July 10, 2025 • 31 mins
What is The Attention Economy?
This week, we’re asking one of the biggest questions marketers face in 2025: How do you actually stay seen when no one has any attention to give? We’ll talk about what today’s “attention economy” really means, the content that’s working, where most brands waste their time and how to earn attention instead of fighting for scraps.
Frozen Limoncello Drop
This is an original recipe from Delish! It’s perfect for the hot summer weather and would be an awesome addition to any pool party. This recipe will serve two people.
IIngredients:
1/2 oz. fresh lemon juice, plus more for the glass rim
Granulated sugar, for the glass rim
10 oz. frozen lemonade
8 oz. ice cubes
3 oz. vodka
2 oz. store-bought or homemade limoncello
Lemon peel, for garnish
Directions
Step 1
Squeeze some lemon juice into a small bowl. Place sugar on a plate. Dip rims of glasses into lemon juice, then into sugar.
Step 2
In a blender, blend frozen lemonade, ice, vodka, limoncello, and lemon juice until smooth.
Step 3
Divide drink between prepared glasses. Garnish with lemon peel.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yep, between endless notifications, algorithm changes
, doom scrolling oh my God, zach, how the hell is anyone
supposed to see your brand outthere?
Well, we've got some thoughtson that.
You've got some thoughts, I'vegot some thoughts.
We'll share those, and a frozencocktail in a minute, all right
(00:24):
?
Well, welcome back.
Good to see you, zach.
Hope everything is well in theCarolinas.
Yep, everything's good.
Good to see you too, rich.
Just hot, hot, hot, like thewhole rest of the country, it's
so hot so gross.
It's unbearable.
All right, well, we're going tohave a cool down for you in a
minute, but first we've got totalk about the topic a little
bit more.
We tease this up at the front,but we're asking.
(00:44):
Really, one of the biggestquestions marketers have and
this has been a question of alltime is how do I get noticed?
But these days it's even harderwith everything that's going on
and people have like athree-second attention span and
if you don't get them like,you're just done and they're on
to something else becausethere's so many things competing
for attention.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, get them like you're just done and they're on
to something else, becausethere's so many things competing
for our attention.
Yeah, yeah, so we dub that theattention economy.
That's what it is.
It's very competitive.
I mean, it's just hard forpeople to care about the things
you're putting out if you don'tunderstand how it all works,
which we'll definitely get into,but I'm really excited for this
one I think there's a lot ofgood dot points that you could
have and that we're going tohave.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I think it goes back to one of your favorite things.
Content, kind of, is king in anattention economy.
You want to make sure you'renot wasting time, you're doing
stuff that makes sense andyou're actually earning that
attention because you have to,instead of just trying to draft
off somebody else and fightingyou know, fighting for their
scraps.
It's just that's not sexy, notat all.
All right, so we have a coolcocktail for hot weather this
(01:55):
one.
I actually have everything tomake this.
I almost made it right beforewe recorded, but I didn't want
to get the blender out.
So what's the drink, zach?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So we're doing a frozen limoncello drop, which is
awesome for us because as acompany, I think we love
limoncellos.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
There's a little bit of company lore with limoncello
involved, but we won't talkabout that.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We had a pool party one year and the limoncello
spritzes were flowing um alittle too freely so this is a
recipe from delish, uh, as Isaid, it's perfect for summer
weather, in this hot weather,and I think we should try it at
the pool party.
I think this is my way ofbringing a new recipe to the
(02:40):
pool party.
I think it'd be cool to try,especially by your pool.
But the way you make this, thisrecipe serves two.
You take a half ounce of.
You need a half ounce of freshlemon juice, 10 ounces of frozen
lemonade, one cup of ice, threeounces of vodka and two ounces
of store-bought or homemadelimoncello, which we will link
(03:03):
the recipe to I would just buyit and then lemon peel for
garnish.
So to start, squeeze some lemonjuice into a small bowl, place
sugar on a plate, dip yourglasses into lemon juice, then
into sugar, that's just for thesugar rim.
In a blender, blend frozenlemonade, ice, vodka, limoncello
and lemon juice until smooth,and then divide the drink
(03:25):
between two glasses and garnishwith your lemon peel.
Pretty easy.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And a pro tip.
Zest the lemon, at least one ofthe lemons and put the zest in
with the sugar and then you'llhave a little lemony, sugary
zest ring and it'll be pretty.
It'll be yellow.
Yeah, this drink almost glowsin the dark Like Limoncello is
so bright.
With that lemon concentrateLike this I could do all day
(03:51):
long.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like you say, serves two.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I feel like this is just one drink.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I mean depends how big the glass is.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I might put it in my Yeti tumbler.
I might need to double thisrecipe for the big, the 32 ounce
yeti tumbler there you go.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You're gonna let me know how it is if you try it
yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
so I bought lemons because I needed them.
Um, we were trying my mom and Iwere trying to recreate a
lavender scree, which is a drinkthat is from a local bar here
or local restaurant and bartalus up the street and they
just have, like every bar, theyhave the ingredients, like
listed on the menu, but not theproportions.
So we were like messing with itand I ended up doing too much
(04:30):
lemon juice.
Probably about a half ounce oflemon juice in a drink is enough
, or in two drinks really,because I was doing it for a
double for us.
I did an ounce and it was supertart Like, but then it was just
gin, gin, creme de violette, uh, lemon juice, and then you
shake all that and put it in aglass with ice and then you add
(04:52):
club soda and make it a littlefizzy so that was one but I had
to buy.
I was buying one lemon and I'mlike I'll just buy six lemons,
so I have, I have five lemonshere, so I could do this how
many times did it take for you?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
did you figure out the proportions with that drink
then?
Like I think so?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
um, I need to go up and just have dinner at the bar
and talk to the bartender aboutit, see if he'll like affirm or
deny.
But I think it was um, twoounces of gin, um, an ounce and
a half of creme de violette,because we just it wasn't purple
enough and we were like it hasto be more purple.
Um, and that also, like it's alittle bit sweet, I guess not
(05:31):
really well, kind of um, andthen a half an ounce of lemon
juice and that's like one glass.
So you would double that fortwo, um, and then, once you put
it into your glass, you just,you know, fill it with club soda
, as you know, like anything,you just kind of top it off with
club soda.
Um, and if you put it into yourglass, you just, you know, fill
it with club soda, as you know,like anything, you just kind of
top it off with club soda.
And if you like it a littleweaker, like my mom's not a big
(05:51):
drinker, so she that's like that, and margaritas are, like her,
only drinks and a little bit ofwine occasionally, so, but you
can put up a little bit moreclub soda in it.
I mean, because it is just allbooze and lemon juice, like I
mean, because it is just allbooze and lemon juice, but you
can dilute.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
it Sounds like we got a bonus drink this episode.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
We did sort of accidentally.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
If you figure out the correct recipe, that's the best
.
