18 Feb

Break it up a bit

I’m going oop north today, to see family, which means I’m rushing around, getting last minute bits done.

I knew I’d have no time to write blog posts before hopping on the motorway, so I typed this out last night.

It was 10.30pm and I was fresh out of ideas, so I turned to my girlfriend and said; ‘what shall I write about? I’m stuck…but I need something before tomorrow morning’.

‘Well what do you normally write about?’

 ‘Erm… stuff to do with copywriting’

‘That’s a bit bloody boring, isn’t it?’

She had a point.

In fairness, I don’t write only about copywriting; I try to cover marketing in general, funny films/scenes I’ve seen, fantastic creative ideas (whether in advertising or the wider world)… oh… maybe I am boring…

Anyway, what I’m getting to is: if you only write about the same thing, every time (whether on your site, separate blogs, or your social media channels), people get bored, fatigued – they move on.

Think of your friends on their personal social media feeds. I have one who only ever talks/rants about politics, conspiracy theories, the Rothschild family controlling us, death, greed, 9/11, ‘sheeple’ (you get the gist).
He makes some interesting points here and there, but it’s getting a bit boring. His posts are cancelling each other out. I know what he’s posted about without even looking at his timeline.
He actually got annoyed a couple of days ago; ‘sorry if my posts about serious world issues bore you, and you’d rather be looking at cats…’
It was supposed to be a dig at people who (maybe through direct messages) indicated they were a little tired of seeing the same stuff. The problem is, he’s got a point, but he doesn’t break up his posts with anything else. It’s relentless, and, after a while, a bit too heavy. The odd post about family life, his job, his kids, a film he’s seen wouldn’t go amiss.

On the flipside, you do get people who, for example, only post about cats and nothing else. This also gets tiresome: how many videos, pictures, and comments about cats can you look at?

On personal timelines, this is fine – no damage done.

On your business social media channels, and in your longer posts, this is bad. If people get bored, or start to preempt what you’ll write (or, worse still, just view it as background noise / wallpaper), you’re in trouble. They may even miss the one interesting/different post you put out there – perhaps a key message, a change to a product or service, a special offer.

In the words of my oh-so-helpful girlfriend; ‘don’t be boring’.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *