It’s noisy out there for sure. People broadcasting their morning coffee, news from every corner of the world, companies desperately trying to get our attention and cat videos. Turns out that once we democratized the ability to broadcast, our ability to create content (noise) became unlimited. And know that there are many people out there that ‘don’t know what to say’… YET.
Naturally, we expect that the same technology that helps us connect and broadcast on the cheap to help us filter (for free). But the attempts are all imperfect and in their infancy. So we’re left to our own natural filtering devices, which in the case of humans means TUNING OUT. This is a technique we learn early on in life, when our mothers ask us to clean our room, and we continue to perfect with spouses and loud kids. It really works, simple UI and it’s a smart app that quickly learns and adapts and even sometime predicts unwanted information so you don’t even notice.
I like how Rajesh Setty from lateralaction.com described 9 ways we do this in the information overload era:
Graphic from lateralaction.com
So what to do if you are in the business of engaging people online?
Rajesh suggest a tried-and-true generic recipe of knowing your audience, establishing goals and getting feedback. But the crux of his formula resides on Step 3.
3. Unleash Your Creativity
You know the audience and you know the purpose of the article. Now the next step is to unleash your creativity and create something that will generate the kind of response that you are looking for.
Some questions to think about:
* What would be unique (content, point-of-view etc.) in this article that will make the audience do what I want them to do?
* How can you make this article “extremely relevant” to the current times?
* What can you include that will increase the “longevity” of the article?
This is the hard part. Everything else is pretty methodical, there is market research, strategic planning, feedback loops. etc. But coming up with an idea that resonates with people is still a mystery and a gamble. And we can’t replicate what worked int he past, what seemed cool and worth sharing once, seems useless and phony the second time around.
October 8th, 2009 at 11:53 am
What does it mean to be “in the business of engaging people online”? It seems like this really means “in the business of getting people’s attention”–but to what end? Curious what you think.
October 8th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Thanks for the comment! Left it pretty open for interpretation… could be good, bad, for profit or not…still face the same challenges.