We're going to have to use itfor a future one.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, we could do that.
That's just your bonus.
But I mean this limoncello,frozen, limoncello drop, because
limoncello drops are one of thebar shots you could do like a
kamikaze or something right.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, like the classic lemon drop, yep.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
But a limoncello is so much better.
Okay, probably enough on that,and we should probably take a
break and get into the attentioneconomy.
Let's do it All right.
(06:47):
We are back after thelimoncello drop and bonus
lavender scree that I don't knowif I got the recipe right for,
but I will confirm that andwe'll get forward.
We'll move forward with it.
But attention economy, that'swhat we're talking about.
So I guess the first thing todo Zach, what is the attention
economy, and then follow up tothat, is why does it suck for
brands?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So we kind of covered it in the intro.
But attention is the thing thatwe're all like fighting for,
especially on like social media,and I would say just in
marketing in general.
My mind goes to social mediabeing like the content person
you know.
But we're not just competingwith other brands right now.
Other brands now right, we'recompeting with doom scrolling,
(07:29):
netflix, group chats, 24, sevennotifications just about
everything in our lives istrying to get your attention,
whether it's even just for 15seconds.
Now I mean, it's gotten to thepoint where, like five, 10
seconds, you know like there'slike ads that are competing for
just that amount of time.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So, yeah, so I'm going to put on my old, put on
my old man hat here for a minute, but first, like, I've started
doing the do not disturb on mywatch, like when I go to the gym
I have a trainer and everythingand I try to pay attention.
But like yesterday, I was thereand our chat, like I did it, I
posted a link to this newreading lounge in Omaha and our
Slack chat was going off and Iwas getting so many
(08:10):
notifications I'm like do notdisturb.
So I do like that feature.
But back in the old days, youknow, at one point there were
only three TV networks and thenthere were four, and then there
was cable and all that.
But when you were looking atadvertising, even with all the
cable channels and everythingbefore streaming, before social
media, if you were advertisingin the newspaper, you were going
(08:33):
after people who read thenewspaper and the position made
it a better opportunity forpeople to see you.
The size of your ad and theposition of the ad, and that was
all you worried about.
Like you knew the demographicOn TV.
Same thing it was.
You know, are you the first ad?
Are you the last ad in thebreak?
Who are the other ads competingwith you and there were
(08:58):
actually rules where peoplewouldn't put like like you would
never see a Home Depot and aLowe's ad back to back because
they're paying for those.
So there was this separationrule that most TV networks and
radio stations had.
Same thing on radio, you've gota captive audience and you were
really just competing with dothey run to the refrigerator, do
they run to the bathroom?
Is somebody else's ad moreinteresting?
That was it.
But now, even just watching TV,I mean I can be on two devices.
(09:23):
While I'm watching TV, I mightbe playing a game and then I'm
texting with somebody, or I'mscrolling Facebook or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I don't even know what to put an ad on.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, so that even in the traditional sense, you're
not competing on a fairplayground anymore.
And then when you talk about,just you know, competing for
eyeballs on this device, likethe number of things I mean.
So I've got a Google invite,I've got a DoorDash offer.
(09:54):
I've got our calendar invitetwice.
I've got an app I need todelete that's telling me about
some TV show called Baby Daddyis the CEO.
I've got Shopify notifications,like my smart app notification.
Like I have so manynotifications that have come up,
like that DoorDash ad.
It is actually looking at that.
(10:15):
Now that might be something Iwant, but they had to put it.
It's $5 off, like a burrito atAbelardo's.
So I'm like, yeah that might begood.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I mean, even now.
I think you're covering itreally well In terms of how
people's habits have changed.
Right?
Attention is so much morefragmented.
Just now, even in this podcast,a DoorDash ad caught your
attention for five seconds.
It's just insane.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, and you know what, it's still there, so I
don't have to do anything withit.
But if I accidentally hit x andclear all my notifications,
I'll have to go in.
But also, if I log intodoordash and I'm looking for
something, that offer is goingto be there in my offers.
Um, so yeah, I mean, and don'teven get me started on email,
like I don't even know how emailmarketing, like the legit email
(11:01):
marketing, works, but well,anymore, um, I mean, it does,
obviously, and we do it forclients and I buy things from
emails and things, but the lastone that caught my attention was
a 60% off, like that's wherethey had to go to get me to be
interested in it.
So yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
God, even this podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
How many people have tuned out now because we just
ranted about all kinds of weirdthings?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Well, I think that's so interesting, right, it's like
longer form content isdefinitely harder to keep
people's attention now, and Ithink just with like.
So another thing that I like tothink about when it comes to
the attention economy, right, is, every platform that we're on
is so algorithm heavy, so you'relike competing for attention on
(11:54):
different algorithms is so hard.
There's a lot of people thatsay that you can't even build
community on social mediaplatforms with how algorithms
are now and with how socialplatforms are evolving and
changing algorithms are now, andwith how social platforms are
evolving and changing, um,basically like how, if you're
investing a lot of time into asocial platform that might
disappear or like might get shutdown, like tiktok, for example,
(12:15):
like you might lose thataudience that you've grown.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So what a lot of people are saying and what also
like kind of I've been likelooking into a little bit too,
is, uh, a lot of real communityis moving off platform to
semi-owned spaces, so thingslike newsletters, private groups
, slack is like another examplebut discord is a good one for
(12:40):
gaming discord is great, like Iknow podcasts that I follow that
have a discord like channel ordiscord Discord server I guess,
with multiple channels to takekind of the podcast offline and
it evolved out of they had aFacebook group and the Facebook
group was just sort of dying andhad all kinds of rules and it
was Facebook's rules and Discordis really more of a you make
your own rules kind of platform.
(13:01):
But yeah, it's still, but likediscord could go down, Like it
could, it could go away.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, it could, slack could go away.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
You never know, it's just.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I think the point is, though it's just it's gone from
being more of like a townsquare right Like a digital town
square to more of just like abroadcast channel where you're
fighting for split seconds ofattention on a feed, so that's
harder to build a real communityIf you're like you're basically
just fighting to be seen, letalone like trying to engage with
(13:33):
your target audience, and sohaving an owned audience that
actually cares about what you'reposting and the information
that you're providing is reallyimportant.
I um.
Another thing that's startingto shift is zero click.
Content is becoming morepopular, so, rather than content
(13:54):
on social media teasing biggercontent, um, you need to deliver
something valuable in thatsplit second of attention that
you're getting, becauseotherwise, uh, some people don't
even like like.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
click rates have gone down across the board for a lot
of things, so it's really hardone to capture people's
attention and then to keep themengaged, like we said so yeah, I
think you know it's kind of theequivalent of like kind of
every continent and every largecity has these, but like being
in Times Square and just beingbombarded with messages all the
(14:27):
time, or you know, piccadillycircus in london or shibuya
crossing in tokyo, um, which Ihad to look up, I knew it was
there and I knew what it lookedlike, that one is insane crazy
amount of people that just cross.
