Blu Maya Digital Marketing Agency

Attention is scarce because trust is scarce. And why is trust scarce? Because everyone is out to maneuver people into attention by throwing as much content as possible at them without putting some thought into what their problems might be. Think about it, do you trust your friends to give you thoughtful advice? You probably do and that’s the key. As a brand, ‘friending’ your customers doesn’t mean you got the keys to the castle, it just means you have an opportunity to become a real friend. How you go about doing this is not that tricky…

So how do we go beyond attracting attention to building trust?

By changing from a consumption mindset to a take action mindset. We want people to consume our content (attention) but do we really care if they take action on it (share/implement it)?  To build trust we have to care what they do with our ideas, I think that’s the key. This takes time but then again Rome wasn’t built in a day and real relationships take months to build.

With some much content getting pushed out there we have to be mindful of people’s time, so the question is: are we doing enough to help them solve their problems?

Ask yourself: Would I trust myself?

What say you, are you out there to grab attention or build trust? Which comes first?

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We know people prefer to use email to share content they find interesting with their friends but more interesting is knowing what they share and why. There are some answers now: according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania who spent more than six months studying The New York Times’ list of most-emailed stories, people are more likely to pass along stories that are positive, long and intellectually stimulating.

Researchers found that popular stories often inspired a sense of awe by tackling a broad topic and requiring the reader to approach the subject from a fresh angle. Researchers say these articles are popular because they create emotional connections between the person sending the article and its recipient. “Emotion in general leads to transmission, and awe is quite a strong emotion,” the researchers said.

A picture is worth a thousand words and if I could present these findings in visual way I think the picture below speaks for itself, doesn’t it make you go AWE?

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Want to know what your natural persuasive way of communicating is? Take the F Score Fascination trigger test from Sally Hogshead and find out, it takes less than 2 minutes! Sally Hogshead is the author of Fascinate where she uncovers the 7 triggers that brands use to persuade or captivate us and the test is designed to tell you which triggers you use to persuade on a consistent basis.

I took the test a few moments ago and found out that my primary fascination is Mystique, which knowing myself isn’t that far off and neither are the rest of the results to tell you the truth! Although there is no detailed action plan after taking the test you do get some insights on where and what you can improve on.

I was fascinated with the ideas from the accompanying Change This ebook that I have the book incoming and can’t wait to read it…the trigger of lust won me over!

Follow Sally on Twitter and let her know your result!

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Here are a couple of kids across the border in Tijuana that earn their money by entertaining rather than blowing fire from their mouths or just outright asking for it. If you didn’t already know, wrestling is BIG in Mexico and what you see here is very very good wrestling entertainment from a couple of 12 year old kids who after school go to an intersection near their home and put on a show.

They’re making around $30 – 40/day (dlls not mexican pesos) while only doing this for a couple of hours. Compare that to others who might not even make it to $10 in a week cleaning cars!

A few months back we saw these kids in person and were captivated and inspired by their creativity that to honor them we created the illustration below which is now our main character, he’s the differentiation superhero.

The principle of ‘being different’ is very simple: Think and act like a kid and don’t be afraid to be wrong.

So if you want to partner with us in the future, now you know where we’re coming from. How are you being different?

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Here’s an accompanying video of Duncan Watt’s ‘Is the Tipping point toast?’ article where he argues that targeting the so called influencers is a total waste of time and instead marketers should target everyday people who are more receptive to new ideas. You should read the full article at Fast Company, it’s well worth your time!

I found the above video as well as 2 other perspectives on how ideas spread through networks via @ariegoldshlager and also wrote about this a few days ago that to spread ideas go to the edge where people are more receptive to new things.

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