Dear Business/Creator/Marketer A.K.A You
You are making content for a human. Not for a bot.
In the rapidly shifting digital landscape, grabbing and keeping an individual’s attention is a never-ending crusade. HEAR HEAR!
I DO HEAR YOU.
And look, even when you are optimizing the message such that it sticks with the recipient and the person can recall it easily, any individual’s attention and time is split across multiple apps and platforms.
You have to take a look at the other side of the wall too- Your audience is being constantly pelted with information.
According to Statista Research, as of 2019 and 2020, the worldwide average daily social media usage amounted to 145 minutes per day. Currently, Filipinos spend the most time on social media-spending an average of 3 hours and 53 minutes on social media everyday.
In those 145 minutes, you and thousands of other businesses-are competing with each other for that individual’s attention. Not to mention blogs, newsletters, and emails that are fighting for your target audience’s attention at various moments throughout the day. In this constant switching, the brain is expending energy and is consistently processing. Yes, the brain gets tired and yes, the brain does not effectively or efficiently process the information either.
Sure I agree, content is a powerful weapon in your armory-one that delivers results, but there is only so much visual, audio or text-based content a person can absorb before becoming overwhelmed and eventually, burning-out.
The goal is to delight your audience, not to tire them out.
So, put down your digital pen.
What is Content Fatigue?
Content Fatigue is the state of weariness that results from over-exposure to content.
It’s usually brought on by too much information overload and being inundated with content
What does Content Fatigue look like?
It is the eye-roll when the 10th notification from the same app pings within 5 minutes
It is the irked up sigh the receiver heaves upon receiving yet another promotional email
It is the angst over over-used, recycled ad an individual sees for the umpteenth time
It is the agony of watching the abused viral trend that should have been buried a few weeks ago
It is the hollowness of pseudo-thought leadership that adds no apparent value
It is the stale news wrapped in new packaging
It is the meta-post craze about writing on Medium
There is no software update for the brain that can exponentially increase anyone’s processing capabilities.
Ahem! Neuralink, you got anything to add? (pun intended)
As the engagement and response to your content slows, you are motivated to dish out more content but what if, in the first place, scaled up content creation and the increased distribution thereafter, is reducing interactions, and now you are just adding fuel to the fire. DO NOT step on this hamster wheel.
If found value, or have more thoughts on the topic, please give a clap or start a conversation in the comments.