Oh yeah, millions of people whocross the street and there's
like eight ways to, there's likeeight crosswalks and it's just
everybody like all at once, um,but so there's people, there's
(14:51):
things going on, there'smessages being bombarded you,
there's noises, there's visuals,um, yeah, and I was thinking
like I actually watched likethree minutes of a video the
other day, um, that I saw onsocial media, but they got me in
like that first five or sixseconds.
It was interesting enough thatI'm like I got to see where this
(15:12):
goes Versus some of them.
So there's the guy who does thelike.
He critiques people makingreally shitty food, and so he,
you know, and he'll give hiscommentary and sometimes, like
I'll stay with it for the whole,like it's like usually 60 or 90
seconds of this video ofsomebody making just some
abomination of a food dish, andsometimes I'll get 15 seconds
(15:36):
into it and he's just nothitting it for me and I'm off.
I scroll on understanding youraudience, what they're going to
tolerate, what they're going toenjoy, and really trying to ping
that enjoy piece if you'regoing to get them at all, which
I mean.
It kind of brings it up to oneof the topics we have here, like
(15:57):
is video still king?
We're talking a lot about videobecause it grabs you right.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It does grab you.
It still works for sure.
A lot of short form videoobviously is like, obviously
like the things that we'retalking about.
I would say things likecarousels, though, and like just
like funny, like memes orinteractive stuff is also
becoming more popular.
I feel like video had thismoment where it was like
(16:26):
everybody was talking aboutvideo.
Everybody needs to post a video.
Everything, every kind of likecontent you need to put out.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
There is video, but there's other things that have
been working for like,especially like B2B businesses
too, so I think it's still veryhigh up on the list, but I don't
know if it's like the kingabove all things I do think, um,
you know, an instagram kind ofstarted this, but telling a
(16:52):
story through like swipes, likea carousel because you can do
that in an instagram post, youcan also do that in your reels,
right, like you could post stillimages that as I go through
them I learn a story, um, or youcan post a series of videos
that take me through.
I think my biggest issue that Ihave with you know, when it gets
to reels or TikTok, those typesof things, is if I put a like,
(17:15):
if I take a 60 second video andI put it in my reel, it's only
going to put like 15 seconds ofit in there and then you've got
to click through to the originalto see it, and on Instagram
it's not an issue.
But when those reels are sharedon Facebook, it won't let you
click through.
It just moves on to the nextreel.
Like it doesn't, even thoughthey Facebook and Instagram are
(17:35):
both meta.
On Instagram you can click acertain spot, like I think it's
the person's name or something,and it takes you right to the
full reel on their account.
But if you try that in Facebook, it's like yeah, yeah, no, we
don't know what you're doing,and it just moves on to the next
reel, um, and I think that'sanother issue.
Right, the content leaves usreally fast um, and it's hard to
go back and find it it's hardto make it.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You have to really make an impact too to gain like
people's follows, becauseespecially when you're in like
scrollable content, it's like ohI'm this sucks, I'm just gonna
go to the next thing you'rechasing, like dopamine hits
basically and when you scrollback it's gone, like the
algorithm has said oh you didn'tlike that and it threw it away
(18:18):
and it's not even in your like.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
The scroll back isn't a static feed.
It's not like a scroll, a paper, where you can go back up and
read a paragraph again.
Sometimes you can go back tothings, but a lot of where you
can go back up and read aparagraph again.
Sometimes you can go back tothings, but a lot of times
you'll scroll back up and belike where is it?
I don't know where it is and,yeah, it's gone.
Sorry, you missed it.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I think, something to take away from the kind of
content that earns attention.
It needs to be either all threeof these things, or at least
one of these three things.
It needs to be useful,entertaining or surprising, and
if it's all three, then youprobably have a good piece of
content on your hands especiallyin today's attention economy.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, there's a book, gemona Somebody I used to use
it to teach, but it's called.
The subtitle is how ThingsCatch On and now I can't
remember the name of the book,but it's all about that and it's
about like he really hates theword viral.
I'm going to look it upContagious how Things Catch On
(19:22):
by Jonah Berger.
I was right, it's Jonah Berger.
It's only like $10 on Amazon.
It's really like completelyworth the read.
Thrifty Books you can get itfor like five bucks if you find
a used one.
But he goes through theelements that like he's got six
elements, but those three arereally big ones in there about
how things catch on.
Like it's also got to be easilyshareable.
(19:44):
Like I've got to have somethingthat it's not an effort for me
to share this, I just have to beable to like boop boop done
share it.
But yeah, that value piece, Igot to get something out of it,
right, I don't care what it?
Is, and even if it's just alaugh, that's fine, as long as
it's a good laugh.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I think that kind of brings us to our next set of
talking points too a little bit.
Should brands focus on quickhit stuff, quick hit viral stuff
or slow burn trust builders?
Quick hit viral stuff or slowburn trust builders and, in my
opinion, like viral is a reallybad word to use for like, uh,
any kind of the content you'recreating.
(20:26):
I think you need a balancebetween the quick hitting stuff
and the slow burning trustbuilders uh, the quick hitting
stuff to catch people'sattention and hook them in, and
then you need that slow burningstuff to build more of a
commitment and just create smallmoments of trust so that you
(20:47):
can build more of an audienceand commitment over time.
So things that are useful in themoment, but also things that
will provide value to thosepeople that we've hooked in.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, and it also goes back to I don't know last
episode or a couple episodes ago.
We were talking about contentand we were talking a lot about
like do you have the capacity toactually do this?
Can you actually execute andkeep executing, because you know
, even to do a slow burn, youdon't have to execute as often,
(21:22):
but you've got to be consistentand keep your voice and keep
people in, otherwise they'regone and you lose them.
That quick hit, viral thing,those are hard to figure out.
So I feel like the number onething is like know your audience
and be authentic to youraudience.
Like what do they like, what dothey care about?
And just be authentic to that.
(21:43):
And if you can do that, you'llhave an easier time connecting
with them and getting theirattention.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
If you just focus on building or trying to build it,
on creating and building contentthat tries to go viral, then
even if you go viral, you havenothing to keep people like,
like in your audience, followingwhat you're doing.
They'll quickly bounce away.
Like you said, like I cancreate a viral video for like
(22:10):
hundreds of thousands of views,but if I don't have that trust
building, like good, valuablecontent to provide them to go
along with it, then you caughtpeople's attention, but that's
all you did.
You didn't?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
you're you're a one-hit wonder, right you're the
band that put out a hit andthen couldn't put out anything
else to save their lives thatanybody cared about, and you had
one hit and that was it.
