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All good things come to an end – and for some brands that end is predictable, because it happens every year. Whether it’s the end of a sports schedule, television show season or a vacation season, maintaining a rich dialogue with the fans, followers and consumers of your brand once that “off-season” arrives can be a challenge.

Let’s face it, word of mouth marketing is much simpler when you have a ready pool of content and a primed audience because your fans and followers are either getting ready to or have recently interacted with your product. It’s much more challenging to maintain that enthusiasm when your product or service isn’t top of mind. Due to the nature of social media engagement algorithms, if a brand doesn’t focus on maintaining those social interactions consistently over time, the net result will be a loss in engagement that can be difficult, if not impossible, to recoup. And importantly, just because it is your off-season for sales doesn’t mean that people have stopped talking about your product or destination – so an opportunity to leverage those conversations still exists.

Fortunately, engagement stagnation during the off-season isn’t inevitable. Here are some tips to keep the conversations vibrant during the quiet times.

1: Think like a squirrel – locate and stockpile supplies for later use.

Be sure to capture user generated content at times when people are interacting with your brand at the highest rate and have a plan to use this content in the off season. For example, a hospitality brand whose bulk of business is around summer travel can develop an end of summer photo contest to capture photo assets from consumers – those photo assets could then be used in regular off-season social media updates all winter long.

2: Run with the opportunity to harness your customer’s voice.

The off-season is a great time to maintain engagement (and to utilize your ready pool of market research subjects) through asking for your customers input – for example, sports teams have asked fans to vote on jersey and t-shirt designs, arena menus and items for future game giveaways such as bobble heads. People love to be heard and have their ideas listened to and implemented – you can use this basic facet of human nature to your advantage.

3: Play the highlight reel.

Looking back on the high points of the previous season is an effective way to keep your fans interested and ready to participate the next season. And let’s face it; a great snowmobiling action shot will definitely make your fan in Phoenix wish for winter as they are enduring a week of 107+ temps in the middle of June.

4: Embrace – and leverage – planning cycles.

If your product is seasonal, then your customers will have a predictable planning schedule. Take advantage of that and plan your overall marketing and promotional calendar – and therefore your social media content calendar (they are aligned, right?) accordingly. By presenting your audience with content that is relevant for their stage in the purchase cycle you’ll generate excitement and planning activity for the next season.

As the famous saying goes “champions are made in the off season.” While it can be tempting to take your social media marketing efforts down a notch during the quiet times, with some strategic planning you can actually use those times as an opportunity to engage with both past and future customers. So regardless of what stage of the seasonal business cycle you are in – your time to engage socially with your customers always resides in the present.