ATTENTIONOMICS: CAPTIVATING ATTENTION IN THE AGE OF CONTENT DECAY

This posts covers a new Edelman Digital Insights package we're releasing today on "Attentionomics." 

 

The essence of this deck is that attention is linked with economic value creation. However, with infinite content options (space) yet finite attention (time) and personalized social algorithms curating it all for us, it's going to be increasingly challenging to stand out.

 

Let's  consider Twitter, for example. They are seeing a staggering 110 million tweets per day. And the volume is growing. But therein lies the challenge. Each tweet decays almost as soon as it is released. Some 92% of all retweets (and 97% of replies) are within the first 60 minutesaccording to Sysomos.

 

 

The situation in some ways is worse on Facebook where a highly personalized algorithm called EdgeRank curates our feed based on personal affinities, content formats and timeliness. There's not just one Facebook but 500M Facebooks. And, according to Vitrue, the majority of us participate at top and bottom of the hour. This means that anything you post to your Facebook page needs to create a social surge well before then.

 

 

So how do you make this work in your favor? Simple, businesses must obey the laws of attentionomics (e.g.) time and space. In the deck above you will find two sets of solutions. 

 

The first set of solutions covers space. It explains how to scale their surface area via digital embassies by...

• Hand-crafting your content for each embassy
• Activating employees as thought leaders
• Tightly integrating owned and social assets

The second section covers time and how to make it your ally through "dayparted engagement." The action steps here include:

• Practicing mindfulness with bifocal awareness (different than, but related to monitoring)
• Optimizing for the best times to engage
• Testing, planning and measuring

If you're an Edelman client you will also get access to specific tools and techniques, but I will share one with you today. Check out Timely, a brand new tool from Flowtown that helps you optimize your tweets and track their performance. It's a good start and they are planning to add some Pro services soon that I hope will elevate this into a must-use tool.

 

 

http://www.steverubel.com/attentionomics-captivating-attention-in-the-a