How Attention Economy Mindset Misleads Brand Building

Attention has become the new currency in the creative digital economy. However, the challenge is what your target audience should listen to and pay attention to in your digital marketing strategies for solid brand building. There is a lot of noise about how to make money fast, how to become a millionaire in three, six, or twelve months. Most social media users and creators bet on going viral and gaining massive attention from followers for instant monetization breakthroughs.  

Is that valid and sustainable without providing value? That is what you should pay attention to and change your attention economy mindset with emphasis on virality and followers. Perhaps the digital marketing landscape needs to redefine the attention economy as attention to value, for value creation in fulfilling your purpose in the creative digital economy. Let’s dig in and explore that mindset.  

What is Attention Economy?

It is a branding and marketing strategy where brands compete to capture and retain consumer attention from their target audience. Giving them opportunities to monetize their content from its virality and follower acquisition as the main focus at the expense of purpose and value. So, attention to what is the first question most Gen Z, Millennials, and Boomers should ask themselves.

Many are beginning to realize that social media posts should not be about attention-seeking for virality. But for building assets and finding meaning and sense in the creative digital economy. So, attention alone without alignment with a clarified purpose and value in the market is cheating, misleading and compromises your brand-building mindset. That upholds ethics and integrity in the market.

That means you cannot create value and feel fulfilled by watching viral videos flaunting their fashion tastes, looks, beauty, and cruising and yachting in the deep oceans of the Caribbean Islands.  So, what kind of attention can be defined as the new currency in the creative digital economy? Let’s dive in and explore. 

Problems

Paying attention to problems, pain points, and needs for business ideas around you are valid ways to become aware of how best you can fill these gaps in the market. Creativity for innovation starts with paying attention to problems the business world and industries are experiencing that relates to your interests and experience, like in the marketing industry, which is the backbone of sales in any business setup.

If you don’t have clarity of the problem you want to solve in your industry and niche, you will find it hard to target the right audience and draw attention to your offers. That will make your branding and marketing hit and miss in the entrepreneurial game by focusing on irrelevant audience attention. The market is noisy, and clarity of the problem you solve will ensure you attract attention from those few people who understand and appreciate what you do and offer in the saturated and noisy marketplace.

Defining problems that align with your interest and passion for brand building will ensure drawing attention to relevant content that is of value to the right audience, not just anyone in the attention economy who might miss the whole meaning and sense of your offers in the market. Therefore, you must base your attention on problem-solving and value creation that benefits all parties concerned.

Purpose

Those entrepreneurs who pay attention to their purpose in their personal branding find it easy to understand their value in the digital global market. That will automatically make your target consumers and users pay attention to what you believe in and share with them in the market. It all starts with being confident in clarifying your purpose and how it relates to the problem you are solving along the way.  

That makes attention-grabbing and hoarding meaningful and relevant to your brand and its offers in the market. Paying attention in the attention economy should not be a one-sided affair. Both consumers and creators must have clarity about what to focus attention on for value creation and benefit to everyone concerned.

Therefore, paying attention to the purpose and value of any content you read and listen to online promotes a more holistic and humane understanding of the business landscape. That helps you develop relevant solutions for the industry and niche market you serve, and have chosen to build your brand.

Value

The content you pay attention to and deliver to your target audience will determine the value you provide in the market. You cannot continue to listen and follow dopamine content online without considering its value and benefit in your life and business. The feel-good kind of content does not help you develop and apply inner work to understand your capabilities in contributing positively to the business world.

Most stuff that people pay attention to lacks that inner work of who they are and how the content they pay attention to helps them to be better people in a world that is full of crap created for dopamine satisfaction and fake lifestyles on social media platforms.

As an entrepreneur, your challenge is to change this narrative of creating crap in the name of monetization from hundreds of views. You can observe on some social media platforms that most posts that garner attention and are monetized are those that most people find more entertaining. Most of it is the feel-good and relieved kind of stuff that boosts dopamine.

That is why it is imperative for entrepreneurs to be holistic and humane. And reset the whole tempo of the business landscape in the present digital economy. Your content for monetization should not be fluffy attention. But value for transforming your audience into better consumers who understand themselves. And how they can help themselves in life and business, and transform the business landscape.

Solutions

Solutions can be either a product or a service. Solutions are not loud, but healing and solving problems in your industry and niche market. That is why most entrepreneurs and marketers miss this as a strategy in their branding and marketing efforts. It is advisable to pay attention to the content that highlights solutions and benefits. 

Not the viral attention that flaunts a flashy lifestyle that mostly leaves you confused and wondering who you really are, and questioning your own abilities and the positioning of your brand in the digital market. That kills your soul in brand building.

Solutions are from well-defined problems in your community, business landscape, and the world around you. That is why you need to cultivate a good sense of humanity for owning up to your responsibility before profits. This sounds shallow and crazy to most who create for billions. But you can’t say you enjoy your millions and billions surrounded by abject poverty and dysfunctional and financially displaced humanity.  

With relevant attention on problems around you, you will tune your brand-building mindset to be more than just a business. But a brand that has the interests of consumers and users at heart before netting bags of money. That way, your attention to content for monetization would be value creation and purpose-driven to solving problems more relevantly for the benefit of everyone concerned.

Meaningful Attention

Meaningful attention, not viral attention for just monetization, should be the new game in the business landscape. It is about building meaningful consumer connections, not just for monetization, but for building brand assets. Meaningful attention is transformative for both parties to grow and win. What are your underlying strategies that matter to the audience for transforming their lives, not just spending their money on your products and services?

And worst of all, leaving your users and consumers anxious and wondering how other people are capable of making money so fast without a sweat. That alone kills the spirit of creating and building sustainable economies that leave shiny and invaluable objects out of the business systems as initially intended by genuine humane creators who operated with zero ego and selfishness in the market.

The question for clarity in the attention economy should be: is what you are paying attention to of value in asset building? If it is of value, how does it fulfill your purpose in the business world? That is the challenge in the digital attention economy.  Attention without sharing the purpose and value of your business venture is a fallacy that undermines the brand-building mindset for long-term value creation and generational wealth.

Are you interested in working with us to get inspired, change your mindset, and adopt the brand-building mindset? Start with this for free. Holistic Branding Program