Okay, attention span and how we got to where we are today.
First of all, I hope everyone reading this realizes that today we are living in the famous “Attention Economy."
It means that, usually, whoever has the most eyeballs on them will make the most money, leads, and businesses.
We have been in the attention economy for some time now.
I would say we entered its prime around 2016 when TikTok launched as some other app, I forgot its name.
Anyway, with the attention economy, a big part of the marketing and creative industry has shifted toward focusing on creating the best possible creative to capture that attention.
As they should, the better the creative is, the more results and eyeballs it gets.
But somewhere along the line, we kind of stopped caring about the quality of the creative and started focusing too much on its length.
Now, for obvious reasons, this is because in today’s day and age, we have platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, etc.
And that is okay, variation is amazing.
One of the biggest mistakes I see today is that modern marketers believe they must stuff a lot of information into short-format pieces to capture attention.
They use this excuse:
“People today have shorter attention spans than ever before."
And, me being me, I decided that I am gonna argue with that and say that it is absolutely fucking false.
Now, before we continue, do not get me wrong here.
Endless scrolling through short content is frying people's brains. They get instant dopamine hits every five seconds.
But I still believe, with firm conviction, that their attention spans are not being affected, at least not in the way most think.
Unfortunately, this way of thinking that people have today has deprived us of seeing fewer good long advertisements, good long videos on youtube... Hell, we even do not have that much quality webinars or lectures anymore, or even video sales letters!
Yikes.
My main argument is that people do not have shorter attention spans. They just have shorter attention spans for boring content.
Yep, content today is just plain shit and boring.
It does not offer good enough value in either terms of information nor entertainment.
I mean, take a look at the recent Joe Rogan podcast with Donald Trump. It got over 45M views in a couple of days.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way politically affiliated, I just find it fascinating.
That podcast, which is raw and unedited, gained 45 million views.
I know YouTube counts views if you watch at least 30 seconds. It also counts if you repeat the video. But, out of 45M views, what are the chances that all of them watched just 30 seconds?
I would say slim to none.
So why did people watch a 3-hour podcast?
Because it's good. It's not boring. It's a topic that people want to hear about. They are informed and entertained in the process.
If you tell me someone watched or listened to a 3-hour podcast in one sitting or while working, do they really have a low attention span?
I don’t think so.
So, the question at the table now is:
How do we create content that is valuable without sacrificing its length and still get people to consume it?
To be honest with you, I have two rules I try to follow:
Rule #1: Whatever content piece you create, put as much value in it as possible.
This means that you should literally create that content piece as if you were gonna get paid for it. Because you will.
In the long term, the more value you bring to people for free, the more they will want to pay for your stuff later.
Rule #2: If you see a content piece online that is working well, do not copy it. At least not completely.
What do I mean by this?
Well, I use LinkedIn a lot.
And LinkedIn has become a popular place for people to build their audiences.
Now, a couple of years ago, when AI started booming, people started to create their famous:
Top X AI tools for Y.
And, at that time, those were great content pieces. You get a list of tools, with an explanation of how they work, and you get good content.
Amazing.
But, at some point, everyone and their mom started greeting the same content piece. Literally copying each other, tool by tool, word by word.
So, it became completely shit and fluff.
That said, here's how to "borrow" content that works while adding value.
This goes for every content piece you can imagine, ranging from blog posts all the way to short-form videos.
Basically, do not steal the meat, but steal the skeleton.
This means that if you saw a good LinkedIn post, steal the format that they used to write, but fill it with your own value.
And make that value really good.
This way, you avoid posting worthless fluff. You won't add to the bad content on social media. Instead, you'll create amazing, unique content that gets you the attention you need.
Conclusion
The conclusion is a short one.
People do not have short attention spans, they just do not like watching boring, valueless shit.
Your task as a marketer, especially in today’s Gen Z world where there are so many options, is to treat content creation as if you are building a $1M product.
Provide as much value as possible.
This way, you can completely forget the length limitation that people believe in, and they will still watch and later beg you to buy your stuff.
Ta-daa.
That would be it for today.
Until further ado,
The Unfiltrd Writer.
P.S. Reply with "I have a perfectly good attention span" if you reached until the end. This tells me that I am not boring 🥹
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