Um, and that can be fine, butlike, not if you're trying to
sustain your brand and grow yourbrand well, and it's also kind
of a flip side thing, right.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
if you're trying to sustain your brand and grow your
brand, well, and it's also kindof a flip side thing, right If
you're not trying to hookpeople's attention and you just
have slow building trust content, then nobody will be able to
see the good stuff you'reputting out right.
So there's a balance there, andit's a really tricky balance
which a lot of people are stilltrying to figure out, especially
with how short people'sattention spans are becoming
(23:08):
every single year.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So it's crazy and I think it's also the whole.
I'm going to lose my train ofthought here because I was
trying to listen to you activelyand not think about my next
thing, but it oh, I know what Iwas going to say.
Duh, it completely involves you.
So you did a blog post for us awhile back.
(23:31):
That was best late night eatsin Omaha.
It has nothing to do with ourbusiness, except that some of
our people are in Omaha, we'rein the Midwest and we like food,
but it really doesn't.
It's not what we do Like.
We're not a food review site orwhatever, and that one has more
views and reads on our bloglike by thousands of anything
else.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It still gets views too, especially around the
College World Series Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
No, I know Because it ranks with Google.
It's like a great one when yousearch for, like places to eat
in Omaha or late night eats inOmaha, but those aren't
necessarily terms we want torank for right, so that can
happen, and you weren't tryingto go for quick hit viral
content Like we were justplaying with like community
stuff and things and no one hadany idea that would take off
like that.
But it's a great blog post.
(24:16):
When you try to make somethingviral, though, you run the risk
of forcing yourself into asimilar situation where you've
suddenly got this piece ofcontent has nothing to do with
your business.
It's good and people like it,but it doesn't grow your
business.
It doesn't enhance your brand.
I mean, you could say it maybeenhances our brand for people
who want to work with us,because they know we like food
(24:38):
and that's probably important ifyou're going to be here, but
it's not the core of what we do,and I think that's where a lot
of people really um lose withviral content or attempting
viral content.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah for sure I think another like point to this and
we kind of discussed thisearlier is building a community.
Um, if you are able to hookpeople in and grab their
attention, sending them to anewsletter, sending them to a
discord, sending them to asemi-owned channel or like a
(25:14):
place where they can continue toget your content or your higher
quality, longer form content,is a great way to kind of build
your community through hookingpeople in and I think, kind of
like on the point I talked aboutearlier, is really like
catching people's attention isone thing, but having the
content that support, keepingthem there is another and being
(25:36):
able to have a platform to keepthem there is also another step
to this, because all thesesocial media platforms,
especially TikTok and all of theInstagram Reels, youtube Shorts
, linkedin is even getting alittle bit more bite-sized grabs
of attention and morescrollable.
I think it's really importantto have that owned or semi-owned
(26:00):
channel, because it's reallyhard to catch people's attention
, kind of the point of the wholevideo, but still.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And if you have that semi-owned channel, you've got
to manage it.
The one that I was talkingabout for the podcast I listened
to, the two hosts are in therea bit, but they're not in there
a ton.
They have full-time jobs.
They host this podcast, theywrote a book, they've got lives,
but their producer is in there,but he's not the moderator of
the whole thing.
He's just in there fairly oftenbut he also uses it to generate
(26:29):
content.
He does polls and he asksquestions and there's a suggest
a topic channel and all that.
But there are other mods thatthey have managing that
community to keep it going andtheirs is all volunteer because
it's a podcast, it's free.
I mean you can do their patreonand whatnot if you want to, but
, um, you've got to be able tomanage that community.
If you just build a community,even if people come to it like,
(26:52):
if nobody manages it, I'm going,leaving, I'm done, like I'm out
, um, and I think that's um,it's one of the things if you
are looking at things goingviral.
One, it's going to be who yourstaff are and how clever they
are and how funny they are, andtwo, it's going to be have you
given them the authority to justdo things.
(27:13):
And I go back to Oreos youcould still dunk in the dark
when the power went out at theSuper Bowl.
In the dark when the power wentout at the Super Bowl and that
was a pretty low level, I'm suresocial media manager who was
able to whip up a graphic withwhat they had and pop it out
there in real time and realizethat no one's going to yell at
(27:33):
them for doing that, nobody'sgoing to fire them for not
getting it approved by legal,but know your brand, know your
audience and give your peopleautonomy to be able to do that.
Like you've got to build that,those rails for them or that
fence for them and then let themdo anything they want to inside
that fence so they know therules and can do that Same thing
(27:55):
with, like Wendy's and some ofthose other great ones that we
talk about, where almost everytweet goes viral, like when
people are screen grabbing yourtweets and reposting them and
you're not being like a totaldick to people or you know being
evil, because that happens too.
When it's, they're doing it in afun, funny way, like, oh my God
, can you believe this?
This is so great.
You, you're there, you've gotit Like when people are taking
(28:18):
your content and making morecontent out of it.
You, you're there, you've gotit like when people are taking
your content and making morecontent out of it.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
You're golden.
Yeah, oh my gosh, I don't knowI was.
I really like this discussion.
I think it's a lot to it.
It's really hard.
A lot of people don't realizeor get stuck in thinking like
through a lot of things that Idon't know.
I don't know how to describe it, but basically, like, the
attention economy is like soimportant to understand.
(28:46):
When you're like posting andputting things out on social
media, knowing how to hookpeople's attention and like be
surprising and useful is superimportant.
And I think, like, if you'regoing to take away anything from
this, like take away that.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, 100%.
I think that's a pretty goodplace to leave it, but like,
yeah, surprising, entertaining,useful, got to be something.
There's got to be something init.
For me, when you put it outthere, like as your audience.
If I don't know what I get outof it scrolling on, I'm going to
just go back to my doomscrolling.
I don't know what I get out ofit Scrolling on, I'm going to
(29:25):
just go back to my Doomscrolling.
Well, there's another episodeZach I think that's pretty good.
So thank you everybody forlistening.
This was a great episode.
It was really fun to just chatabout random stuff like this.
It's a tough one.
We didn't give anybody anyanswers really either, except
like try to be useful or helpfulor funny, but it's really good.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So we will be back.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Oh, go ahead, sorry, oh yeah, as always, you can find
our agency at antidote71.com,where you can find all of our
links to all of our social mediachannels.
Hopefully we can hook you in onsome of those channels and
surprise you.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Maybe our content's interesting, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
And if you've got a question, head to ctapodcastlive
to send us an email or leave avoice message at 402-718-9971.
It says, who knows, yourquestion might land in a future
episode.
But we all know if you send aquestion it will definitely be
on a future episode of thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
If you just want to send a question about Zach's
hair care routine, we willanswer that on a future podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Just comment on a post too, We'll include it
anyway.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Honestly, all right, and we will be back next week.
We'll have a guest, our veryown Riley, who will probably
have some news of his own atthat point.
I think We'll let him sharethat.
But we're going to talk thebasics of LinkedIn advertising.
