The other day I was on the website of a local small business which provides a technical expertise service and I found an article on their blog about “AI fatigue.”

The article explained how the AI hype is wearing out and companies are re-hiring human specialists to provide more value to customers.

And then it pulled its punches at the end by concluding with a point about how the “smarter model” is using the combined power of humans and AI together to provide improvements in both innovation and efficiency (which we know is counter productive based on the innoficiency principle).

My initial reaction was that this is a somewhat milquetoast take, but, by that same token it’s hard to argue too strongly with since it doesn’t really have a hard stance one way or the other.

Then I noticed something. There was a disclaimer at the bottom of the article.

The article was produced by an “article aggregator” service.

That’s right. An article about AI fatigue which starts by explaining how everyone is sick of AI and ends by defending AI’s place in your workflow, was literally written by AI.

I could say more about this particular version of content farming, but for now, here’s the point:

AI fatigue is real and AI content farming is making it worse.

If you really want to be viewed as an expert in your field, you need to speak in your own voice. It is the only way to be both clear and authentic.

It used to be the only way to create content.

Now it’s a hit of oxygen in a stagnating bog of recycled and regurgitated slop.

• What value does my content provide to my audience/customers?
• How much time am I asking people to spend on my content?
• Is the value worth the time?
• How much time am I spending on my content?
• If I stopped posting content entirely, would there be any noticeable change in business?
• Is my offering or ability to deliver my offering improving as a result of the content I’m creating?

And, finally:

• Does my content make people better?
  • If so, how?
  • Otherwise, why not?

If your content directly provides some kind of value to your audience or customers, then it is an offering of your business, and ought to be treated as such.

If your content is not primarily concerned with providing value to customers directly, then it is something you do for yourself.

It becomes a series of bright flashy lights all about you and your business. The first visual signal of who you are to new customers.

An outfit, if you will.

In that case, make sure that the way you dress matches the way you want to be perceived.

So . . .

Is your content something you do for yourself, or for your customers?

The amount of pressure you feel to create social media content is usually directly tied to how much you feel like you depend on social media to bring in new customers.

So, if you feel a lot of pressure to post on social media, ask yourself, has your social media been a dependable source of leads?

Maybe it has been—great!

But if not, maybe it’s time to find something else to depend on.

If you don’t depend primarily on social media to bring in new customers, then *phew* the pressure’s off!

When that’s the case, you can take a step back and think about more impactful approaches to your content without feeling that tinge of desperation tied to every half-baked post that goes on your feed.

If you create content primarily to stay “top-of-mind” for people, here are two questions to consider:

QUESTION 1

Are there any environmental cues related to your offering that naturally make you “top-of-mind” at the right time?

For example, I know I am going to see my dentist every six months. I have calendar events and reminders to make it “top-of-mind” only when it’s almost time for my appointment. And if I need to see my dentist outside of those appointed times, then the pain in my mouth or my self-consciousness about the stains on my teeth will prompt me to go in early.

Once I have chosen a dentist, assuming I am happy with the service, I probably don’t need to follow them for weekly posts reminding me that they exist.

So instead of creating regular low-value content designed to stay top-of-mind, my dentist can focus on creating more intermittent content that may be more highly valuable in specific dental situations.

QUESTION 2

Does the value of your content fluctuate over time?

For example, if I am struggling with my financial situation, I may decide to consume content from a financial advisor who is creating valuable content to help me shape my mindset around how I handle my money.

If I still can’t wrap my head (or behaviors) around the concepts in the advisor’s content, I’ll probably hire him or her to personally help me.

But, eventually, I will hopefully get a pretty good grasp on my situation and stabilize my immediate crisis, at which point there is diminishing returns on the value that I was getting from the advisor’s content at the beginning.

However, if I am following said advisor, continuing to receive content in my feed means I will still be spending time on the content even though I’ve significantly diminished the ROI.

On the other hand, if I found the content on a website and maybe binged through a library of helpful topics, I may forget about the advisor once my crisis is over.

And that’s okay.

Because if someone can forget you, they don’t really need your offering.

It’s those who can’t forget you, even unprompted by a social feed, who will be your best customers.

In other words, forgetting is vetting.

~ ~ ~

All that to say, if you’re spending a lot of effort on content trying to stay top-of-mind for customers who don’t immediately need your offering, you’re probably wasting their time (and your own).

But the good news is, with a little consideration, you can almost certainly redirect those content efforts to create something even more valuable.

When people are on social media, they don’t want to be lectured to about your product or service. What they want is news or entertainment. You may be able to get them to politely sit through a lecture about your offering, if you are able to present that lecture as either news or entertainment¹, but that doesn’t mean they care about your solution beyond the vague emotional texture it adds to their daily scrolling (which, as we know, almost invariably ends in a net negative).

However, when people are on your website, it means they actually want, and maybe even need, whatever it is you offer. Otherwise they wouldn’t go out of their way to find you and learn more.

So, for which of those audiences are you more concerned about when creating your content?

1. You may also get them to sit through your lecture if it is an interruption to their news and entertainment in form of an ad, but people generally don’t like their entertainment interrupted and they don’t like to be sold to, so you’re fighting an uphill battle for goodwill in that respect. ↩︎