The Blah, Blah, Ice Cream
I recently enjoyed an episode of one of my favorite podcasts, Back to Work, where Merlin Mann, one of its hosts, described with unbelievable accuracy a scenario I’ve experienced often with my children. When we’ve set aside a day to do something fun for one of my children’s birthdays, we’ll often ask the question, “What do you want to do?” Because you can’t ask a child an open ended question like that, we usually throw out a few options. “We could go to the zoo, we could go to the park, we could go for a nature walk, we could go get some ice cream, etc.” What they hear is, “Blah, blah, blah, ice cream.” Turns out, this doesn’t necessarily get better with age. Generally speaking, we listen for important information, but if it sounds like stuff we already know or don’t really care about, we tend to gloss over it. This happens not only in conversation, but with written articles, radio commercials, and even video. This is why there is such thing as visual hierarchy, and why the voice over person for the car commercial repeats the phone number of the dealership 10 times. As a person who’s worked with video, I’ve benefited from this phenomenon. People see what they expect to see. That’s why, when pointing out a small mistake I’ve covered up or some kind of visual trick, I hear, “Wow, I wouldn’t have seen that had you not pointed it out to me.”
Not As Close
I often forget when communicating to another human being, that they don’t care about what I’m saying as much as I do. They aren’t thinking about what I’m saying the way I am. They don’t have nearly as much context for what’s coming out of my mouth as I do. Details I think are important, they may brush aside. Hidden meanings I am afraid might be coming out, don’t even occur to the listener. No one is as close to what you’re saying or thinking as you are.
Lazy or Efficient?
You may chalk up our lack of attention to detail as laziness, but the truth is that our brains work this way out of efficiency. There’s WAY too much data to process were we to take in the full detail of every moment. Our brains would literally melt. So it takes shortcuts where it can so that it can give the most processing power to the really important information. Not long ago, relatively speaking, this processing power was reserved primarily for managing threats and securing our livelihood. In more recent history, there are fewer threats in our environment and food is more abundant, but our minds will still give priority to things having to do with basic survival before sharing resources with higher thinking. Breaking into human attention is an art that has been practiced and honed into a science over the past hundred or so years. Methods have changed over the years, but if you’re paying attention (see what I did there) you may notice a pattern. A “new” type of attention grabbing stimulus is introduced. People respond to this stimulus. Other marketers notice and employ the same tactic. People notice the overuse of said stimulus. It decreases in effectiveness until it fades into a category called white noise. This happens over and over and over again.
Under-Sharing
So you’ve recognized a rising marketing trend and you want to use it to your advantage to share your message with people, but you don’t want to be overbearing, so you make an announcement. Or you post a status. Or you share a video. Is that enough? Effective as that marketing method may be, unless people really care about you, they will likely miss your single share. It will pass through their feed (if at all) faster than a walrus covered in olive oil sliding down a water chute.
Over-Sharing
So is there really such thing as over-sharing when people seem to be paying such little attention? This is where it gets tricky. People may not be paying close enough attention to see your single announcement or post, but they are paying attention enough to know when someone or something is polluting their environment with noise. While this is a form of attention, this is not the kind of attention you really want. Noise, after-all, gets in the way of our ability to process important information.
Consistent, New, and Valuable
This approach trumps all tactics, and transcends all trends: Be consistent. Consistency gives you the “top-of-mind” position you’re looking for. Be new. Don’t say the same thing over and over. Actually, say the same thing, but offer a new angle every time you say it. Offer value. A majority of communication is focused on taking. Not only is giving a form of novelty, but it also has a somewhat irresistible quality. It’s the reason why I stop by the sushi counter at the grocery store every single time I go shopping. I will suffer through the sales pitch because I love free sushi samples. How consistent should you be? Remember, people don’t see or hear nearly as much as you think they do. I would start with weekly and work your way up from there. If you can share something new and valuable and do that consistently, you are well on your way to getting people to see, to hear, to know your message.