So it can kind of be aconfusing black hole and it can
get expensive because theirminimum, I think, is $20 a day
or something like that.
(30:53):
So you're going to commit $600if you're going to go in there
For a small business some smallbusinesses, that's a lot.
Riley's going to talk to usabout how we do that for clients
, the successes we're havingthat was a hard word to say
successes and then just someways for you to get started.
So we'll be back with that nextweek and until then, enjoy and
(31:19):
have a great week.
Yep, between endless notifications, algorithm changes
, doom scrolling oh my God, zach, how the hell is anyone
supposed to see your brand outthere?
Well, we've got some thoughtson that.
You've got some thoughts, I'vegot some thoughts.
We'll share those, and a frozencocktail in a minute, all right
(00:24):
?
Well, welcome back.
Good to see you, zach.
Hope everything is well in theCarolinas.
Yep, everything's good.
Good to see you too, rich.
Just hot, hot, hot, like thewhole rest of the country, it's
so hot so gross.
It's unbearable.
All right, well, we're going tohave a cool down for you in a
minute, but first we've got totalk about the topic a little
bit more.
We tease this up at the front,but we're asking.
(00:44):
Really, one of the biggestquestions marketers have and
this has been a question of alltime is how do I get noticed?
But these days it's even harderwith everything that's going on
and people have like athree-second attention span and
if you don't get them like,you're just done and they're on
to something else becausethere's so many things competing
for attention.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, get them like you're just done and they're on
to something else, becausethere's so many things competing
for our attention.
Yeah, yeah, so we dub that theattention economy.
That's what it is.
It's very competitive.
I mean, it's just hard forpeople to care about the things
you're putting out if you don'tunderstand how it all works,
which we'll definitely get into,but I'm really excited for this
one I think there's a lot ofgood dot points that you could
have and that we're going tohave.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
I think it goes back to one of your favorite things.
Content, kind of, is king in anattention economy.
You want to make sure you'renot wasting time, you're doing
stuff that makes sense andyou're actually earning that
attention because you have to,instead of just trying to draft
off somebody else and fightingyou know, fighting for their
scraps.
It's just that's not sexy, notat all.
All right, so we have a coolcocktail for hot weather this
(01:55):
one.
I actually have everything tomake this.
I almost made it right beforewe recorded, but I didn't want
to get the blender out.
So what's the drink, zach?
Speaker 2 (02:06):
So we're doing a frozen limoncello drop, which is
awesome for us because as acompany, I think we love
limoncellos.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
There's a little bit of company lore with limoncello
involved, but we won't talkabout that.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
We had a pool party one year and the limoncello
spritzes were flowing um alittle too freely so this is a
recipe from delish, uh, as Isaid, it's perfect for summer
weather, in this hot weather,and I think we should try it at
the pool party.
I think this is my way ofbringing a new recipe to the
(02:40):
pool party.
I think it'd be cool to try,especially by your pool.
But the way you make this, thisrecipe serves two.
You take a half ounce of.
You need a half ounce of freshlemon juice, 10 ounces of frozen
lemonade, one cup of ice, threeounces of vodka and two ounces
of store-bought or homemadelimoncello, which we will link
(03:03):
the recipe to I would just buyit and then lemon peel for
garnish.
So to start, squeeze some lemonjuice into a small bowl, place
sugar on a plate, dip yourglasses into lemon juice, then
into sugar, that's just for thesugar rim.
In a blender, blend frozenlemonade, ice, vodka, limoncello
and lemon juice until smooth,and then divide the drink
(03:25):
between two glasses and garnishwith your lemon peel.
Pretty easy.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
And a pro tip.
Zest the lemon, at least one ofthe lemons and put the zest in
with the sugar and then you'llhave a little lemony, sugary
zest ring and it'll be pretty.
It'll be yellow.
Yeah, this drink almost glowsin the dark Like Limoncello is
so bright.
With that lemon concentrateLike this I could do all day
(03:51):
long.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Like you say, serves two.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I feel like this is just one drink.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
I mean depends how big the glass is.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I might put it in my Yeti tumbler.
I might need to double thisrecipe for the big, the 32 ounce
yeti tumbler there you go.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You're gonna let me know how it is if you try it
yeah, I actually.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
so I bought lemons because I needed them.
Um, we were trying my mom and Iwere trying to recreate a
lavender scree, which is a drinkthat is from a local bar here
or local restaurant and bartalus up the street and they
just have, like every bar, theyhave the ingredients, like
listed on the menu, but not theproportions.
So we were like messing with itand I ended up doing too much
(04:30):
lemon juice.
Probably about a half ounce oflemon juice in a drink is enough
, or in two drinks really,because I was doing it for a
double for us.
I did an ounce and it was supertart Like, but then it was just
gin, gin, creme de violette, uh, lemon juice, and then you
shake all that and put it in aglass with ice and then you add
(04:52):
club soda and make it a littlefizzy so that was one but I had
to buy.
I was buying one lemon and I'mlike I'll just buy six lemons,
so I have, I have five lemonshere, so I could do this how
many times did it take for you?
Speaker 2 (05:05):
did you figure out the proportions with that drink
then?
Like I think so?
Speaker 1 (05:10):
um, I need to go up and just have dinner at the bar
and talk to the bartender aboutit, see if he'll like affirm or
deny.
But I think it was um, twoounces of gin, um, an ounce and
a half of creme de violette,because we just it wasn't purple
enough and we were like it hasto be more purple.
Um, and that also, like it's alittle bit sweet, I guess not
(05:31):
really well, kind of um, andthen a half an ounce of lemon
juice and that's like one glass.
So you would double that fortwo, um, and then, once you put
it into your glass, you just,you know, fill it with club soda
, as you know, like anything,you just kind of top it off with
club soda.
Um, and if you put it into yourglass, you just, you know, fill
it with club soda, as you know,like anything, you just kind of
top it off with club soda.
And if you like it a littleweaker, like my mom's not a big
(05:51):
drinker, so she that's like that, and margaritas are, like her,
only drinks and a little bit ofwine occasionally, so, but you
can put up a little bit moreclub soda in it.
I mean, because it is just allbooze and lemon juice, like I
mean, because it is just allbooze and lemon juice, but you
can dilute.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
it Sounds like we got a bonus drink this episode.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
We did sort of accidentally.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
If you figure out the correct recipe, that's the best
.
We're going to have to use itfor a future one.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, we could do that.
That's just your bonus.
But I mean this limoncello,frozen, limoncello drop, because
limoncello drops are one of thebar shots you could do like a
kamikaze or something right.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, like the classic lemon drop, yep.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
But a limoncello is so much better.
Okay, probably enough on that,and we should probably take a
break and get into the attentioneconomy.
Let's do it All right.
(06:47):
We are back after thelimoncello drop and bonus
lavender scree that I don't knowif I got the recipe right for,
but I will confirm that andwe'll get forward.
