Getting ATTENTION in the Attention Economy!

Recently, I have been spending a bit more time than usual looking at social media outside our little Steemitsphere. Mostly, this has been the result of several recent "challenges" to take Steem "to the world" to a wider audience.

I used to spend a lot more time with things like twitter and Facebook... mostly to help promote my various niche blogs. So — in a way — it's familiar territory.

This flower wants attention!

This "Attention" Economy

The new buzz-phrase for our time seems to be that we are now part of the "Attention Economy."

There's a huge ocean of people out there, and we are all trying to get a little slice of attention for our content. I follow almost 2000 people with my twitter account, and it seems like something new floats through my feed about every 2-3 seconds!

Makes me ponder just what an almost Herculean task it is to keep up with all of it. Truth be known, I don't keep up with all of it. And watching this constant flow of content come cycling by made me pause ad wonder just how much we are actually — and reasonably — able to keep up with.

As a 100% manual curator here in the Steemitsphere, I rarely interact with much more than 40-50 pieces of content per day; less now than I did during my more enthusiastic starting months here. A quick gander at my SteemWorld stats tells me that I have given about 49,000 upvotes in my 750-ish days here. That works out to about 65 votes per day... but keep in mind that a large number of those were given to comments on my own posts... which have been many.

Of course, very few people are "100% manual" on this site... or any social content site.

Winter view across the bay

A Few Good Quality People!

It seems to me that we often put too much emphasis on sheer numbers in this game.

Maybe it works for some to have millions and millions of followers, and I could see how it would be important if you run a YouTube channel and depend on monetizing it with advertising... and your objective is to just have a large audience, rather than to be interactive with anyone.

I am predominantly what you'd call a blogger and I am both here for the sake of writing, as well as to interact with others. And — getting back to what I said above — it's only possible to interact with so many people.

And so, my "Attention Getting" strategy has pretty much always focused on trying to build relationships with other people, rather than just trying to "pump up the numbers."

And since I am not given to just releasing a long stream of random memes all day long, I am well aware that I probably appeal to a smaller audience, to begin with.

To wit, back when we had a much larger problem with "spammy" comments, someone asked me how come I seemed able to often get 30-50 comments on my posts and yet almost none of them were spam... and I had to come to terms with the reality that it was because most people simply aren't interested in content they need to actually read and interact with.

Maybe that sounds a bit arrogant and judgmental, but we all have our preferences.And I would much rather have 50 readers than 500 "followers" on my blog, any day!

Winter bird in one of our trees... waiting for me to refill the feeder

Well... is it WORTH Giving Attention to?

I often see the question asked, as to how you get "attention" in this new Attention Economy.

Simple and obvious as it may seem, my first reply to that is always whether what you have to offer is WORTH paying attention to. It's a bit like having a restaurant: It's not enough to simply have "something edible," you have to have GOOD food and it has to somehow distinguish itself from what everyone else is serving.

Which brings me around to a common discussion... about "quality content."

It might surprise you to know that I don't actually care all that much about so-called "quality content." What I care about is whether something "adds value," in some way. And central to that — at least for me — is whether you have something original to offer?

Even if you are sharing something — a news story, for example — that has been seen thousands of times already, what I want to know is whether you put your own personal spin on it, to make it original; to make it yours. If you're sharing a meatloaf recipe, at least tell me what makes it awesome, and let me know that you tried it, yourself.

That's how you walk down the road to getting attention. It's pretty simple, really — no great "magic," or "rocket science" involved!

Even so, it can still be a very slow process... as I am discovering, in the process of kicking life back into a twitter account that hasn't seen much activity in a couple of years.

It reminds me that the OTHER thing that's really important is consistency and perseverance!

Thanks for reading!

What do YOU think? How are you navigating the "Attention Economy?" Do you have a strategy to get "attention" to your content? Do you use external promotion — social media — to draw attention to your Steemit blog? Are you a member of support forums or Discord channels? Or are you just letting the content "speak for itself," without marketing? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 190215 00:35 PST
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