How to Take a Social Media Break for Your Business and Sanity

Need to take a social media break?

Occasionally, you want or need a break from constantly using social media for business.

There are vacations, holidays, and important life events to enjoy.

YES, it’s oh-so-easy to stay connected everywhere, any time of day. But that doesn’t mean it’s healthy for you, or your business!

If you don’t think you need a break, then maybe you really need one! Does your family remember what you look like? 😉

But what’s the best way to handle it? Here are some options.

Note: Some links below are affiliate links, which means I may make a referral fee if you purchase a plan, at no added cost to you.

How to Take a Social Media Break for Business

Some of us (who, me?) can get a bit obsessed about our social media stats: Facebook engagement, retweets, Pinterest impressions, blog traffic.

You may want to keep things from crashing in your absence, so you don’t feel like you’re starting over when you return.

If you’re a solopreneur wearing all the hats in your biz – here are my suggestions for each social media platform.

How to Take a Social Media Break from Pinterest

Easiest first 😉 And you won’t believe how easy this one is – unless you already use Tailwind!

Tailwind is a Pinterest lover’s dream. You can schedule hundreds of Pins and Repins well in advance.

I have over 300 scheduled right now, and they go out for months. That’s because I can schedule one Pin to multiple boards at any interval I choose, with just a few clicks.

Tailwind knows the perfect times for them to post. And does it all for you!

If you want to know more about Tailwind, read this blog post about how to use Tailwind to get Pinterest traffic.

Or just jump in and try it – for free! There’s now a “free forever” plan.

If you upgrade, it’s under $10 a month if you pay for a year, and it just could change your life – or at least your website traffic and business. 😉

Tailwind saves you time all the time, not just when you’re going on holiday. I love it.

Tailwind is an approved Pinterest Partner, so your account is safe with them.

• • • Try Tailwind for Pinterest FREE • • •

How to Take a Social Media Break from Instagram

Pinterest is a no-brainer – Tailwind all the way. But you have many options for scheduling posts to Instagram.

Instagram recently approved direct posting via approved partners only. No more workarounds!

However, I’m also a fan of Tailwind for Instagram. I love their Hashtag Finder tool! Hashtags are critical to your account growth – as is consistency, which is why I recommend you use an Instagram scheduler whether you’re home or away.

Tailwind for IG is also under $10 a month if you pay for a year. And now you get both Instagram and Pinterest posting included.

And of course there’s that “free forever” plan! So check it out.

• • • Try Tailwind for Instagram FREE • • •

If you want to see options, read this for more ways to schedule posts to Instagram.

How to Take a Social Media Break from Twitter and LinkedIn

You could just stop tweeting during your break. But if you do that for too long, you’ll lose followers.

It’s easy to schedule tweets and LinkedIn shares in advance, though. If you’re a blogger, I know of two great options.

You can set up your WordPress blog with the plugin Revive Old Post. The free version will share your blog posts to Twitter and Facebook (though I don’t recommend auto-posting to FB).

Revive Old Posts Free provides the following features:

• Share new and old posts.
• Choose the time between posts.
• Choose the number of posts to share.
• Use hashtags to focus on topics.
• Include links back to your site.
• Exclude categories.
• Exclude specific posts.
• Integrated with Google Analytics.
• Compatible with URL Shorteners.

Using the PRO version of the plugin you will unleash the most important functionality: images in tweets. Images are critical to your social media success! Use them and your Retweets and click-throughs will go crazy.

Other notable features of Revive Old Posts PRO:

• Add multiple social accounts.
• Post to LinkedIn, Xing, and Tumblr.
• Custom post types support.
• Post with image!
• Custom schedule.
• Custom share messages.

You may even want to use it when you’re not on break!

But my favorite tool for tweeting blog posts is Missinglettr. Not only does it automate your sharing, but it also makes fab quote graphics for you!

Like Revive Old Posts PRO, Missinglettr will pull in images from your posts. But ML takes this one step further and makes images from your own words.

