to your business.
- If financially feasible, install personal lockers if you own a brick-and-mortar type business, and have employees lock up personal mobile phones during work hours. Unfortunately, and from my own experience working with a team of 33 plus, most have no control over the urge and addictiveness of continually checking their phones or ‘quickly’ browsing their Facebook feed. When we started with implementing a locker policy, the focus, culture, and overall communication level among employees improved.
In most instances, employees lose track of the amount of time they spend on personal social media. Countless valuable work hours are lost, and client service suffers as a result. There were instances during my career as a Spa Director, where I found employees completely ignoring the client in front of them to ‘quickly’ finish chatting on their phone or updating their status. I can’t even count the times I had to conduct client recovery via freebies or fervently apologizing to the client because of an employee’s nose stuck in their mobile phone. Thousands of dollars went into client recovery gift vouchers and complimentary services due to employee negligence.
- FDN’s, especially digital nomads, need to fight the urge to constantly check social media or worthless apps that don’t contribute to their productivity while traveling and working. Due to the nature of work and travel, a lot of digital nomads spend an alarming amount of time on personal social media that brings them nowhere – chatting in groups about nonsense. It will be more productive to apply or work on a client’s project while waiting for your next flight, or, spend time on developing your FDN business.
Thought the above measures could seem extreme to some, they are needed now more than ever if you aspire to grow a company of high-performance people who want to climb the many hills to financial success and emotional freedom with you.
Why?
Addiction: Social media is as much an addiction as is drugs. We often lose track of the amount of time we spend browsing through personal social media or checking out everyone’s pictures on Instagram. Though we may have the intention to ‘quickly check our notifications,’ it happens more often than not that 10-minutes turn into 1-hour or more. Should we indulge in the same behavior every day, (as recent studies have indicated), 1-hour of social media browsing that is not work-related, is equal to an average of $25 an hour in lost revenue, and just over $6,000 down the drain per year.
Don’t believe it?
How Much Revenue Did You Lose This Year?
Do the math by replacing your hourly rate and average work hours per week with the averages we inserted below:
Hourly Rate: $25 (Indicate the rate you earn or should be earning per hour.)
Work Hours P/Week: 40 (How many hours do you work a week?)
Work Weeks P/Year: 48 (Considering 4-weeks’ vacation)
YEARLY INCOME: $25 x 40 x 48 = $45,000
Hours Lost to Social Media / App Browsing? (Including Gaming Apps)
Hourly Rate: $25
Personal Social Media Hours Lost Browsing / Per Week: 1-hour x 5 days per week = 5 hours per week (Estimate the amount of time you spend daily on personal social media or apps.)
Work Weeks P/Year: 48 (Considering 4-weeks’ vacation)
LOST REVENUE: $25 x 5 x 48 = $6,000 per year.
Congratulations!
You just lost an average of $6,000 in revenue this year. (If not double that if you spend more than 1-hour a day on wasted distractions.)
Businesses can follow the same model to work out how much revenue is lost if every employee spends an average of 30-minutes to 1-hour on non-work related, personal social media browsing or apps (including games), using company resources.
Businesses can also evaluate how much they should be earning if the spend work hours on social media for their business. Complete the actions in our Action Kit to find out how much your business should be earning from social media per year.
SELF-EVALUATION QUESTIONS – ACTION 4
- Why is it that my use of personal social media results in a higher loss of revenue compared to social media for business?
- Am I wasting too much time on personal social media instead of focusing on developing my business and brand?
- Was the time spend on personal social media or apps worth it after 12-months?
- What would an extra $6,000 mean to me at the end of the year if I stopped using social media during my work hours?
ANALYZING RESULTS – ACTION 5
When we do social media for business, there should be a revenue gain from it. If not, you will need to evaluate whether or not social media is having any benefits for your business.
2 – INSTALL SOCIAL MEDIA WEBSITE ACCESS BLOCKERS
If a company- or fair usage policies have not had any effect, it might be necessary to implement temporary or permanent measures to curb the addiction to personal social media and app usage during work hours. If necessary, implement social media website access blockers on your Internet browser that prevents employees access to these sites, to begin with.
There might be a lot of moaning and groaning at first, as is typical with most addictions, but you and your employees will find that in due time everyone will adjust and realize the benefits.
Interestingly enough, notice how relationships and communication among employees improves now that everyone is engaging more frequently in face-to-face conversation – instead of isolating themselves to social media chatting online in their cubicle.
Freelancers and digital nomads can significantly benefit from committing themselves to the discipline of only accessing their personal social media and apps during break times, or after the time they set aside for work.
Why?
Valuable time is lost: Accessing social media for personal reasons instead of business during the time you are supposed to work, will lead to many productive hours and revenue loss.
Focus: We lose focus and track of what we are supposed to be doing, and when we finally return to our work, we don’t feel like doing it anymore.
Negative impact on our mood: The effects of social media on our psychological and emotional wellbeing is nothing new. Refrain from accessing personal social media in the morning before work; instead do so in the afternoon/evening after work. This is especially important for location independents to ensure they don’t get trapped psychologically and emotionally by a negative social media post or feed that can impact their productivity for the rest of the day.
IMPLEMENTING SOCIAL MEDIA RESTRICTIONS – EMPLOYEES
Communication and training go hand-into-hand when considering the implementation and practical application of a new company policy. It might be best to put together a training session on why the new policy is put in place and how the policy will benefit everyone. When employees understand why a new policy is implemented, and how the new policy is not only helping the company but themselves, employees are more likely to adopt and implement it willingly.
IMPLEMENTING SOCIAL MEDIA RESTRICTIONS – FOR LOCATION INDEPENDENTS / SOLO ENTREPRENEURS
How does an additional $6,000 sound this year?
Location independents who can discipline themselves in following a ‘no personal apps and social media during my work hours policy,’ will find their focus, revenue, and productivity-increasing as a result.
IN CLOSING
Achieving our dreams and goals and exiting from under a cloud of earning meager incomes is not an easy task. But it’s made all that more difficult if we cannot disciple ourselves from the many distractions around us.
Stop wasting time on anything that is not of value in your life – especially during the hours you are most alert. Time lost due to worthless apps, and personal social media is counterproductive and will lead to many bankruptcies among FDN’s in the future. Not only financially; but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Now is the time to cultivate a strong mind, body, and soul so that you may thrive and prosper in an ever-changing world and utilize every opportunity to its fullest.
Come on! It’s not hard.
“If we can do it, so can you!
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