The 9-to-5 social media team is outdated
Social media is a 24-hour game, so it makes no sense for the people controlling your social strategy to be logging off at 5pm each weekday. Emily Hills, founder of The Social Media Coach, argues that online traffic activity doesn’t neatly jibe with the 9 to 5.
When was the last time your social media team posted something outside of 9 to 5? Or responded to a community comment on a Saturday night? If your answer is rarely, or never, you’re not alone. Most in-house teams and agencies alike are built around a traditional workday. But the platforms we manage? They never close.
Consumer data tells us that peak social media usage doesn’t conveniently fall between 9am and 5pm. It surges in the early morning hours during commute time, spikes again after dinner, and often hums with engagement well into the night. Weekends are prime time for browsing and buying. And yet, many social media teams are only staffed during office hours.
It’s time to call this what it is: a disconnect. And in today’s attention economy, where brands fight to capture a scroll, that disconnect can cost you relevance, reach, and ultimately, revenue.
Social media isn’t just another marketing channel; it’s the frontline of your brand. It’s where crises break, loyalty is built, and culture moves in real-time. Consumers expect a human touch, rapid responses, and contextual awareness. The brands winning on social aren’t just posting clever content, they’re present.
We wouldn’t ask a customer service team to clock off at 5pm if our customers are most active at 8pm. So why do we ask that of our social media teams?
Emily Hills
The irony is that we invest millions in media strategy and creative, but leave execution to be run like a 9 to 5 admin task. If we truly believe social media is the most direct line to our customers (and it is), then we need to treat it with the same strategic rigor we apply to every other touchpoint.
A simple, sensible solution is shift scheduling. After all, the answer isn’t burnout. It’s balance.
Introducing shift work into social media teams isn’t radical. It’s reasonable. Much like newsrooms and emergency services, social media teams should be scheduled around usage patterns, not outdated office norms.
A rotating roster with staggered hours and weekend coverage allows brands to optimise engagement by publishing and responding when audiences are most active; reduce response lag during high-pressure moments, like PR crises or viral customer complaints; humanise the brand by showing up in real-time conversations; and prevent burnout by spreading workload more evenly and predictably across the team.
It also unlocks the ability to test and learn during less traditional windows, turning “off-peak” hours into high-opportunity moments for brands willing to show up when competitors don’t.
This isn’t about hustling harder. It’s about structuring smarter.
Social media has outgrown its old operating model. It’s no longer the intern’s job or a lunchtime afterthought, it’s a core part of the marketing machine that deserves the resources and structure to perform at its best.
A shift-based approach allows us to meet audiences where they are and when they’re most receptive, while still protecting the people behind the screen. It’s how we start to build not just more agile teams, but more sustainable ones.
If we want to be truly consumer-first, we can’t just talk about it in strategy decks. We need to reflect it in how we work, when we show up, and who we put at the helm.
It’s time to shift the schedule, and the mindset.
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Ai never sleeps!
“Social media has outgrown its old operating model. It’s no longer the intern’s job or a lunchtime afterthought, it’s a core part of the marketing machine that deserves the resources and structure to perform at its best.”
Resources. Most companies don’t have the resources to be paying a team of people to work different shifts to do social media!
If you want contact out of hours at weird times on social media you’re going to have to pay up for this – and it costs more to have people working 9pm-5am than 9am-5pm you know – and especially on weekends.
Most companies don’t have that type of money lying around.
Guess it all depends on who and where your market is.
Yep, make sure your business is unendingly pumping out content so you can race to the bottom of nothingness. Great idea to push your staff to work non-stop as well, super healthy for everyone involved!