How to Stand Out in A 3-Second World

Attention spans are at a historical all-time low. The first three to five seconds of any marketing piece you post on social media determines its engagement level. These first few seconds are the focus of social media expert and digital strategist, Brendan Kane. Brendan’s new book, Hook Point: How to Stand Out in a 3-Second World, brings this into perspective as he teaches businesses and leaders how to make their brand stand out amidst all the digital noise, which is perhaps one of the most difficult pieces of operating a business. 

“Attention is the biggest asset in terms of growing your brand, sharing your message or whatever impact that you would have on the world.” -Brendan Kane

 The Struggle is (very) Real 

The average person is exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 ads per day. This level of information overload makes it difficult for businesses like mine and yours to compete - especially when we are up against, not only our own competition but the likes of Lebron James, Netflix, or CNN. This is why it is incredibly important to be aligned with your brand, your messaging, and your core goals and values. 

4 Core Pillars to a Hook Point 

According to Brendan’s book, a hook point is designed to grab attention from the get-go with a very specific system. 

• #1- Grabbing attention. Getting somebody to stop in those first 3 to 5 seconds so that you can win the first part of that conversation.
• #2- Your story. What is it that you want to express? What is the message that you want to share? What is it that you want to talk about your product, service, or the value that you provide?
• #3- Building trust. Do people trust it? Do they believe it? Does it come off credible? All three of these have to play together because if you don’t grab somebody’s attention in the first 3 to 5 seconds, you’ll never get to your story. If you grab somebody’s attention but your story is not good, you don’t retain that attention. 
• #4- Believe-ability. The fourth is if you have a great hook, get somebody to stop, and you have a powerful story but people don’t believe, it doesn’t come off credible, and then it falls apart. Success requires all 4-pillars in the right order. 

 3 Key Mistakes to Avoid

Marketing is never one-size-fits-all and it certainly is never easy but there are very clear, and common, mistakes that Brendan sees all the time so let’s talk about that. 

1. Skipping pillar one in the list above. People treat that first 3 to 5 seconds as their story or their product and overwhelm the user right from the start.  You’ve got to think about what is going to get them to stop the scrolling, stop on a busy street, or stop in a meeting to give you their attention. 
2. Lacking originality. Saying the same thing in the same way as everybody else triggers the user's subconscious to say, “I already know what this is going to say”, and then you’ve lost them. People have endless content that they can go through. If they think that they’ve seen it before, they’re going to skip it.
3. Being too predictable. Our company trains public speakers and people specifically that want to deliver high stakes talks like TEDx Talk, for example. The death knell to effective and impactful public speaking is to be predictable. It’s not so much about being a boring speaker, even though people would call it that. It’s about being unpredictable. You maintain a person’s attention by not playing into their natural instinct because, as humans, we’ve adapted to be able to see how things are going to turn out very quickly. Oftentimes, we see an ad or a commercial and we already know where it’s going because our brain is the great predictor. As soon as you know where something is going, it’s no longer interesting. It’s not novel or unique, there’s nothing to learn, and you’re off checking your Facebook again, or whatever it is you’re doing that’s distracting you habitually. 

When we share a story and we connect with our users, whether we are letting them know we feel their pain, or we are putting ourselves in the same place as them, we create space for authenticity, trust, and credibility. 

To hear on this topic, tune into this episode on The Conscious PIVOT Podcast.