If you’re on a paid plan, you can edit the quote templates to match your branding. Here are the two templates I’m using. All I did was edit the colors!

You can post to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I’ve added 3 of those – and over a year’s use, my automated posts from Missinglettr have brought 20,000+ visits to my blog!

Of course, your results will vary, depending on the number of posts you add, and your followers. But I find it indispensable! I love to save time on social 🙂

• • • Click here to try Missinglettr for FREE • • •

A third option for Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Tumblr is Friends+Me.

If your posting needs are limited, you can use the free version of HootSuite or Buffer. You can schedule up to 30 posts in HootSuite and 10 in Buffer.

I do recommend the automated features of the two paid systems I mentioned above. My time is worth a few bucks a month. Isn’t yours?

How to Take a Social Media Break from your Facebook Fan Page

Now – the biggie. Due to Facebook’s news feed algorithm, taking a break will hurt your Page. You’ve got to keep your Fans engaged with your posts so Facebook will show your posts to more Fans, so you can engage those Fans so Facebook… well, you get the idea.

It’s rather a vicious cycle.

If you have an active and supportive community, you may be fine. They may carry on without you – especially if you clue them in to what’s going on ahead of time.

But – you’ll still need to come up with and schedule content ahead of time.

You can schedule blog posts, pictures, and quotes with Missinglettr, SmarterQueue OR – just use Facebook’s own built-in scheduler. It’s a little time-consuming, but it does work!

Asking questions on Facebook helps you get more Facebook engagement, but I don’t suggest it if you won’t be around to respond. It seems disingenuous to me.

When you return, you could run some Facebook ads or a Facebook contest to spark Fan engagement again.

How to Take a Blog Break

I like to keep posting while I’m away – not just for the SEO benefits, but also so I can stay in touch with my email subscribers. I’ll tell you how you can automate a “blog broadcast” below.

You can write some blog posts before your break, and schedule them to be published in your absence. Feel free to reduce the frequency: if you normally post twice a week, schedule one. If you post weekly, schedule every other week.

If you usually get comments, you could deactivate that feature in your Discussion Settings. Or just let folks wait a week or two for your response!

You could mention at the end of each new post that you’ll reply to comments after a certain date. But if you don’t want people to suspect you’re away, then don’t post that notice.

Another great idea is to accept some guest bloggers to contribute during your blog break! What’s cool about this is, your guest writers will be happy to promote their own posts and answer comments. So choose wisely, and relax knowing your blog is in good hands.

If you’ve never scheduled posts before, here’s how to do it on a WordPress blog:

How to Take a Break from your Blog Newsletter

Stay in touch while you’re away! Once you link your RSS feed with your email provider, you don’t even have to lift a finger.

In ConvertKit, go Automations > RSS.

You’ll click Add Feed, and type in the url of your blog/site, adding /feed to the end:

If your feed validates, it will appear below as a message, the Single post option by default. This means you did it correctly!

There are two options for your RSS feed settings: Single Post and Digest.

A single post will automatically generate an entire post into a draft, in Broadcasts. It’s important to note that this option will include the entirety of the blog post, therefor, a link back to your blog is not included.

This will also create a new Broadcast every time a new blog post appears on your feed.

A Digest creates a “round up” email of recent blog posts, that you can run on a specific schedule. You can choose more than once a week, or as few as once a week.

Since a Digest brings over snippets of more than one post at a time, there is a link back to the blog or site provided with this automated Broadcast.

Other services provide this feature as well! I simply prefer the ease of using ConvertKit.

• • • Click here to try ConvertKit • • •

If you set up a blog broadcast with your email provider, you’ll also be staying in touch with your email list while you’re on blog break!

Will You Take a Social Media Break?

If you do decide to take a break, I hope you find these ideas helpful.

If you need the words to get the message to your followers, try these social media break quotes and messages.

And if you know someone who needs a social media break – do them a favor and share this post!