Create More Content: Why Every Brand Needs to Think Like a Media Company

We’re used to waking up to our phones ablaze with notifications, some more meaningful than others. Rubbing our eyes and reintegrating with reality, we then do the red dot clearance dance, sifting through our emails, news, social media and texting apps to decide which messages warrant a response.

Consumers today live in what’s called the ‘Attention Economy,’ which means that we day trade our attention as if it were a commodity…

And it is.

Both in our daily lives and in the grander scheme of things, we are quite literally picking and choosing who or what we ‘pay attention’ to.

This may seem like nothing more than semantics, but consider this —

“Since there is a surplus of information, more information flowing through our society than any of us could ever hope to process or understand, the new bottleneck on our economy is attention…

This is why today we are each bombarded with over 3,000 advertising messages per day. This is why these advertisements get zanier and more nonsensical — like the Geico gecko or the Old Spice guy — because the goal of advertisements is no longer information, but simply attention.”

~Mark Manson, In The Future Our Attention Will Be Sold

In the ‘Age of the Internet,’ businesses first have to compete for your eyes before they can reach your pockets… And even though Spotify, Netflix, Instagram, Peloton, Playstation, Medium, and Gmail all play different roles in our lives, they still compete for our attention every single day.

As consumers, we’re constantly coming to micro-decisions as to which brand to choose, which link to click, which post to stop scrolling on.

So how can brands incentivize people to pay attention to them?

The Jump From Advertising to Content Marketing

In recent years, brands have started adapting to the growing understanding of the Attention Economy. From Meme Marketing to experiential activations to influencer partnerships and so forth, companies are experimenting with new, creative ways to grab a slice of the attention pie.

At the heart of this shift is a move from traditional ‘spray-and-pray’ methods popularized through radio and television commercials, to something more targeted, individualistic and engaging. Indeed, advertising today no longer feels like advertising; with the ability to skip ads, pay for their removal or simply shift focus momentarily, companies need to rethink how they promote themselves in a way that feels non-invasive and is actually entertaining.

This means meeting consumers where they’re already spending the bulk of their time: social media.

With over 3.5 billion users (roughly 45% of the global population), social media has become the modern day colosseum for attention gladiators. Brands that fail to capitalize on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium and so on are leaving an incredible potential for doing business on the table.

As Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of Vaynermedia said to talkshow host Larry King,

“Social media is a slang term for ‘the current state of the internet.’ When you position it that way, you start to take it a lot more seriously.”

So how should organizations approach social?

It’s Time to Start Thinking Like a Media Company

Whether you’re in software, real estate, fast food, beauty, tech, retail or transportation, it’s not enough to sell a product or service — people first have to know you exist.

To that effect, ‘being’ on social media is just the start; your real goal is to leverage the platform to command attention. To do this, you’ll need to truly resonate with your audience by dissecting what it is they consume and delivering it to them in a format they’re comfortable with.

This format can be considered your company’s content.

Unlike traditional advertising, content is targeted (and therefore significantly more cost-effective). It engages viewers in a two-way conversation, and it lives where your customers are already spending the bulk of their time. In short, content has become the very currency of the Attention Economy.

Sharing content helps us connect. Connection helps us engage. Engagement leads to a relationship. Relationships lead to friendship and possibly endearment. In the industrial economy, we congregated in front of the TV, read newspapers and magazines, gathered around the radio and saw signage that told us what to believe. In the sharing economy, technology has allowed us to connect, engage, question, critique, criticize or concur. Humans are social animals, and we still need something to spur connection. Content acts as that stimulant. Content is our true currency.

~Fast Co. article by Geoffrey Colon, VP of Social at Ogilvy

In the 21st Century, everyone should be thinking like a media company. You have to stand out for customer buy-in, and brands that value social media and create an effective content strategy will inevitably accelerate their growth and put themselves in direct conversation with their users to learn from them and iterate on their process.

Social media and content creation can no longer be treated as an after-thought — they’re key ingredients in the recipe for online success.

Are you playing to this new reality?