Social media marketers are stuck in a burnout trap. Here’s how to break free

It’s almost midnight when the phone buzzes—a client text, a comment that needs a reply, a trend that will be stale by morning. For the people who run brand accounts on social media, the workday never really ends. We’re marketing researchers who study digital and social media wellness and teach the students who go on to fill these jobs. In a study published in September 2025, we interviewed social media marketers in the United States, Ireland, India, Germany, and Australia and saw a profession quietly running on empty: passionate, creative people who are mentally drained by jobs that rarely turn off. The numbers back them up. More than 40% of social media marketers plan to leave their jobs within two years, and nearly half say they get little support from supervisors for their mental health, according to industry research. A job you can’t log off from Plenty of jobs are stressful. What makes this one different is that it’s especially difficult for social media marketers to escape the source of their stress. The platform is simultaneously their workplace, their tool and often their leisure environment. The same apps they use to create content, monitor engagement, and respond to customers are often the same ones they turn to for entertainment, social connection, and news. As a result, the source of their stress is rarely something they can simply walk away from. There’s also the time involved. The average person spends about 2.5 hours a day on social media, according to global data. The marketers we interviewed often spend easily double or triple that, because they are both producers and consumers of content. @emthesaint i am SO grateful to work with the clients I am right now, truly. This conversation just needs to be had and normalized because from first hand experience, how much your brain is in taking and the pressure to perform is overwhelming on a good day. #socialmediamanagement #smm #communitymanager ♬ original sound – saint em “It is truly 24/7, 365. You