A trip back in time to find a lost connection at the fair

For all the benefits those of us in the reputation management and public relations business glean from modern communications technology, there is one unintended consequence of the reach of the Internet, Twitter, Facebook and the rest of its offspring: Topic fatigue.

Thanks to modern technology, the obstacles that stand between communicators and their audiences are fewer and easier to navigate. This, however, presents another challenge. Due to the sheer volume of information we are able to heap on audiences, they simply are, at times, getting tired of what they are hearing, whether it initially resonated with them or not.

This has created a growing challenge for those of us building and implementing communications plans, all of which require some level of audience endorsement to be successful. We are then forced to ask ourselves the following question: How much is too much?

To witness the effect of topic fatigue, you need only take a look at the signature news issue of 2009: Health care reform.

The health care debate, while smoldering for years, truly became a front-and-center issue this spring. While the arguments for and against the health care reform that is being forwarded by President Obama and his allies in the House and Senate have changed little since April, the public’s feelings on the subject have shown a consistent shift toward ambivalence or opposition.

According to the Web site Real Clear Politics, 84 major polls have been taken on the subject since April 2009. During the first two months, every poll on the RCP Web site revealed public support for the President’s health care proposal. Since early July, 78 polls have measured the public’s feeling on the issue and only eight polls have indicated support for the effort while a number of others show a statistical spread within the margin of error or an outright tie.

While it is difficult to hold a lead in any type of lengthy public opinion battle, and this certainly is a broad view of a critical communications challenge, it is hard to imagine that topic fatigue didn’t play some role in the opinion shift. A lesson we all should remember as we analyze not only the tone and substance of the messages we craft, but the volume as well.