We'll move forward with it.
But attention economy, that'swhat we're talking about.
So I guess the first thing todo Zach, what is the attention
economy, and then follow up tothat, is why does it suck for
brands?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
So we kind of covered it in the intro.
But attention is the thing thatwe're all like fighting for,
especially on like social media,and I would say just in
marketing in general.
My mind goes to social mediabeing like the content person
you know.
But we're not just competingwith other brands right now.
Other brands now right, we'recompeting with doom scrolling,
(07:29):
netflix, group chats, 24, sevennotifications just about
everything in our lives istrying to get your attention,
whether it's even just for 15seconds.
Now I mean, it's gotten to thepoint where, like five, 10
seconds, you know like there'slike ads that are competing for
just that amount of time.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
So, yeah, so I'm going to put on my old, put on
my old man hat here for a minute, but first, like, I've started
doing the do not disturb on mywatch, like when I go to the gym
I have a trainer and everythingand I try to pay attention.
But like yesterday, I was thereand our chat, like I did it, I
posted a link to this newreading lounge in Omaha and our
Slack chat was going off and Iwas getting so many
(08:10):
notifications I'm like do notdisturb.
So I do like that feature.
But back in the old days, youknow, at one point there were
only three TV networks and thenthere were four, and then there
was cable and all that.
But when you were looking atadvertising, even with all the
cable channels and everythingbefore streaming, before social
media, if you were advertisingin the newspaper, you were going
(08:33):
after people who read thenewspaper and the position made
it a better opportunity forpeople to see you.
The size of your ad and theposition of the ad, and that was
all you worried about.
Like you knew the demographicOn TV.
Same thing it was.
You know, are you the first ad?
Are you the last ad in thebreak?
Who are the other ads competingwith you and there were
(08:58):
actually rules where peoplewouldn't put like like you would
never see a Home Depot and aLowe's ad back to back because
they're paying for those.
So there was this separationrule that most TV networks and
radio stations had.
Same thing on radio, you've gota captive audience and you were
really just competing with dothey run to the refrigerator, do
they run to the bathroom?
Is somebody else's ad moreinteresting?
That was it.
But now, even just watching TV,I mean I can be on two devices.
(09:23):
While I'm watching TV, I mightbe playing a game and then I'm
texting with somebody, or I'mscrolling Facebook or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I don't even know what to put an ad on.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Yeah, so that even in the traditional sense, you're
not competing on a fairplayground anymore.
And then when you talk about,just you know, competing for
eyeballs on this device, likethe number of things I mean.
So I've got a Google invite,I've got a DoorDash offer.
(09:54):
I've got our calendar invitetwice.
I've got an app I need todelete that's telling me about
some TV show called Baby Daddyis the CEO.
I've got Shopify notifications,like my smart app notification.
Like I have so manynotifications that have come up,
like that DoorDash ad.
It is actually looking at that.
(10:15):
Now that might be something Iwant, but they had to put it.
It's $5 off, like a burrito atAbelardo's.
So I'm like, yeah that might begood.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I mean, even now.
I think you're covering itreally well In terms of how
people's habits have changed.
Right?
Attention is so much morefragmented.
Just now, even in this podcast,a DoorDash ad caught your
attention for five seconds.
It's just insane.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, and you know what, it's still there, so I
don't have to do anything withit.
But if I accidentally hit x andclear all my notifications,
I'll have to go in.
But also, if I log intodoordash and I'm looking for
something, that offer is goingto be there in my offers.
Um, so yeah, I mean, and don'teven get me started on email,
like I don't even know how emailmarketing, like the legit email
(11:01):
marketing, works, but well,anymore, um, I mean, it does,
obviously, and we do it forclients and I buy things from
emails and things, but the lastone that caught my attention was
a 60% off, like that's wherethey had to go to get me to be
interested in it.
So yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
God, even this podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
How many people have tuned out now because we just
ranted about all kinds of weirdthings?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Well, I think that's so interesting, right, it's like
longer form content isdefinitely harder to keep
people's attention now, and Ithink just with like.
So another thing that I like tothink about when it comes to
the attention economy, right, is, every platform that we're on
is so algorithm heavy, so you'relike competing for attention on
(11:54):
different algorithms is so hard.
There's a lot of people thatsay that you can't even build
community on social mediaplatforms with how algorithms
are now and with how socialplatforms are evolving and
changing algorithms are now, andwith how social platforms are
evolving and changing, um,basically like how, if you're
investing a lot of time into asocial platform that might
disappear or like might get shutdown, like tiktok, for example,
(12:15):
like you might lose thataudience that you've grown.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
So what a lot of people are saying and what also
like kind of I've been likelooking into a little bit too,
is, uh, a lot of real communityis moving off platform to
semi-owned spaces, so thingslike newsletters, private groups
, slack is like another examplebut discord is a good one for
(12:40):
gaming discord is great, like Iknow podcasts that I follow that
have a discord like channel ordiscord Discord server I guess,
with multiple channels to takekind of the podcast offline and
it evolved out of they had aFacebook group and the Facebook
group was just sort of dying andhad all kinds of rules and it
was Facebook's rules and Discordis really more of a you make
your own rules kind of platform.
(13:01):
But yeah, it's still, but likediscord could go down, Like it
could, it could go away.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Yeah, it could, slack could go away.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
You never know, it's just.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
I think the point is, though it's just it's gone from
being more of like a townsquare right Like a digital town
square to more of just like abroadcast channel where you're
fighting for split seconds ofattention on a feed, so that's
harder to build a real communityIf you're like you're basically
just fighting to be seen, letalone like trying to engage with
(13:33):
your target audience, and sohaving an owned audience that
actually cares about what you'reposting and the information
that you're providing is reallyimportant.
I um.
Another thing that's startingto shift is zero click.
Content is becoming morepopular, so, rather than content
(13:54):
on social media teasing biggercontent, um, you need to deliver
something valuable in thatsplit second of attention that
you're getting, becauseotherwise, uh, some people don't
even like like.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
click rates have gone down across the board for a lot
of things, so it's really hardone to capture people's
attention and then to keep themengaged, like we said so yeah, I
think you know it's kind of theequivalent of like kind of
every continent and every largecity has these, but like being
in Times Square and just beingbombarded with messages all the
(14:27):
time, or you know, piccadillycircus in london or shibuya
crossing in tokyo, um, which Ihad to look up, I knew it was
there and I knew what it lookedlike, that one is insane crazy
amount of people that just cross.
Oh yeah, millions of people whocross the street and there's
like eight ways to, there's likeeight crosswalks and it's just
everybody like all at once, um,but so there's people, there's
(14:51):
things going on, there'smessages being bombarded you,
there's noises, there's visuals,um, yeah, and I was thinking
like I actually watched likethree minutes of a video the
other day, um, that I saw onsocial media, but they got me in
like that first five or sixseconds.
