Attention! Know These 3 Triggers to Get (and Keep) a Crowd

Imagine perusing 174 newspapers a day. Don’t bother imagining, actually—you already do it! In an age of information overload, here are 3 behavioral-science-based tricks to draw in your audience. Every day the average human is exposed to the informational equivalent of 174 newspapers. Two decades ago, people brushed with only 48 newspapers’-worth of information—less than a quarter of what we’re bombarded with now.At this point in our digital evolution, we’re all familiar with the purists’ lament for the simpler, less informationally encumbered days of yore. And it’s a fair eulogy, too. So much of our daily lives are commandeered by this ad or that notification clamoring for our attention from the glistening stage of an e-device. Even our reading material screams in ways that a canvas-backed book never could.

And yet, most of the time, we don’t even notice how our attention is being commandeered and divided. The same way in which the ears adjust to the sustained din of a streetside flat in a major city, the mind grows inured to the quiet cacophony of competing information.

It turns out that the more digital a lifestyle a person leads, the more pronounced this challenge becomes, too. A recent study from Microsoft found that this results in a fragmented attention span, a tendency to continually multitask, and high levels of distractibility.

[People tested] “with more digital lifestyles (those who consume more media, are multi-screeners, social media enthusiasts, or earlier adopters of technology) struggle to focus in environments where prolonged attention is needed.”

And here’s the kicker: this digital distractibility comes with a superpower. If you’re a writer, a marketer, or sell anything at all, you’re going to want to take note.

The Microsoft study also found that the people tested were better at identifying what they want/don’t want to engage with and need less to process and commit things to memory.

In a world where it takes an audience just split seconds to decide whether to discard your message or dive in, you need to know how to grab—and keep—a user’s attention. Happily, behavioral science has your back.

Are you paying attention? Here are 3 triggers you can pull to get your audience to take note.

1. The Automaticity Trigger: get immediate attention using sensory cues that cause an automatic reaction.

Remember the last time you totally ignored a gorgeous person wearing a bright red shirt? Of course you don’t. That’s because our brain sifts through information in our environment without our being conscious of it, and beauty and loud colors arrest our attention whether we like it or not. Jumbled with to-dos and evening plans, our brain has limited space. To save itself, it filters information, searching for cues on what to pay attention to, such as color, movement and sound.

These cues are brief, and we use general rules known as heuristics to make quicker and better decisions about them. There are two ways you can use heuristics to get people to notice your idea: contrast and association.

Contrast:

Using contrast works since we immediately spot what stands out. For example, we’re biologically wired to notice particular colors, as they can signal opportunity (such as that comely red-shirted person) or risks, like that yellow-striped wasp.

Even visually differentiating sections of this article, say, using bold type, italics, call-out boxes, color, and images, is a lo-fi way to use contrast.

Association:

Another way to capture attention is by linking your message to symbols or ideas that capture attention. Daniel Kahneman, author of Thinking Fast and Slow, says that the brain is an associative machine, connecting all of our experiences to words, images, meanings and feelings.

One example that combines contrast and association into a captivating campaign is the Heartbleed bug. In 2014, a software bug surfaced that enabled hackers to remotely read communication, retrieve passwords, account details, credit card numbers and so on. By giving the bug a name, “Heartbleed,” and assigning it a visual stand in—a red heart dripping with blood—security company Codenomicon grabbed attention, raising public awareness about the dangers of the bug.

ATTENTION: Grab your audience by making sure to provide a knock-them-out-of-their-reverie sensory cue, like a bright red shirt or a unique smell or sound, or lean on the power of association by finding a meaningful symbol that gives face to your idea.

2. The Reputation Trigger: Use people’s trust in experts, authority and the crowd to build a reputation.

After Edward Snowden released documents on the NSA’s activities, the trust of the American people in their government dropped from 53 percent to 16 percent. And only 52 percent trust the media. So what is it that inspires, or undermines, trust?

We often decide whether to trust something or not based on reputation, which we use as an evaluative shortcut. For example, if you’re an avid fan of fantasy novels and see a new book by J.K. Rowling, you’ll figure that, regardless of its title or cover, this book is probably worth your attention, because of what you already know about her Harry Potter novels.

We also tend to trust experts and authority figures. We are trained to pay attention to these figures, either to avoid negative consequences – like those that ignoring doctors or police officers might incur – or because such people are charismatic and inspiring, like the Dalai Lama or Oprah Winfrey.

Furthermore, crowds are exactly what determine a good reputation. While one expert can make a mistake, we tend to think that 1,500 people who love one particular restaurant can’t be wrong! In accordance with this, a one-star increase in rating on restaurant review site Yelp boosts the revenue of a restaurant by five to nine percent!

Generally, we believe in the judgments of the hive and often go along with them because we don’t want to risk social alienation. So how do you connect with a crowd? Social media experts already know the answer: you give them the power of participation.

For example, in 2010, Vitaminwater used a Facebook app to outsource the flavor, label design, and bottle design to the masses and promised a $5,000 prize to the winner. Over 40,000 people took part, and the new drink, black cherry and lime, was a roaring success.

ATTENTION: Reputation is the sum of our beliefs about credibility and value. Support your idea with the approval of someone with a good reputation, and you’ll draw attention to your cause.

3. The Acknowledgment Trigger: Harness your audience’s fundamental need for recognition and acceptance.

Someone comes up to you and says: “I think you’re special. I get you, I know how you feel, and I care about you.” How do you react? Well, depending on how well you know this person, that could vary from alarm to excitement. Whatever the case, this person’s definitely got your attention.

We have an innate desire to be recognized, validated, and understood. You love it, for example, when someone you admire compliments your outfit (recognition), your boss tells you that you did a fantastic job (validation) and your friend spends the evening listening to and empathizing with your problems (understanding).

These three feelings form the foundation of trust. When we trust someone, we naturally pay attention to them. Attention is also reciprocal, meaning we pay attention to what pays attention to us. So we pay attention to someone flirting with us, because they give us feelings of validation.

We also naturally focus on what affirms our identity, values and uniqueness. And herein lies the magic of Facebook: it turns out that we like Facebook not so much because we can see what our friends are doing, but because our friends are paying attention to us. Likes, friends, favorites and follows all boost the amount of attention we give to a product, as they each give us that feeling of validation.

ATTENTION! The most effective trigger is the acknowledgment trigger, as it appeals to our basic needs. Demonstrating to your audience that you see them and then actively validating what they’re doing works wonders for winning, and holding, their attention.

These three triggers for grabbing a user’s attention in a busy world come from Ben Parr’s book Captivology. You can read the rest of the key ideas on Blinkist in just a few minutes, or find the full book below.

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