Is Social Media An Addiction?

I recently read an article listing “20 Ways to Tell If You Use Social Media Too Much” and a few of my favourite posts were:

• You are going to spend the Christmas holiday with @grandma and @grandpa.
• You dream about social media comments and posts at night.
• When a friend says something clever, you respond by saying “I’ll retweet that.”

In this day and age we often hear people refer to their friends, co-workers (or sometimes even themselves!) as "addicted to social media". But, did you know there may be a psychological reason that people become addicted to social media? – it’s called Transactional Analysis. Transactional Analysis references human behavior and the need for human interaction. Human’s regularly crave the attention of others – whether that be in person or through social media.

Problem being: because of this “social media addiction” companies are often hesitant to use social media as part of their marketing campaign for the simple reason that they don’t want employees wasting time online. But, if you’re considering using social media in your company’s online marketing campaign consider these few tips to help keep employees on track:

1. Focus on one specific social medium to get started – jumping on the bandwagon of too many will be time consuming and overwhelming
2. Use a schedule to help keep everyone on task - it might help to assign certain times during they day where employees can use social media
3. Come up with a strategic social media plan and clearly lay out your goals and objectives for this new marketing edeavor