It was interesting enough thatI'm like I got to see where this
(15:12):
goes Versus some of them.
So there's the guy who does thelike.
He critiques people makingreally shitty food, and so he,
you know, and he'll give hiscommentary and sometimes, like
I'll stay with it for the whole,like it's like usually 60 or 90
seconds of this video ofsomebody making just some
abomination of a food dish, andsometimes I'll get 15 seconds
(15:36):
into it and he's just nothitting it for me and I'm off.
I scroll on understanding youraudience, what they're going to
tolerate, what they're going toenjoy, and really trying to ping
that enjoy piece if you'regoing to get them at all, which
I mean.
It kind of brings it up to oneof the topics we have here, like
(15:57):
is video still king?
We're talking a lot about videobecause it grabs you right.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
It does grab you.
It still works for sure.
A lot of short form videoobviously is like, obviously
like the things that we'retalking about.
I would say things likecarousels, though, and like just
like funny, like memes orinteractive stuff is also
becoming more popular.
I feel like video had thismoment where it was like
(16:26):
everybody was talking aboutvideo.
Everybody needs to post a video.
Everything, every kind of likecontent you need to put out.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
There is video, but there's other things that have
been working for like,especially like B2B businesses
too, so I think it's still veryhigh up on the list, but I don't
know if it's like the kingabove all things I do think, um,
you know, an instagram kind ofstarted this, but telling a
(16:52):
story through like swipes, likea carousel because you can do
that in an instagram post, youcan also do that in your reels,
right, like you could post stillimages that as I go through
them I learn a story, um, or youcan post a series of videos
that take me through.
I think my biggest issue that Ihave with you know, when it gets
to reels or TikTok, those typesof things, is if I put a like,
(17:15):
if I take a 60 second video andI put it in my reel, it's only
going to put like 15 seconds ofit in there and then you've got
to click through to the originalto see it, and on Instagram
it's not an issue.
But when those reels are sharedon Facebook, it won't let you
click through.
It just moves on to the nextreel.
Like it doesn't, even thoughthey Facebook and Instagram are
(17:35):
both meta.
On Instagram you can click acertain spot, like I think it's
the person's name or something,and it takes you right to the
full reel on their account.
But if you try that in Facebook, it's like yeah, yeah, no, we
don't know what you're doing,and it just moves on to the next
reel, um, and I think that'sanother issue.
Right, the content leaves usreally fast um, and it's hard to
go back and find it it's hardto make it.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
You have to really make an impact too to gain like
people's follows, becauseespecially when you're in like
scrollable content, it's like ohI'm this sucks, I'm just gonna
go to the next thing you'rechasing, like dopamine hits
basically and when you scrollback it's gone, like the
algorithm has said oh you didn'tlike that and it threw it away
(18:18):
and it's not even in your like.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
The scroll back isn't a static feed.
It's not like a scroll, a paper, where you can go back up and
read a paragraph again.
Sometimes you can go back tothings, but a lot of where you
can go back up and read aparagraph again.
Sometimes you can go back tothings, but a lot of times
you'll scroll back up and belike where is it?
I don't know where it is and,yeah, it's gone.
Sorry, you missed it.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
I think, something to take away from the kind of
content that earns attention.
It needs to be either all threeof these things, or at least
one of these three things.
It needs to be useful,entertaining or surprising, and
if it's all three, then youprobably have a good piece of
content on your hands especiallyin today's attention economy.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah, there's a book, gemona Somebody I used to use
it to teach, but it's called.
The subtitle is how ThingsCatch On and now I can't
remember the name of the book,but it's all about that and it's
about like he really hates theword viral.
I'm going to look it upContagious how Things Catch On
(19:22):
by Jonah Berger.
I was right, it's Jonah Berger.
It's only like $10 on Amazon.
It's really like completelyworth the read.
Thrifty Books you can get itfor like five bucks if you find
a used one.
But he goes through theelements that like he's got six
elements, but those three arereally big ones in there about
how things catch on.
Like it's also got to be easilyshareable.
(19:44):
Like I've got to have somethingthat it's not an effort for me
to share this, I just have to beable to like boop boop done
share it.
But yeah, that value piece, Igot to get something out of it,
right, I don't care what it?
Is, and even if it's just alaugh, that's fine, as long as
it's a good laugh.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I think that kind of brings us to our next set of
talking points too a little bit.
Should brands focus on quickhit stuff, quick hit viral stuff
or slow burn trust builders?
Quick hit viral stuff or slowburn trust builders and, in my
opinion, like viral is a reallybad word to use for like, uh,
any kind of the content you'recreating.
(20:26):
I think you need a balancebetween the quick hitting stuff
and the slow burning trustbuilders uh, the quick hitting
stuff to catch people'sattention and hook them in, and
then you need that slow burningstuff to build more of a
commitment and just create smallmoments of trust so that you
(20:47):
can build more of an audienceand commitment over time.
So things that are useful in themoment, but also things that
will provide value to thosepeople that we've hooked in.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Yeah, and it also goes back to I don't know last
episode or a couple episodes ago.
We were talking about contentand we were talking a lot about
like do you have the capacity toactually do this?
Can you actually execute andkeep executing, because you know
, even to do a slow burn, youdon't have to execute as often,
(21:22):
but you've got to be consistentand keep your voice and keep
people in, otherwise they'regone and you lose them.
That quick hit, viral thing,those are hard to figure out.
So I feel like the number onething is like know your audience
and be authentic to youraudience.
Like what do they like, what dothey care about?
And just be authentic to that.
(21:43):
And if you can do that, you'llhave an easier time connecting
with them and getting theirattention.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
If you just focus on building or trying to build it,
on creating and building contentthat tries to go viral, then
even if you go viral, you havenothing to keep people like,
like in your audience, followingwhat you're doing.
They'll quickly bounce away.
Like you said, like I cancreate a viral video for like
(22:10):
hundreds of thousands of views,but if I don't have that trust
building, like good, valuablecontent to provide them to go
along with it, then you caughtpeople's attention, but that's
all you did.
You didn't?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
you're you're a one-hit wonder, right you're the
band that put out a hit andthen couldn't put out anything
else to save their lives thatanybody cared about, and you had
one hit and that was it.
Um, and that can be fine, butlike, not if you're trying to
sustain your brand and grow yourbrand well, and it's also kind
of a flip side thing, right.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
if you're trying to sustain your brand and grow your
brand, well, and it's also kindof a flip side thing, right If
you're not trying to hookpeople's attention and you just
have slow building trust content, then nobody will be able to
see the good stuff you'reputting out right.
So there's a balance there, andit's a really tricky balance
which a lot of people are stilltrying to figure out, especially
with how short people'sattention spans are becoming
(23:08):
every single year.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
So it's crazy and I think it's also the whole.
I'm going to lose my train ofthought here because I was
trying to listen to you activelyand not think about my next
thing, but it oh, I know what Iwas going to say.
