no pressure. AT ALL.
There’s no denying that phones have become a vital part of our daily lives. From watching tik toks before getting up in the morning, reading the news on the way to work to looking for dinner recipes online on the way back home in the evening — it has become a convenience, almost none of us wouldn’t want to live without.
With the huge flood of content that hits the consumers everyday, it has become more and more important to focus on the most precious currency when it comes to marketing: attention.
The average person is exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads every 24 hours and simultaneously the attention span of the consumer has dropped to eight seconds — our brains got used to getting answers to every possible question and to get it very fast.
Growth strategist Brendan Kane recently published his book Hook Point: How to stand out in a 3 — second world.
When talking about hooks, he is referring to the first three to five seconds that audiences are spending consuming the content. Knowing how to build hooks and keep them up-to-date is the most valuable skillset that people in content marketing can have. Most people are caught up in building followers or hunting conversions, which are important — but if one can’t figure out how to hook people it’s not going to sustain.
In constructing a powerful hook that’s effective, there are three core pillars:
- the hook itself
which Kane explains to be designed to capture attention such as pattern interruption by standing out from the crowd - the story
you have to have a compelling story to match the attention that you’re going to grab because if you grab the attention and you don’t deliver, it won’t work. And that’s typically what happens with clickbait. - authenticity and credibility
Do people believe what you are telling them? Is your brand trustworthy?
Understanding the basics of powerful communication and combining them with compelling hooks is the first step to revolutionise every single aspect of a business, whether we’re talking about organic social content, paid ads, landing pages, emails, or business development.
It will become more and more difficult because the attention span will become shorter and shorter and the amount of content we are exposed to is steadily increasing — so I’m really curious how this will take us in terms of content marketing and which creative solutions will sprout from it.
If you’re interested in Brendan Kane’s work, go on and listen to this episode of the From Zero to One Million Followers podcast. If you’re more into digital minimalism and want to learn more about how to stand out online, check out this wonderful post published by my colleague Daniela.
