“So what’s a marketer supposed to do to bypass the shrinking attention span of his audience?”
Years from now, the phrase “You have the attention span of a goldfish” will be replaced with “you have the attention span of a person from 2013!”. It doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, I agree, but the message here is that whether we like it or not, we will surpass the goldfish’s record of shortest attention span.
Our tolerance for longer messages and especially ads has dwindled to mere seconds. We can barely wait for the “skip ad” prompt on YouTube videos, and it’s only a matter of a five-second wait!
So what’s a marketer supposed to do to bypass the shrinking attention span of his audience?
They have to adapt, that’s what a lot of major corporations are doing. The good thing is that companies big and small have now realized that people would rather have ads that are more personalized. This means that people need to see a “face” and not just your products.
Adding a human element to your Instagram pictures and videos creates a sort of connection with your audience that no amount of “generic” posts can replace.
So where does this leave you, the entrepreneur with your start-up, staring at the screen of your iPhone, wondering how to make it work?
Well, start off with pictures of projects that you work on, exhibiting different stages of the project from start to finish using a collage app. There’s absolutely no need to have separate posts for this as it will crowd your followers’ feed and work against you.
For videos, it’s best to use them sparingly. Instagram video is relatively new and people and businesses are yet to untap its full potential.
If you have the capability of summing up your full message into a 15 second video then by all means, use it.
“No longer can long(-ish) ads be thrust upon us without consequence.”
What I love about this new medium is that it is now forcing even huge corporations like GE to taking a more personalized approach to advertising. They are now posting videos of their employees in a fun and lighthearted way as opposed to the more corporate and professional looking videos that usually remind you of the office instead of prompting you to buy their products.
No longer can long(-ish) ads be thrust upon us without consequence.
In the past, when TV ads rub its viewers the wrong way, it took an angry letter, email or visit to get your views across. Nowadays though, a few “you suck, get out of my feed!” comments and the company will go back to the drawing board. But that usually applies to much larger companies who pay Instagram to enter your feed irrespective of you following them.
Things will be less harsh on smaller local companies since your followers will be people who have followed you because of your product or are friends and family but balance is still key. Don’t overdo it by having many posts a day but also, don’t disappear for so long that your followers forget that you exist.
The biggest advantage of Instagram video is the fact that you can easily get your products’ features across in short easy-to-digest 15 second snippets.
My personal biggest no-no in Instagram is catering to the lowest denominator. For example, if you’re a dentist, you don’t need to show me the different kinds of oral ulcers and gum diseases. If you’re a nutritionist you don’t need to post pictures of malnutritioned human insides or whatever and if you’re into politics, for God’s sake please refrain from posting graphic pictures of war victims. Not everyone has the stomach for such images.
Since Instagram and other social networks are now an extension of the human condition, just a bit of common sense is all it takes to create good posts to help boost your business.
