Attention is a finite resource.
It’s critical to engagement and becoming harder to capture. Whether you believe the claims of shrinking attention spans, there is an appetite for shorter, punchier content that can cut through the noise and reach its intended audience.
But where did all the noise come from?
While many countries and companies are striving to reduce their greenhouse emissions, we see the rise of another type of pollution that has taken the digital world by storm.
That’s content pollution.
Content pollution refers to the endless transmission of digital content, often spammy, unoriginal and prioritising quantity over quality. This clumsy content consistently fails in its purpose: connecting two parties together. Whether it’s to promote awareness, entertain, inspire, inform or persuade, your content should make a connection between you and the audience. Some content misses that mark. That happens. But when it’s repeated, the content stops adding value, starts losing your audience’s attention and negatively affects your reputation.
And it has the potential to get worse.
We’ve already talked about our stance on Gen AI, and how vital it is to have a policy for this rapidly developing tech. There are a lot of benefits to GenAI: one of the primary ‘advantages’ is the ability to rapidly create content. McKinsey’s 2022 Global Survey on AI found a huge 150% increase in companies adopting AI technologies between 2017 and 2022. For so many of these adopters, with multiple distribution channels, it’s never been easier to get content out into the world.
But that doesn’t mean it’s good.
GenAI has its pros and cons, and one of the biggest downsides is quality control. It takes time to identify AI ‘hallucinations’, such as inaccurate or fabricated statistics. At risk is your audience’s trust in you as a reliable source. GenAI is highly dependent on the material it is trained on. The results it generates, which people then post online, often unedited, are fed back into the source pool of material. The result is more bland, generic content lacking personality and flair, content that adds to this pollution instead of to your business value and proposition. And, like all bland things, it’s quickly forgotten.
If a person didn’t take the time to make the content, to tailor the messaging and attempt to connect, why should the audience take the time and expend its attention to listen? Investment isn’t just for the stakeholders’ table. Audiences don’t give their attention for free. They pay it, and in return it’s the provider’s role to return on that investment, by providing entertainment, education, reassurance, persuasion or inspiration.
Avoid from adding to the pollution cloud:
Reduce: No one enjoys being spammed. Consider if your strategy might be more effective if content is spaced out. And focus on providing a good return on attention investment over vanity engagement metrics such as views. Multiple social media programs and add-ons have been developed to prevent ‘spam’ posts and notifications from negatively impacting user experience.
Repurpose: Good quality content continues to deliver over time and often has a much longer shelf-life than its unedited, AI-generated counterparts. It’s worth revisiting your old campaigns and content, analysing the data around these pieces to discover what worked and aiming to incorporate those elements into future campaigns.
Redefine: After you’ve identified what worked, it’s vital to take those elements and add something new. A fresh opinion, a characterful viewpoint, a connection that hasn’t been made before. The value of your content is created in this step, and this is the step GenAI can’t manage. This is the part your audience is interested in.
The audience for any piece of content pays in its attention. Make your content worth that investment by ensuring a quality experience that adds value, not noise.
