Attention and Trust 2019

I have some insight to share, but first, we must lament together.

Marketers ruin our communications channels. Businesses wreck everything. We catch the vague glimpse of a potential path to someone's attention, or some trick or method, and we beat it into the ground until normal people would never ever react to us ever again. My friend Chris Garrett often says in those moments, "This is why we can't have nice things."

Social Media Was Supposed to Be The Chosen One

Straightforward advertising was losing ground with earning customers, and right as that started to get serious, social networks suddenly became popular. MySpace gave way to Facebook. Twitter showed up. YouTube became a place where you could post amateur video. Hundreds of long forgotten sites popped up as well (I can name far too many from memory.) And they were grand at first.

The early days of Twitter felt like a genuine back and forth. I wrote a New York Times bestselling book about it with Julien Smith because we knew that there was magic happening in social networks.

But companies came along and ate it. They tried to algorithm and automate and buy their way into every potential path to attention. They put their most junior people in charge of slathering something out to people on whichever channels they inhabited. Most of it was garbage and didn't relate.

Digital Minimalism is the Norm (or Will Be) and It's Growing

It seems like fewer and fewer people are staying attached to the digital world for large periods of time. We all have devices and accounts, but who checks them? Numbers are saying fewer and fewer.

People are trying to break up with their mobile devices. There's a stress and anxiety to being inundated with all the updates. There's a strong sense of envy when they can check Instagram and see their peers with shiny new cars and their toes in tropical sand. And they're mad that companies keep crashing their parties with ads that don't represent their interests and passions.

It feels a lot like everyone's just yelling/posting AT everyone else and nothing is connecting and no one is really communicating. This is far afield from what was intended, and it's harder and harder to reach the people who are still left and still willing to be online.

Everyone feels extra invisible, and at a point in time where identity matters more than ever before.

How can a company reach people and serve those who would benefit from their services and products?

Attention and Trust 2019

What's changed the most over the last several years since I wrote Trust Agents with Julien Smith is that people feel stuffed, overwhelmed, stressed out, and overly busy. All the digital and social channels are stuffed with "Which Game of Thrones character are you?" quizzes and Instagram stories of "influencers" enjoying a new skin cream that will surely make you look five years younger.

What hasn't changed at all is this: We all want people to love what we sell, but it is only when people feel seen and understood that they are ready to buy.

If a company wants to earn the attention of buyers (B2B or B2C), they will have to work harder than ever on reaching and connecting with people on social channels. If you solve a specific problem that not many other people solve, you'll still get plenty of traffic from advertising. If you're hoping to reach and persuade people to choose you over several other competing brands, that's where you'll have to do some work.

The Snack, The Show, and the Letter

Traffic has shown that people are abandoning sites like Facebook but that Instagram is on the rise. Social networks are seeing more traffic in "stories" products, which imitate the quick snap features and slideshow style of Snapchat. People want "snacks."

If you have relevant and useful information, your first possible chance to reach people is with a "snack." Give them a detail that might earn a click. Not junk. Not "hot or not" surveys or the like (though all work and no play, they say...). Give people a snack.

Video is on the rise in big ways, as is podcasting. A "show" can be audio, video, or even a well-turned written piece. Audio shows run over 10 minutes or as long as an hour or so. (To me, the best podcasts match the average commute time of their intended audience.) Video shows on YouTube are viable between 10 and 20 minutes. (Don't forget, you can make snacks on YouTube with under-2-minute videos). LinkedIn video is picking up steam as well.

What people want in a show is more engagement, more entertainment, and a sense that you SEE the person you're trying to connect with and entertain. Shows are more personal (and must be more personable) than snacks. If you do well with a show, eventually, you earn access to a person's inbox, where you can send a letter.

The "letter" is where most companies could stand to do the most work (I consult on this!). Your access to someone's inbox must be treated as sacred. Stop sending your junk drawer worst material to people and wondering why your open rates and clicks are so low. In the new world, where attention and trust are very scarce, where people are abandoning (or deeply pruning) their social networks, if you earn access to send someone a newsletter (the letter), you've got your hands on potential gold. (If you TREAT it like gold. Most companies treat newsletters like a chore, not the win.)

Attention will be lost when companies don't try to reach specific people and recognize their identities. Where automation may be a good thing on so many fronts, it rarely works in the area of helping people feel an affinity for your brand and what you sell. We win this back by being far more personable and connective with the snack, the show, and the letter.

Invite People to the Picnic

People are tired of feeling imperfect. They're worried about all their dents, their challenges, their stress and depression. They've got family members dealing with addiction or they're dealing with their own challenges of identity or seeking a connection with people as unique as they are. And while this isn't the duty of companies, there are so many opportunities to earn people's attention and trust.

A picnic is an informal gathering. More than strangers and closer to family, but "family" however we want to define it. Picnics don't have to be perfect. Someone brings something to grill. Another person brings a watermelon. Maybe there's a cool beverage to share. You can't cook so you bring the napkins and forks. You get the feeling.

I think even the biggest companies have to get a bit more "picnic-sized" in their looking at outreach, attraction, sales, and conversion. If you speak to everyone, you're heard by no one. Sure, make your big ads say whatever they're saying, but use your other resources to reach and engage with specific groups at a time.

The challenge is: you need to create more than one picnic. (And by picnic, it's like taking David Meerman Scott's "buyer persona" idea and stretching it to small-to-midsized community of personas.)

Saving the environment is great, but if some people are worried about just making rent and having a job for the rest of the year, they don't care if your beer has biodegradable tabs. Other people need to know that you're going to stop over-packaging your products. Another group wants to know you're going to offer support beyond the sale. That's all they care about. That you'll hold their hand once they've purchased, instead of being abandoned like your competitor left them.

City folk don't speak well for rural types, and the coasts don't seem to understand what's going on in the middle of the country and there's plenty of feeling of disillusionment going around in every direction. But that's the negative side of the story. It's easy for everyone to feel quite #dented and broken down.

So make a picnic. Make one for whichever groups and clumps of people you think you can best serve. And make another for some other groups. And make some for groups that might actually grow beyond what you sell into a space where they flourish and they'll need to bring more of what you sell into the equation. It's such a beautiful opportunity.

And it's revenue. Revenue that comes from earning the attention and trust of all those people out there who feel invisible, who feel dented, and who are ready to be invited to the picnic where they feel seen, and where they feel like they belong.

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Chris Brogan is a business and marketing advisor. He's also a New York Times bestselling author of nine books and counting, working on his tenth about this kind of stuff.

If you want to reach out, drop a line via email: [email protected] or check out his super nifty newsletter here.