30 Seconds Of Attention

(this article is only available in english)

I’m observing a phenomenon in social media. And I am not directly annoyed by it, but I wish for something.

When it comes to getting the attention of the audience marauding through the social media world with the help of your own content, you read a lot of tips. Scroll stoppers, eye-catching images or songs and crazy gestures, which serve to keep the viewer from scrolling further.

This is followed by a successful, short and fresh summary of the content you want to convey. Not.

It is rather the opposite. It usually follows boring babble that was picked up somewhere on another channel and you rarely find original content. Many do not know how to communicate their product, information or request in short words.

Usually this happens when you don’t know exactly what you are talking about. If I am not familiar with the topic to be communicated, information follows that is poorly summarized and not understood. In addition, most videos and texts are much too long.

And that sucks. I don’t want to be talked to about how great everything is and what amazing information comes at the end of the video. I don’t have time for that! I do not want to be held 5 hours to get at the end of a piece of information which was already told 3 posts earlier by someone else.

When I go to the movies. Then I have 3 hours to escape from reality. If I have serious intentions, then I get to the point.

If it is not an explicit blog article, as in this case, but a social media post, I try not just to get the attention of the audience within the first 2 seconds, but also to communicate within 30 seconds what should be communicated.

Whether it’s a call-to-action, pure information or entertainment. Social media is fast paced and the attention span of your followers is short. People want to experience what they see quickly and then move on to the next post.

But if your audience sees something that they find interesting, they will take a moment to look at the content. But only briefly. So try not to keep the information you want to convey too complicated or too long.

30 seconds of attention. That’s what you have.

So here is a little task for you: In the future, when someone asks you what you do for work, where you went on vacation or what your plans are for the week, try to summarize it in 30 seconds.

You can start in the comments, if you want!

Cheers,

Andreas