Change is constant when you work in social media, and it can take its toll.

Imagine having a process going super well and then a network makes an upgrade that basically makes everything go funky. Or there are many updates to the algorithm that slowly chips away at the efficacy of your social media program. It can be defeating to feel like you have something figured out and realizing you have to start all over again.

This is a constant reality for a social media professional. You can’t be comfortable with any of your tactics, because you’re a beat away from having to change to make them more effective.

So how do you handle these changes? How do you make sure they don’t take you down? Here’s my advice:

Reframe change

So many people look at the negatives of change. It will screw up a campaign. You can’t do your posts like you used to. And so on.

But what if you start thinking about the positives?

You suddenly have a new puzzle to figure out. New puzzles are kind of exciting. It means new puzzle pieces that you can play with until they fit in a way that makes sense. That’s fun.

If that doesn’t get you excited, then start thinking of everything you can do with the change that you couldn’t do before. Whenever there is a big update, I start bouncing in my seat. I have those puzzle pieces I have never been able to get my hands on before (maybe there was even a lag for my clients and I had to watch others use new features from the sidelines). It’s time to put them to good use and see what they do, so I can create a new plan around them.

Just looking at changes as something to work with instead of something to work against will make these big changes much easier.

Get outside

When a change comes up, sometimes you just can’t get to that positive place. That’s okay. It’s okay to say that you can’t deal with this right now.

If you’re finding you’re there though, it’s probably not the best time to manage social media. Being in a negative mindset will cause mistakes and a break in tone.

Your best bet is to get outside and go for a walk. Getting some fresh air will help you reboot so you can start getting to a positive place. You don’t have to be fully positive, but you do have to be in a place where you can accept what is happening. So a quick walk to get your head on straight is likely your best call here.

If you’re worried your boss will hate this idea, then you just need to explain how this will prevent you from making a stupid mistake and you can make up the time later (as if social media marketers aren’t on the clock way more than they should be). If that doesn’t work for them, do your best to muddle through on your work that is less consumer-facing until you can clear your head. It’s not ideal and I would hope you would have a more understanding boss than this. But I know a lot of people do not.

Do thought exercises

When I know something is a trigger for me, I practice it to become more immune to it and handle it better when it happens. Can I perfectly practice it? Obviously not. There are too many factors that I can’t account for, but I can do it well enough that I can mostly follow a set of things to do when it does happen.

You can easily do this with social media changes.

Look up the rumored changes coming to social media. Social Media Today is usually full of them. Figure out what you will do if one of them does actually happen. How would it affect your current social media strategy? What would you do differently? How would this make things better? Working through several of the different rumored changes could get you more mentally prepared for change as well as make you more nimble when change does occur.

And will you be able to cover all changes that do happen? Absolutely not. But if you cover enough of them, you really will be ready for anything that comes.

How do you respond to change? How do you get yourself into the mindset to deal with it?