Duh, it completely involves you.
So you did a blog post for us awhile back.
(23:31):
That was best late night eatsin Omaha.
It has nothing to do with ourbusiness, except that some of
our people are in Omaha, we'rein the Midwest and we like food,
but it really doesn't.
It's not what we do Like.
We're not a food review site orwhatever, and that one has more
views and reads on our bloglike by thousands of anything
else.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It still gets views too, especially around the
College World Series Yep.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
No, I know Because it ranks with Google.
It's like a great one when yousearch for, like places to eat
in Omaha or late night eats inOmaha, but those aren't
necessarily terms we want torank for right, so that can
happen, and you weren't tryingto go for quick hit viral
content Like we were justplaying with like community
stuff and things and no one hadany idea that would take off
like that.
But it's a great blog post.
(24:16):
When you try to make somethingviral, though, you run the risk
of forcing yourself into asimilar situation where you've
suddenly got this piece ofcontent has nothing to do with
your business.
It's good and people like it,but it doesn't grow your
business.
It doesn't enhance your brand.
I mean, you could say it maybeenhances our brand for people
who want to work with us,because they know we like food
(24:38):
and that's probably important ifyou're going to be here, but
it's not the core of what we do,and I think that's where a lot
of people really um lose withviral content or attempting
viral content.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yeah for sure I think another like point to this and
we kind of discussed thisearlier is building a community.
Um, if you are able to hookpeople in and grab their
attention, sending them to anewsletter, sending them to a
discord, sending them to asemi-owned channel or like a
(25:14):
place where they can continue toget your content or your higher
quality, longer form content,is a great way to kind of build
your community through hookingpeople in and I think, kind of
like on the point I talked aboutearlier, is really like
catching people's attention isone thing, but having the
content that support, keepingthem there is another and being
(25:36):
able to have a platform to keepthem there is also another step
to this, because all thesesocial media platforms,
especially TikTok and all of theInstagram Reels, youtube Shorts
, linkedin is even getting alittle bit more bite-sized grabs
of attention and morescrollable.
I think it's really importantto have that owned or semi-owned
(26:00):
channel, because it's reallyhard to catch people's attention
, kind of the point of the wholevideo, but still.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
And if you have that semi-owned channel, you've got
to manage it.
The one that I was talkingabout for the podcast I listened
to, the two hosts are in therea bit, but they're not in there
a ton.
They have full-time jobs.
They host this podcast, theywrote a book, they've got lives,
but their producer is in there,but he's not the moderator of
the whole thing.
He's just in there fairly oftenbut he also uses it to generate
(26:29):
content.
He does polls and he asksquestions and there's a suggest
a topic channel and all that.
But there are other mods thatthey have managing that
community to keep it going andtheirs is all volunteer because
it's a podcast, it's free.
I mean you can do their patreonand whatnot if you want to, but
, um, you've got to be able tomanage that community.
If you just build a community,even if people come to it like,
(26:52):
if nobody manages it, I'm going,leaving, I'm done, like I'm out
, um, and I think that's um,it's one of the things if you
are looking at things goingviral.
One, it's going to be who yourstaff are and how clever they
are and how funny they are, andtwo, it's going to be have you
given them the authority to justdo things.
(27:13):
And I go back to Oreos youcould still dunk in the dark
when the power went out at theSuper Bowl.
In the dark when the power wentout at the Super Bowl and that
was a pretty low level, I'm suresocial media manager who was
able to whip up a graphic withwhat they had and pop it out
there in real time and realizethat no one's going to yell at
(27:33):
them for doing that, nobody'sgoing to fire them for not
getting it approved by legal,but know your brand, know your
audience and give your peopleautonomy to be able to do that.
Like you've got to build that,those rails for them or that
fence for them and then let themdo anything they want to inside
that fence so they know therules and can do that Same thing
(27:55):
with, like Wendy's and some ofthose other great ones that we
talk about, where almost everytweet goes viral, like when
people are screen grabbing yourtweets and reposting them and
you're not being like a totaldick to people or you know being
evil, because that happens too.
When it's, they're doing it in afun, funny way, like, oh my God
, can you believe this?
This is so great.
You, you're there, you've gotit Like when people are taking
(28:18):
your content and making morecontent out of it.
You, you're there, you've gotit like when people are taking
your content and making morecontent out of it.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
You're golden.
Yeah, oh my gosh, I don't knowI was.
I really like this discussion.
I think it's a lot to it.
It's really hard.
A lot of people don't realizeor get stuck in thinking like
through a lot of things that Idon't know.
I don't know how to describe it, but basically, like, the
attention economy is like soimportant to understand.
(28:46):
When you're like posting andputting things out on social
media, knowing how to hookpeople's attention and like be
surprising and useful is superimportant.
And I think, like, if you'regoing to take away anything from
this, like take away that.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Yeah, 100%.
I think that's a pretty goodplace to leave it, but like,
yeah, surprising, entertaining,useful, got to be something.
There's got to be something init.
For me, when you put it outthere, like as your audience.
If I don't know what I get outof it scrolling on, I'm going to
just go back to my doomscrolling.
I don't know what I get out ofit Scrolling on, I'm going to
(29:25):
just go back to my Doomscrolling.
Well, there's another episodeZach I think that's pretty good.
So thank you everybody forlistening.
This was a great episode.
It was really fun to just chatabout random stuff like this.
It's a tough one.
We didn't give anybody anyanswers really either, except
like try to be useful or helpfulor funny, but it's really good.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
All right.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So we will be back.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Oh, go ahead, sorry, oh yeah, as always, you can find
our agency at antidote71.com,where you can find all of our
links to all of our social mediachannels.
Hopefully we can hook you in onsome of those channels and
surprise you.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Maybe our content's interesting, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
And if you've got a question, head to ctapodcastlive
to send us an email or leave avoice message at 402-718-9971.
It says, who knows, yourquestion might land in a future
episode.
But we all know if you send aquestion it will definitely be
on a future episode of thepodcast.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
If you just want to send a question about Zach's
hair care routine, we willanswer that on a future podcast.
Speaker 2 (30:29):
Just comment on a post too, We'll include it
anyway.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Honestly, all right, and we will be back next week.
We'll have a guest, our veryown Riley, who will probably
have some news of his own atthat point.
I think We'll let him sharethat.
But we're going to talk thebasics of LinkedIn advertising.
So it can kind of be aconfusing black hole and it can
get expensive because theirminimum, I think, is $20 a day
or something like that.
(30:53):
So you're going to commit $600if you're going to go in there
For a small business some smallbusinesses, that's a lot.
Riley's going to talk to usabout how we do that for clients
, the successes we're havingthat was a hard word to say
successes and then just someways for you to get started.
So we'll be back with that nextweek and until then, enjoy and
(31:19):
have a great week.
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