If you work too many late nights and long hours, you’re going to get sick of your job and lose both motivation and momentum.
If you see the same commercial on TV at every break, with the same dumb lines and the same boring imagery, you’re going to get sick of seeing it and you might grow resentful of the company behind it. Fatigue, both physical and mental, can ruin an otherwise valuable relationship.
If your followers and readers start suffering from a similar kind of fatigue from your brand messages and ongoing content, the effects on your bottom line could be catastrophic.
It’s important to identify brand fatigue before it sets in too deeply and take corrective action so your brand stays fresh and interesting in your potential customers’ minds.
If your customers aren’t tired of seeing your brand, there isn’t necessarily a problem. If they’re still engaging with you regularly and thrilled to see your material, there isn’t a reason to pursue a massive overhaul.
That being said, if brand fatigue is setting in, the earlier you catch it, the better. It’s far easier to reclaim an audience that’s starting to lose interest in your posts than an audience that is actively annoyed by your content.
Keep a close eye on the following metrics:
The number of people passively engaging with or showing interest in your brand’s material on social media.
The number of people actively sharing your content with their own audiences.
The number of people responding to and engaging with your material directly.
If you notice a significant drop in any of these metrics and all other factors of your campaign are relatively consistent, it could be evidence of brand fatigue.
A drop over the course of a week isn’t typically an accurate representation of a shift in user perspective, but if you notice it over a month, it could be time to take action.
Fatigue is a direct result of one thing: excessive repetition. If you jog outside, mile after mile, your body will grow weak and exhausted. Also, if you listen to the same pop song on the radio every morning, day in and day out, it’s eventually going to become annoying.
If repetition is the root cause of all fatigue, what you need to find in your content and social strategy is some form of repetition that is wearing on your audience’s minds.
These are a few examples of repetition that can grow tiresome over an extended period of time:
There are many types of content available, so don’t limit yourself to any one medium. For example, if almost all of your content is based on written articles, your audience could grow tired of reading it.
If all your content is based on videos, they could thirst for a changeup. Introduce a variety of different content types and mediums to keep your audience’s interest roused.
Your topics can also grow tiresome after a while. For example, if you sell weight loss supplements, and literally all of your content is about the basics of losing weight, people will eventually stop reading.
You need to vary things up by introducing related topics, more specific topics, and topics that you’ve never covered before. New, original material is always a good bet to prevent or address brand fatigue.
Social posting schedule. If you’re posting on social media with any kind of pre-arranged schedule, it’s easy for your followers to get tired of your posts. For example, if you post a new article every day around noon, your users may soon get bored with the predictable format.
Try to shake things up by varying your schedule or including more random posts between your anchors.
Special promotions are almost always a good idea for social media—they get your audience’s attention with real value and social shareability.
But if you offer the same kinds of deals—like 10 percent off your order at checkout with a certain promotional code—your most loyal followers will inevitably lose interest.
Come up with new promotions to incentivize your longest-following users.
Last but not least, be aware that your responses need to be genuine. If you’re in the habit of using the same formulaic response for each compliment or anecdote shared by one of your interested followers, they’ll quickly grow to see your brand as robotic or predictable, which can harm your reputation. Manage any issues or crises using your CRM software.
As a general rule, the more diversified you can be in all these categories, the better. In your follow-up, address the repetition by introducing new forms of content. Don’t be afraid to experiment—if one strategy doesn’t work, all you have to do is remove it and start again with something new.
Brand fatigue isn’t necessarily reflective of a problem with your content marketing or social media campaign; it could merely be the result of a lack of change or differentiation.
If there’s a certain pizza place you love, and you start eating that pizza every night, you’ll eventually get tired of it and want a change; there’s nothing wrong with the pizza itself, but after a while, you need some variety.
Keep this in mind when you adjust your strategy; keep what makes your brand special, but add enough variety to keep your customers interested.
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