Do you ever think about your social media audience’s two most precious commodities?
By using social media to promote our businesses, we are, by default, asking our audiences to give us some of these, so shouldn’t we be more aware of this?
I explain below – in the video and the transcript.
What I wanted to talk about today are two hugely precious commodities … really precious commodities for our audience. And even if our audiences don’t realize it, they are. We, as businesses and marketers, need to respect that. And in my experience, from what I see around in online marketing, we don’t respect these amazingly precious commodities or resources enough. So what are they?
Number one, attention … your audience’s attention. It’s something that they gift to you when they are consuming your content, whether they’re reading something, whether they’re watching your video, whether they just happen to notice an image that you’ve shared out there, their attention is a gift that they are giving you in that precise moment. And we don’t necessarily treat that with, I feel like, the reverence that it deserves. Our audience have given us a gift and a lot of times we are not actually repaying them with the value they deserve. Would you agree?
And the other massively precious commodity or resource that’s related to that is, of course, time. People see our content online, they give us their attention while we initially attract them to our content, and then they decide whether to give us their time or not. Whether that is a 10-second video, whether that is four minutes to read our blog, whether that’s two minutes to decide whether to open our email and then to read the contents, our audience, our potential prospects, our potential clients, our current customers, whoever it is, they are giving us their time. And that they will never get back.
And as business owners and marketers, we need to be uber respectful of that because our audience, the people that we’re talking to, the people that we’re trying to attract, they may not even recognize that they are squandering time and energy and attention online.
It is our duty, to respect their time, as they will never get it back again. Similarly, if they’ve given us attention and energy, it’s taking from the pot they have for that day – the pot that they may need to divide up among many other people and projects. Those other people could include their children, their loved ones, their family, the people that they work with …
People are making a choice to pay attention to us … to give us their time. And when they make that choice, it means they’re saying no to another choice, whether they’re consciously doing that or not.
And we are just not as aware of that, as business owners and marketers, as we should be.
If we were aware, then there would be so much less rubbish content being shared out there on social media and online, wouldn’t there?
If we were really painfully aware of the irreversible choice that someone makes every time they pay attention to us, it, we would only share stuff out there that we thought would help to make our audience’s lives better.
Whether that’s something that teaches them, whether it’s something that enables them to do something quicker or faster or easier, whether it’s something that just brings awareness, whether it’s something that entertains them, uplifts them, inspires them, challenges them, allows them to feel connected with another human being …
There’s far too much social media content out there that doesn’t fall into any of those groups.
And that comes from business owners and marketers not thinking enough about the people that they want to attract and interact with. Not only is poor quality content not going to serve you, the business owner, in terms of your social media marketing, but it is also not going to serve your audience in making their lives better. And it just adds to the noise and overwhelm that affect all of us, daily.
If someone has gifted you their attention and their time, don’t they deserve to have their lives made better in some way?
Social media marketing does not have to be all about you reminding us that you’re there. It is not about you just trying to be top of mind.
Social media marketing is about meeting people, growing trust and relationships – and that can only be based on respect. It’s like an equation … an equation of giving and receiving. And that equation should be balanced.
Your audience are giving you their time and attention, what are you giving them in return?
I’d really love to know what you think about this subject because it’s something that I feel really strongly about and it’s something that I’m acutely aware of when I’m creating posts and videos and blogs and when I’m seeing anything else out there online …
(It’s why I have a problem with seeing people creating Instagram stories that include pics of them just making a cup of coffee. It’s like, we know what making a cup of coffee looks like! Unless you’ve done something humorous or different or you’re talking to us about something amazing at the same time, do we really need to see you making a cup of coffee?)
In summary:
And as I shared in the Instagram post that accompanied this image:
” Do you really value attention?
When someone gives you their attention, they are giving you some of their most precious resource – time.
Just think – instead of spending those few minutes on your content, they could have chosen to spend time with their family, or to sleep, or to call a dear friend. Anything, in fact!
But they chose to give you their attention.
Do you really value that?”
I’d love to know what you think of this subject so please let me know in the comments.