Keep the same look long after it bores you, and say how the product feels, not only what it does. People remember a feeling, and they need a look to pin it on: the same colour bag, the same kind of caption, for years.
Here is why both matter, three habits to start this month, and what they pay back over time.
People remember how it felt
What sticks about a brand is how something felt, not the list of benefits. Features help someone choose once they are already looking. Feeling is what brings you to mind on a Tuesday, when they are not shopping at all.
A tea shop that writes about "the soft pop the lid makes" gives people something to remember. "Airtight seal" is true, and every tin says it.
The feeling needs a look to hang on
A warm feeling from a brand that looks like every other brand in its category gets attached to the category, not to you. Your own look is the hook: your colours, your kind of picture, your way of speaking.
A bakery with the same blue paper bag in every photo for five years owns that blue in its town. People see the bag on the bus and know where the bread came from.
Keep your look while the feed changes
The look of the moment is shared with everyone else following the moment. The brands people remember kept their own look for years, long after it stopped feeling fresh to the people inside. Boring to you is familiar to them, and familiar is the point.
A candle label drawn to this season's colour keeps its cream labels and uses the new colour in one styled photo instead.
The year your look starts to bore you is the year customers start to recognise it.
Three habits to start this month
Say how it feels. One line in every caption about the sound, the smell, the weight or the moment. Shoot it the same way. Same table, same light, same kind of caption, so any post is plainly yours. Keep it longer than feels comfortable. Write your look down in three lines and hold it for a year.
A skincare shop writes "the oil warms in your palm" instead of "fast-absorbing", photographs every bottle on the same stone, and keeps both for the year. The same thinking works at the scale of a month: one idea, done completely.
What it pays back over years
A brand people recognise gets more from every post, every advert and every price, because it does not have to introduce itself each time. Recognition makes everything after it cheaper. That is the reason to hold a look: not for the look, for what it earns.
A coffee roaster whose bags are the same colour on every shelf gets picked out in a café without a word. When one kind of post starts getting less attention, change the picture and keep your look.
What CP3® does here
Brand Scan turns your look and voice into one brand profile, and distinctiveness and consistency are two of its four scored measures, refreshed monthly. Branded Content drafts from that profile, so the feed keeps your look while the subjects change from month to month. Choosing the look, and holding it when you are tired of it, stays with you.