Hacking Attention
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Aj Kohn discusses the importance of understanding attention in content creation, emphasizing that while content can be overwhelming, the focus should be on optimizing the retention of that attention. He highlights cognitive fluency, readability, and the role of memorable presentation in engaging audiences. Finally, Kohn suggests that effective content should be easily shareable and consistently presented to enhance user connection and retention.
Hacking Attention
- 3. My name is AJ Kohn
- 4. Pennsylvania
- 6. Advertising
- 7. Internet
- 8. Search
- 9. Blind Five Year Old Established 2007
- 11. I’ll be talking a lot about science
- 12. Content
- 13. May I have your attention please?
- 17. “You’re getting all hung up, all hung up on imaginary problems.”
- 18. There are more hours of attention than hours in a day http://bit.ly/activatetech2016
- 19. A huge amount of attention is up for grabs
- 20. Content about yarn bombing doesn’t compete with content about fantasy football week 11 sleepers
- 21. Content is produced for a specific audience
- 22. A lot of content out there is just … bad
- 23. The content apocalypse is a lie
- 24. Content is still important as ever
- 25. Content
- 26. Quality
- 27. This is the number one selling beer in America in 2014
- 28. Valuable
- 29. A collection of Anna Kendrick Tweets brings in over 1MM views
- 30. Emotional
- 32. There is no real formula for creating ‘great’ content
- 33. Frankly my dear I don’t give a damn
- 35. Don’t you forget about ‘me’
- 36. We spend too much time worrying about getting attention and spend too little optimizing what to do with that attention
- 37. Now what?
- 39. “Anything that affects the feeling of the ease or difficulty of mental processing can — and does— affect people’s judgments and decisions.”
- 40. People prefer things that are easy to think about and process
- 41. Don’t make me think!
- 43. Readability
- 44. The question isn’t ‘Can you read it?’ instead it’s ‘Do you want to read it?’
- 45. The Golden Ratio of Typography http://bit.ly/fibonaccitypography
- 46. Inthebeginning,theUniversewas created.Thishasmadealotofpeoplevery angryandhasbeenwidelyregardedasa badmove. In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
- 48. In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
- 49. 28%
- 50. Most users don’t read but skim and scan instead http://bit.ly/usersdontread
- 51. First you looked here Then here
- 52. A penny for a paragraph return
- 53. Mirroring
- 54. Keyword rich text and subheads allow users to resume reading at any time
- 55. Keyword is not a four letter word
- 56. But what about user delight?
- 57. Could you not
- 58. Much of design is about impressing other designers and not about users
- 59. Images
- 60. Powerful if they connect with your content and reader
- 61. But images can also backfire and distract Why is this woman laughing while eating salad?
- 62. Music
- 63. Music stimulates more parts of the brain than any other function
- 64. You’ll remember more if I can get you to access that part of your brain while reading my content
- 65. It’s not what you say It’s how you present it
- 66. Memory
- 68. The average adult brain is able to store between 5 to 9 “chunks” of information in working memory
- 69. The brain sorts and files things away by category and how they relate to each other
- 71. Our brains are hardwired to take shortcuts
- 72. Roomnesia
- 73. Crossing a threshold purges our memory, freeing it up for what’s next
- 75. Gabriel Weinberg CEO, DuckDuckGo “When people describe you or your company what is the first thing they say? What do they lead with? That's your leading characteristic.”
- 76. That guy who writes about Google patents
- 77. That guy who writes about Google patents
- 80. #RCS
- 81. #RCS
- 82. Your content has to be cocktail party proof
- 83. Stop writing for people and start writing for search engines http://bit.ly/focusedwriting
- 84. The Triangle of Memory
- 87. That post by _____ about _____ That piece about _____ on _____ That article by _____ on _____
- 88. It’s sort of like reverse keyword research
- 89. Get the user to click Content is presented well Content is cocktail party ready
- 90. Repetition
- 91. Watch any pro football this year?
- 93. Share your content multiple times Promote your content in multiple places Take advantage of remarketing
- 94. Consistency
- 97. It won’t happen overnight
- 98. Stay on target
- 99. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts - Aristotle
- 100. Over time, through repeated exposure, I know what to expect when I see something from BuzzFeed
- 101. What else can we do to make sure people remember?
- 102. Sharing
- 103. This makes sense if you understand that people just want to feel like an article is important enough to share
- 104. TL;DR subhead is
- 105. Consistent, branded and socially optimized
- 106. Social activity has an indirect impact on search http://bit.ly/socialseomath
- 108. The act of sharing is a habit and helps cement memory
- 111. True fans mean your content gets instant attention
- 112. Fans will go out and infect others, trying to steal and steer attention to your content
- 113. TL;DL
- 115. AJ Kohn Owner, Blind Five Year Old www.blindfiveyearold.com aj@blindfiveyearold.com @ajkohn